Shall we dance?
It must be something in the water. First, the nation goes potty over Strictly Come Dancing. Then, despite its critical panning, everyone goes to see Shall We Dance?, a film about a bored married man (Richard Gere) signing up for dance lessons with his seven-year itch (Jennifer Lopez). There is even talk of making ballroom dancing an Olympic sport, for goodness sake.
Meanwhile, down in Buenos Aires, tango is back. For decades, it's been the preserve of the wrinklies. But these days, everyone's at it. The music on Argentinian teenagers' iPods isn't Marilyn Manson or McFly. It's Ortos Aires or San Telmo Lounge, tango with a 21st-century twist.
The city even has its own dedicated tango hotel - the Mansion Dandi Royal. You check in, you put on your dancing shoes and you live and breathe tango until you check out. It's piped into your bedroom and it's on television. It's taught at the in-house academy and it's the main motif on the wallpaper. The doors are even propped open by tango shoes.
Stay for a week and you invite a whole world of trouble upon yourself. According to one theory, the word tango comes from a New Guinea slave word meaning "closer", which is highly appropriate. It is a dirty dance for bad men and badder women. You arrive all European and proper, but you risk leaving a snake-hipped Latino. Here is what
happened when a strait-laced English couple went to tango academy.
DAY ONE
Matt: It's a well-established fact that we, the British, are not very sexy. Collectively, of course, rather than personally: you'll never get any of us to admit to being poor at it on a personal level. But, as a nation, we readily admit we're dreadful. We're a nation of undressers in the dark. If we undress in the light, we take our socks off last. Or leave them on throughout whatever may or may not ensue. We're not sexy.
The French, if one can generalise, are terribly sexy by comparison. All late-night poetry-reading, mistresses and filthy rolling vowels. Ditto the Italians and, on occasion, the Greeks. But for sheer, outrageous, pulsating frolics, you have to ditch Europe altogether and go to the tango halls of Buenos Aires.
Nowhere on the planet will a British man feel more keenly aware of his innate (collective) unsexiness than at his first-ever lesson in tango. Tango is the sexiest dance in the world. It is passionate, powerful and intense, rhythmic, gymnastic and intimate. A British man does not stand a chance.
I'm embarrassed before I've even started our first private lesson. Our instructor, Noelia, is disconcertingly beautiful just sitting still; she is the kind of woman who makes men feel ugly and ungainly. When she demonstrates some steps, she is stunning. She does the tango walk - that slow, confident surge forward and back - and, wow. We copy - and, yuk. We look like we've got rickets. Harriet says she feels like an elephant in a tutu.
Outside tango academy, it's a hot, steamy afternoon in the crumbling district of San Telmo. Everyone is slinking around, looking all Latin and sexy. Our first lesson is really a lesson in being Latin, and it doesn't come naturally at all.
Noelia shows us the basic six-step. Beautiful. We try. Awful. She says "Excellent" - how can she lie to our faces like that? - and moves on, far too quickly for my liking, to the basic eight-step. I'm still trying to remember the six. Harriet's being cocky, and wants to move on to the eight. So we do the average, a seven, and I nearly break her foot.
"You are the man," says Noelia, doubtfully. "You must lead her." Harriet is used to wearing the trousers in our relationship. She won't be led.
Harriet: The first lesson ends in disarray. Time for Matt to walk and me to hobble around the corner to Plaza Dorrego. The plan? Several cold beers, a steak sandwich and some bargain shopping at the antiques market. And absolutely no tango.
Fat chance. They're only at it in the middle of the square, a young couple dancing as if they're about to lose each other for ever. We've seen tango in films, but it's quite different, quite shocking, to see it in the flesh. His back is arched and his moves are dominant and erotic. Her legs trace up and down his, sudden quick flicks followed by slow, teasing ones. They court each other, reject each other and court each other again, moods swinging wildly as the music changes pace. Just to watch it feels like a cardinal sin.
In the crowd of onlookers, several older couples can't keep their feet still. Before we know it, the square becomes a dancefloor, passers-by applauding in the warm sunshine. You would never see anything like it in repressed, uptight London. It is a beautiful sight.
But there's one thing we both already admit: tango is very, very difficult. Three sun-soaked beers later, we've talked ourselves out of the evening's two-hour group lesson. We'll just watch instead. The official reason is jet lag, but really we're just being chicken.
Matt: Thank God for Norwegians. If you're ever feeling inferior in the sexiness stakes, make sure you watch Norwegians trying to dance. It's a wonderful confidence-builder. Of the four couples in the lesson, they are by far the worst. Watching them strut their stuff is the visual equivalent of fingernails down the blackboard. It's traumatic, but at the same time it is an enormous relief - we aren't that bad.
DAY TWO
Harriet: I'm dancing with Noelia's brother, Nahuel, today. To dance with an expert is a revelation, but, my, how he holds me close. My mother would be shocked - the entire length of our bodies is pressed together as we move. I have no choice but to relax into the intimate embrace of a complete stranger. There is a logic, though: dancing cheek to cheek forces me to stop looking at my feet, which has to be a good thing.
Matt: Yes, and while Harriet's getting all jiggy with Mr Flashy Pants, I have to dance with Noelia. You'd think that dancing with an Argentinian beauty would be a pleasure, but it's awful. I start by crunching her petite feet. Helpfully, my body breaks into a profuse sweat - it must be like dancing with a blancmange. By the end of the lesson, things have improved. I'm still crunching her feet, but now it's in time to the music.
Harriet: After lunch, we go shopping for tango clobber. I've been wearing comfy flat-heeled shoes up until now, so I swap them for some rude, black, glittery stilettos. Matt goes further: he buys shoes and a black waistcoat. So I go further too, and buy a dress: a long, flowing pink number, all sequined and slinky. We're like those idiot novice skiers who turn up on the mountain with all the latest gear. For tonight’s group lesson, we’ll look the part until we start moving.
Early on, we are told to swap partners. Matt goes off to frogmarch a succession of bored women around the room, repeating the same basic step over and over. I get stuck with Mr Norway, who is, although I hadn’t thought it possible, worse than Matt.
Then we change again. At last I’m being led by more experienced students: none of them can believe I’ve had only two lessons. “I can see you have been dancing before,” says a man from Taiwan. But the truth is, it’s not that hard if you have a good man.
Matt: On the odd occasion that men are roped into dance lessons, they often chuck them in early. I really wanted to break that stereotype. Which meant that I really wanted to learn the steps. But I’ve got too many things to worry about.
Tango is a chauvinist dance: the men lead, the women follow. This is proper male-dominance stuff. Great in theory, but ... I never have time to learn the steps because Harriet’s always expecting (grumpily) to be led. To lead, you need to plan the steps. Planning the steps means you can’t learn new ones. She just doesn’t understand.
Then there’s the whole problem of co-ordination. You have to be firm in your neck and arms, and all slinky-snaky in your legs. A solid upper body, a bendy lower body. It’s like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time, but twice as hard, and in time to music.
Just two days in, I’m physically and mentally exhausted. Before falling asleep unfashionably early, we flick through the TV channels and find one entirely given over to tango. It’s immature to point it out, but I will anyway — the couple are virtually having sex. I’m surprised they don’t just bolt off to the bedroom halfway through.
Harriet lets out a little shocked-from-Tunbridge-Wells squawk when the woman positively slides her crotch down the man’s leg. It’s clear we’ve still got an awful lot to work on.
Page 2: Day three and four
Page 3: Closer than tango? More dance trips
DAY THREE
Harriet: I’m not psychic — if he wants me to cross my feet, he needs to make some indication, like the teacher does. Waiting for him to catch on is mind-numbing. In our private lesson, he steps on my toes three times. I now have bruises on bruises.
Matt: Frankly, I’ve had enough. Some old bat in the group lesson has asked for the heating to be turned up. It’s already in the thirties, and I’m sweating like a horrible English pig with unruly glands. The last thing we need is more heat. Harriet is now finding the decent men and leaving me with nobody. Or the old Norwegian hag with no timing. When Harriet does deign to join me again, she behaves like the teacher, even though she’s not much better than me. When she says, helpfully, “You should move like a hinge”, I realise it’s time to break out of tango prison and go to the bar.
DAY FOUR
Harriet: Last night, something strange happened on the way back from the restaurant. Walking arm in arm, Matt tapped my back, like you do in tango. Without thinking, I changed my step, and missed a hole in the pavement that I hadn’t seen.
The morning’s private lesson is actually fun: I’m finally taught a couple of the saucy leg flicks. We arrive at the evening group class confident for the first time. When the free-dance section begins, Matt takes a firm grip around my waist and we’re off. I listen to him, concentrating on his lead, and it all feels effortless. It’s that moment when you first swim without armbands, or cycle without stabilisers. We’re dancing without looking at our feet.
For one whole number, we sweep around the room, me with my fancy twirly-leg thing, him all matador-like and macho. We finish only two beats after the music does, and wait for rapturous applause from the teachers. But they’re busy untangling the Norwegians. The second dance begins, they come over to watch, Matt gets nervous and we go to pieces. We had it and then we lost it.
DAY FIVE
Matt: Tonight is the milonga, a much sexier version of the English tea dance. We’ve been practising all day, but inevitably, when we arrive, it’s clear we’re out of our league. Our nice empty dance academy is now packed with couples. In one corner, a gang of hard teenagers with aggressive hairstyles and extra-pointy shoes pace around and take it in turns to show off their moves. In another, a gang of grannies do the same.
It’s amazing to watch. One old man takes 10, maybe 15 seconds to twirl his young partner around on a point before gliding gracefully away. In all that time, their faces are etched in ecstatic pain, their eyes closed, their muscles taut. To watch them makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time. If it weren’t for the good old Norwegians, glued to the back wall and just as intimidated as us, we would have run for it.
Instead, after sitting out the first six, maybe 14 dances, we go for it. I grab Harriet, we step into the melee and, almost immediately, I panic. There’s no room to take the first step back and start our clunky figure of eight. So I freeze for at least a minute (our faces are etched in pain — just pain, absolutely no ecstasy whatsoever). Then, with no warning, I take a large step forward. Of course, Harriet has no way of knowing my new, unscripted plan, so she moves back with the other foot and we start kicking each other down the room.
Harriet: Everyone is dancing clockwise, but Matt has decided to go anticlockwise. From over his shoulder, I can see a bottleneck of couples building behind us. We keep banging into people, disrupting all that etched, painful ecstasy. Then, after half a song, we just give up and retreat to our table. Next to us is the octogenarian sister of the academy’s proprietor. “Muy bien, muy bien,” she says with a wicked laugh. I say: “Impossible, impossible.” She says: “How long you learn?” I hold up fingers: “Six hours.” Her whole body shakes with laughter. From then on, every time we return, disconsolate, she raises a glass, shouts “Six hours, six hours”, and we all laugh.
Somewhere across town, there is a tango theatre packed with tourists. They’ve all paid $50 for dinner, a tacky, theat- rical performance of tango and a souvenir photo of themselves. When it’s finished, they’ll get back on their coaches. Tomorrow, they might visit the house of Eva Peron.
We’ve been in Buenos Aires for five days. We’re dancing at a local milonga and sharing jokes with wicked old women.
Which would you prefer?
