Tango!

Eve and I just returned from the finale of the Tango competition that has been raging all month. We were offered tickets last night and managed to find a babysitter (Carolina, a friend of Laura, the sister of my student Cecilia -- only three degrees of separation!) on short notice. Does that not prove that in fact we really do live here?

It was a thrilling event, held in the hundred-year-old Luna Park (the name no doubt inspired by Coney Island's). Well, of course all you want to know is who won. The shocker: no Portenos in the final three. The top two spots went to couples from Cordoba (still Argentina, of course, so a relief there); third place went to a team with a Japanese woman dancer. This followed on last night's victory of the Japanese team in the Tango Salon competition (more traditional tango, we believe). The Japanese are, apparently, nuts about Tango.

It was quite a thrill to be there. Miraculous dancers and adoring crowds, not to mention a fair bit of kitschy music and emceeing from characters that I tried to find comparisons for -- Frank Sinatra? William Shatner? Liberace? The stage was raised so the dancers were above the floor of the hall, bright lights shining, cameras on long booms swinging around them and projecting the images on huge television screens above. Smoke was sent across the stage to aproximate, what?, a smoky bar in San Telmo? I'm not sure.

But the dancers exploited their bipedalism to the fullest, and, especially, putting to beautiful use the knee joint, jacknifing their legs between the legs of their partners, around them, in line with them, in opposite directions, everywhere at lightning speed. It certainly made a mockery of our pathetic, teenage efforts to mimic the tango -- cheek to cheek, hands clasped, arms locked, pointing forward, a stilted walk across the dance floor, and then a quick turn.

Now for some lessons....