Milonga After Midnight By Marta Hanson Embracing contradiction--backwards, in heels. Tanda I It''s my second day in Buenos Aires, my first tango class. I move around the basement studio in a tight embrace with a woman five decades older and five inches taller (impressive for my five-foot-nine frame and thirty years). "It''s just like walking!" she encourages in Spanish, and I stumble, the process of stepping frustratingly foreign. A tabby cat weaves its way through pairs of dancing feet, amused. I''ll soon discover every tango studio has at least one cat. I learn tango is a dance of opposites: rooting and rising, propelling energy forward while smoothly stepping backwards. Take your time, don''t rush.
Breathe. Listen. Feel. When the moment is right, move with intención. I begin to understand the rules of the milonga, the tango gatherings held all over the city at every hour of day and night: at a milonga, invitations to dance are made through eye contact. You stay with one partner through a tanda--a set of four songs--and change partners only at the cortina, a short musical interlude of a different genre. Time seems fluid, luxurious. I need the right shoes to dance, but I worry I''m not yet adept enough to warrant a pair of heels.
On the recommendation of my tango teacher, I venture to a musty, dusty store downtown with wire racks of tango shoes that hang by their heels in all colors, textures, heights, and sizes. The shop owner knows my precise shoe size at a glance. He flits around the room, delivering teetering piles of shoeboxes to the five customers seated on red velvet benches. I try on pairs that are too sparkly or high, or tight in all the wrong places. After nearly an hour, I slip on a shoe with velvety black sides and red crisscross straps that match my toenail polish perfectly. The owner scoops me up and whirls me around the room and I stumble, laughing. The top of his head comes to my chin. I seldom wear heels, so navigating fancy footwork on a crowded tango floor proves challenging.
I begin a ritual of washing my feet at the end of each night: run warm water, sponge off the dust, clean the occasional bloody scratches, massage. Before coming to Argentina, I never made time for evening rituals. I''d lived my life on overdrive: doing and achieving nonstop, swept along in the current of success. But in rare moments of stillness, I''d begun to listen to my own inner compass: What do I actually want? It took a year to save and plan, but now, a continent away, I''ve made the space to sit with that question. I want to slow down here, be more intentional. I start where I can: ensuring I go to bed with clean feet. ***** Though I''ve danced swing, blues, and salsa for a decade, it becomes quickly apparent that tango is its own beast. "Step with the ball of the foot, weight toward your big toe--yes, keep that front leg straight," my teacher instructs in Spanish.
This is the first time in years I''ve been a total beginner at something, and it''s humbling as hell. "Bend the back knee--now push! Ribcage lifted! Weight underneath you! And most important--relax!" After a few weeks of relearning to walk in her mirror-lined home studio (with not one, but two cats), I go out to a swing dance club one night. There, the driving beat of big band jazz fills the room, and my feet already know what to do. Hours later, I leave refreshed--and reminded of my body''s ability to move with ease. ***** Tanda II I know the first time I truly tango because I am so attuned to the moment that I never want the tanda to end. Framed vintage posters of musical legends--Gardel, Pugliese--line the walls, and from somewhere drifts the scent of fresh empanadas and the soft clink of wine-filled glasses. My partner offers his hand, and I move in. We pause.
Then the song begins, and everything else falls away. We are not thinking, only co-creating, improvising a physical embodiment of the band''s melody. My partner''s name is Juan Carlos. He has salt-and-pepper hair, musky cologne, a necklace of a cross, and one too many buttons undone on his red-patterned shirt. The next time we dance, I step on his foot. In the pause between tanda songs, most partners will chat awkwardly. Since the invitation was done in silence, it''s often the first chance to talk. What''s your name, where are you from, oh, you speak very good Spanish! I find this the perfect time to out myself as a beginner if I''ve fumbled some footwork.
One night at an open-air milonga, my tanda partner and I are so in sync that we stay cheek-to-cheek between each of the four songs, breathing together, so as to not break the spell. After, we smile and part ways without a word. I am learning to savor, to release. I make a new friend after a tango class. We start chatting as we change from our heels back into street shoes, and she tells me she''s from Sweden, taking a break from her husband to study tango on her own. We start going to milongas together, where we compare notes about dance partners and each nurse a glass of wine over the course of the evening. Over a meandering dinner, I confess a wish to go back in time--even just a few months--to reassure my past self that the leap she was preparing to take, the one that meant giving up nearly everything to make space for something new, was worth it. So far, at least.
That I''m proud of myself for being so brave. My friend''s eyes glisten as she says, "me too." One night at the popular La Viruta Tango Club, I dance with a partner whose hand slides too low on my back and whose breath on my neck sends warning shivers down my spine. It''s the first time I''ve been tempted to eschew strict tango norms and leave the floor before the tanda ends. I hurl myself into the chair next to my friend, about to cut my losses and go home, when another man approaches the table. He raises his eyebrows in silent invitation, and I hesitate, still shaken. What makes the tango beautiful--physical closeness, trusting a stranger--also carries risk. He has a kind face, though, so I take a breath and stand.
Our tanda starts off reserved and slowly grows more playful, our bodies creatively responding to the music and each other. Art, embodied. I decide to stay. A few hours later, I discover the rumors are true: La Viruta serves café con leche and medialunas at five a.m., and the milky coffee and buttery croissant taste like quiet victory. The sun is rising as I walk home and wash my tired feet. ***** Sometimes the cortina break between tanda sets is the chacarera.
This Argentinean folk dance reminds me of Spanish flamenco: Two lines of dancers face their partners and circle each other dramatically, never touching but making constant eye contact. One Argentinian friend tells me, "Oh, the chacarera? It''s so much more intimate than tango." This surprises me--in tango, your whole torso is pressed against your partner; what could be more intimate than that? For a country where acquaintances kiss each other when greeting, though, perhaps prolonged eye contact feels more revealing. After this conversation, I try to hold the gaze of strangers on the street for a beat longer than normal. It''s thrilling. ***** Tanda III Less than a month into my stay, I fall in love. We meet at a blues house party; weeks later, he traces the freckles on my arm and murmurs, in wonder, that it''s as though our skin has known each other before. He shows me his favorite milongas all over the city--in outdoor plazas and sultry cocktail bars, and in refurbished garages and cozy living rooms with the furniture pushed to the side.
Our bodies move effortlessly together. I let myself fall into him completely, knowing the contexts of our lives are irreconcilable, yet relishing how uncomplicated it can be for now. Or maybe I''ve just started to internalize the lessons of the tango: don''t hurry, allow the experience to unfurl. Let that be enough. I become nocturnal. Several nights a week, he and I meet up near midnight, dance until daybreak--often tango, sometimes blues or swing--and sleep until well past noon. Hours slide by like raindrops on glass, soles across dance floors, kisses on foreheads, skin between sheets. I find myself referring to siete por la tarde, seven in the afternoon, which sounded all kinds of wrong when I first arrived in Argentina, yet now makes perfect sense.
Two friends, non-dancers, visit Buenos Aires and accompany me to a milonga. While I tango, they spend the evening sipping wine and watching couples fill the floor with the customary moves--sacadas, barridas, ganchos, and boleos. The next night they attend an espectáculo, a fancy tango dinner show. Afterward, they equate the two experiences to watching professional versus amateur porn. "The espectáculo," one recounted, "was all drama, flair. But honestly, I couldn''t tell whether the performers were actually enjoying themselves." "Watching a milonga," the other added, "isn''t much to look at, but it''s clear the emotions are real, tender." When I share this observation with my lover, who tangoes professionally, he laughs straight from his belly and nods, delighted at the aptness of the metaphor.
Despite living in Buenos Aires for four months, I never make it to an espectáculo. I''d rather be out on the floor myself. There, I can explore the interplays of tension and release, of technical structure and organic expression. It''s satisfying to focus on how my body holds these contradictions more deftly with practice; how the once-incessant mental checklist fades from the forefront. ***** At a Tuesday night milonga, my favorite DJ plays classic American anthems between tango sets, including rock & roll and hits from Flashdance and Dirty Dancing. Lau.