Article in The Scotsman on tango lessons.

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<small>[ 23 February 2004, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

What can I say? When WILL the world learn to tango so I have more dance partners?

Tango in Tufnell Park - how romantic.

Poem of Life
Sylvia Boerner for Dance Today dives into London’s social Tango scene to find out whether Tango is “the vertical expression of making love”.

Argentineans consider themselves natural poets. Their music, Tango, talks of love, romance, loneliness, sadness, fear and happiness. Tango dancers all over the world are drawn in the spell of a dance that allows its dancers to do just that. Express their feelings and emotions inspired by the music acting out their personalities in accordance with their partner. A dance that celebrates living — a metaphor for life.

Walking up the grotty staircase to The Dome, Tufnell Park, the walls decorated in bright colours displaying a child like image of an underwater world, you are taken by surprise when entering the hall where Biljana is holding her weekly Tango night “Zero Hour”. The youth club atmosphere still lingers but disappears immediately, when you hear the loud, lounging Tango sounds that escape from rather outdated speakers, and you catch sight of the dancefloor where 20 couples of all ages are moving in close hold as if they had forgotten everything around.

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Oh boy - Tufnell Park - I've spent many a day in Tufnell Park.

You'll know when you've been tango'd
By Morag McKinnon for Edinburgh New

IT is said to have originated in the brothels of Buenos Aires, as a sort of dirty waltzing for the girls and their waiting clients along the mighty Rio de la Plata, while its musical and stylistic roots came from both the African and European immigrants who lived in the city in the late 1800s.

And by the turn of the last century it had arrived in Paris, taking Europe and the rich middle classes by storm. Now the tango is getting Edinburgh more than hot under the collar. For the sexy dance has become the latest way to spend the evening. Forget ballet or ballroom, all over the city people - with or without roses clenched between their teeth - are taking up the steamy South American moves.

"Tango is becoming amazingly popular," says Morag Deyes, artistic director at Dance Base in Edinburgh, which runs classes in the louche moves. "It is an intense, sexy and sultry dance where you move quite slowly and hold your partner very close. One of the most beautiful things about it is you are meant to dance with your heart touching your partner’s and it’s done to wonderful gypsy-style music.

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Interesting how the Scottish press frequently feature Tango:

Out of my depth in the hoofing courtship rituals
By ALBERT MORRIS fo The Scotsman

IT IS astonishing how quickly old shows can be revived in the theatre of memory. The news that the Argentinian composer, Astor Piazzolla, the inventor of the "new tango", will have his music played in London next month by former members of his band, raised recollection curtains on a dramatic dancing episode in my life about which I have, until now, remained silent.

Piazzolla, who died in 1992, and is lauded by growing numbers in the classical world as one of the last century’s greatest contemporary composers, be-came a virtuoso on a curious 19th century German instrument called the bandoneon, an overgrown squeeze-box, and based his revolutionary music on the tango combined with jazz and classical styles.

The compositions enraged Argentinians. They defied, fumed the La Mancha newspaper in 1961, "a traditional establishment" greater than the state, the gaucho and soccer. "He has dared to challenge the tango."

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When in Paris last week cruising down the Seine I passed an open air sculpture museum near the Botanical gardens and there were a group of people tamngo dancing by the river there. It was a truly delightful scene.