REPORTER: Aaron Lewis
The Paris of South America never sleeps. Late into the night you can hear a musical battle playing out. Traditional tango music has long reigned in Buenos Aires, but now its electronic offspring - nuevo tango - is contending for the crown. Clara is a 24-year-old Parisian who was passing through Argentina when she decided to take a few tango lessons. Like many foreigners quickstepping it to Buenos Aires she found the dance addictive.
CLARA: It can be very erotic sometimes because the woman is very close to the man, and some pasos, some steps are very, yeah, very erotic. But still it's never vulgar.
Some foreigners like Isaac Ho are dedicating years to studying tango here. Isaac quit his job in the Singaporean Army to move to Argentina.
ISAAC HO: When I first saw the dance, I thought it was so simple, it was just walking. And then when I took it, I kept stepping on my partner. I remember at the end of the first class I was so frustrated I took off my shoes so that I wouldn't destroy her feet, you know. But after some time the embrace attracted me because it was very intimate, you know, not in a sexual way, but it's like falling in love, like you're hugging someone you love.
Tango in Buenos Aires is more than a dance, it's an exclusive cult of acolytes, with their rhythmic ritual playing out in clubs called 'milongas'.
CLARA: When I was really a beginner in a formal milonga, and I could wait all the night, because they didn't know me or they saw that I was a beginner so the men would not invite me. And sometimes I would just dance with one man for a whole evening so it was really boring and I was a bit pissed off. But it's like that, that's how it goes. Now that I know a bit better how to dance, the men invite me.
And for the aspiring dancer - known here as 'tangueros' or 'tangueras' - only the nocturnal need apply. I catch Isaac on a Wednesday and he's been out every night this week till dawn.
REPORTER: Do you ever sleep?
ISAAC HO: In the day, not in the night any more. That's the drawback of tango.
The heyday of this complex dance was in the 1930s and '40s, when tanguero Carlos Gardel rocketed to Hollywood fame. Then during the 1960s and '70s the tango almost disappeared from Argentina's cultural map - in part because the military junta shut down the milongas.
LUIS SOLANAS, TANGO CLUB OWNER, (Translation): It was banned during the military rule, these were hard times for all, for the arts as well. Tango is an art, but it couldn't be danced, it was banned. Well, we shouldn't dwell on these things. People had stopped doing it, and the youth have learned about it and sort of rescued it.
It's in clubs like these - a huge milonga called La Viruta - that the cultural battle is being played out. Dancers come here to move to the brash beats of the new electronic tango. The steps are flashier and more improvised. Luis Solanas is a nuevo tango icon and he runs La Viruta.
LUIS SOLANAS, (Translation): In terms of dancing, music, the singers there is like a new generation of people dancing tango. The new generation includes people my age, in their 50s, and people in their 30s, 20s, as well as 15- and 12-year-olds. It covers that whole range.
The tango may have recently been resurrected, but the legends of the dance, many of whom are buried here at Chacarita cemetery, might not have been happy about what the tango is becoming. Instead of the close embrace and subtle emotional cues of Carlos Gardel and others, you're just as likely now to find a flashier, more open style of tango at the milongas of Buenos Aires. And not everyone is happy about that.
Carlos Copello lives and teaches in the neighbourhood where the legendary Gardel grew up.
CARLOS COPELLO, TANGO TEACHER (Translation): I am showing them the Abasto neighbourhood! That is Buenos Aires, that is tango. "Come out and have a glass of wine, eat something" That's tango people. For others, tango is just a fashion.
Like many traditionalists, Carlos is not impressed with the flashy fashions of nuevo tango.
CARLOS COPELLO, (Translation): Now there is a lot of quantity but before there was a lot of quality and the two things are very different. Not just anybody can be a tanguero, not just anybody can dance it. The tango isn't for everybody.
LUIS SOLANAS, (Translation): In general there are some classicists who resist change, and say, "I'll dance this and not that." At times it's a useless argument. "This is tango, that isn't tango." No-one knows anymore. But people communicate through this dance.
But it's not only the music that separates the newer milongas from the traditional clubs, there is a major cultural shift as well.
CLARA: There are less rules than in the formal milonga. It doesn't mean there is no rules, it's just it's more relaxed. It's more relaxed. And also the men invite even women who are beginners in tango. There's no problem. They will take the time to teach you, there's no pressure. In the formal milonga, it's a different thing. In the formal milonga there are some rules.
The rules here reinforce the masculine control that forms the basis of the dance.
CLARA: The woman, if you come alone, you have to wait for the waiter to give you a special table. And you wait for a man to look at you. When the man looks at you, you just look at him to see if it's OK, and you just do a smile. And he will show you the place where you dance. And if you agree to dance with him it's like this - just a small movement from the head. And he will just stand up and come to you and invite you to dance.
REPORTER: And you're not allowed to invite a man?
CLARA: No. You never invite a man. No, no, you would never. No, a woman It's not that you're not allowed, but you will never invite a man.
The woman is led totally by the man, so much so that the adept tanguera will shut her eyes while she is spun around a crowded floor.
CLARA: Sometimes also I can close my eyes, and just listen to the music, listen to the rhythm. I just close my eyes and the man leads, and I do my steps, and it's just paradise, you know. You know, like being in a dream you just listen to the music, which is really, really beautiful, especially when you have live music, and you just abandon yourself to the man, physically and emotionally also.
After spending a string of sleepless nights on the tango scene, I'm finally invited to the club where the high priests of the tango faithful perform. It's a simple old gymnasium - no flashing lights or booming music is needed. The dancing here is the pinnacle that foreigners like Clara and Isaac aspire to.
REPORTER: OK, so, now, I've never done any tango at all. OK.
But for a beginner like me, you've got to start somewhere. Whoa! Ahh! So I'm shown eight steps, which I'm told is as easy as walking in the street. It's alright. OK, um This foot? Er, ahead. After I've swept Clara off her feet, she tells me that the romance doesn't always end on the dance floor.
REPORTER: Is it nice when the romance of the dance spills into your real life, is that part of the point?
CLARA: Going out with a tanguero is a bit like a dream, it's not reality and you are just wondering when will the reality will come and catch me. And sometimes it comes and catches me.
Credits
Reporter
AARON LEWIS
Editor
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Subtitling
JORGE TURINI
Fixer/Translator
SARAH GILBERT
The Paris of South America never sleeps. Late into the night you can hear a musical battle playing out. Traditional tango music has long reigned in Buenos Aires, but now its electronic offspring - nuevo tango - is contending for the crown. Clara is a 24-year-old Parisian who was passing through Argentina when she decided to take a few tango lessons. Like many foreigners quickstepping it to Buenos Aires she found the dance addictive.
CLARA: It can be very erotic sometimes because the woman is very close to the man, and some pasos, some steps are very, yeah, very erotic. But still it's never vulgar.
Some foreigners like Isaac Ho are dedicating years to studying tango here. Isaac quit his job in the Singaporean Army to move to Argentina.
ISAAC HO: When I first saw the dance, I thought it was so simple, it was just walking. And then when I took it, I kept stepping on my partner. I remember at the end of the first class I was so frustrated I took off my shoes so that I wouldn't destroy her feet, you know. But after some time the embrace attracted me because it was very intimate, you know, not in a sexual way, but it's like falling in love, like you're hugging someone you love.
Tango in Buenos Aires is more than a dance, it's an exclusive cult of acolytes, with their rhythmic ritual playing out in clubs called 'milongas'.
CLARA: When I was really a beginner in a formal milonga, and I could wait all the night, because they didn't know me or they saw that I was a beginner so the men would not invite me. And sometimes I would just dance with one man for a whole evening so it was really boring and I was a bit pissed off. But it's like that, that's how it goes. Now that I know a bit better how to dance, the men invite me.
And for the aspiring dancer - known here as 'tangueros' or 'tangueras' - only the nocturnal need apply. I catch Isaac on a Wednesday and he's been out every night this week till dawn.
REPORTER: Do you ever sleep?
ISAAC HO: In the day, not in the night any more. That's the drawback of tango.
The heyday of this complex dance was in the 1930s and '40s, when tanguero Carlos Gardel rocketed to Hollywood fame. Then during the 1960s and '70s the tango almost disappeared from Argentina's cultural map - in part because the military junta shut down the milongas.
LUIS SOLANAS, TANGO CLUB OWNER, (Translation): It was banned during the military rule, these were hard times for all, for the arts as well. Tango is an art, but it couldn't be danced, it was banned. Well, we shouldn't dwell on these things. People had stopped doing it, and the youth have learned about it and sort of rescued it.
It's in clubs like these - a huge milonga called La Viruta - that the cultural battle is being played out. Dancers come here to move to the brash beats of the new electronic tango. The steps are flashier and more improvised. Luis Solanas is a nuevo tango icon and he runs La Viruta.
LUIS SOLANAS, (Translation): In terms of dancing, music, the singers there is like a new generation of people dancing tango. The new generation includes people my age, in their 50s, and people in their 30s, 20s, as well as 15- and 12-year-olds. It covers that whole range.
The tango may have recently been resurrected, but the legends of the dance, many of whom are buried here at Chacarita cemetery, might not have been happy about what the tango is becoming. Instead of the close embrace and subtle emotional cues of Carlos Gardel and others, you're just as likely now to find a flashier, more open style of tango at the milongas of Buenos Aires. And not everyone is happy about that.
Carlos Copello lives and teaches in the neighbourhood where the legendary Gardel grew up.
CARLOS COPELLO, TANGO TEACHER (Translation): I am showing them the Abasto neighbourhood! That is Buenos Aires, that is tango. "Come out and have a glass of wine, eat something" That's tango people. For others, tango is just a fashion.
Like many traditionalists, Carlos is not impressed with the flashy fashions of nuevo tango.
CARLOS COPELLO, (Translation): Now there is a lot of quantity but before there was a lot of quality and the two things are very different. Not just anybody can be a tanguero, not just anybody can dance it. The tango isn't for everybody.
LUIS SOLANAS, (Translation): In general there are some classicists who resist change, and say, "I'll dance this and not that." At times it's a useless argument. "This is tango, that isn't tango." No-one knows anymore. But people communicate through this dance.
But it's not only the music that separates the newer milongas from the traditional clubs, there is a major cultural shift as well.
CLARA: There are less rules than in the formal milonga. It doesn't mean there is no rules, it's just it's more relaxed. It's more relaxed. And also the men invite even women who are beginners in tango. There's no problem. They will take the time to teach you, there's no pressure. In the formal milonga, it's a different thing. In the formal milonga there are some rules.
The rules here reinforce the masculine control that forms the basis of the dance.
CLARA: The woman, if you come alone, you have to wait for the waiter to give you a special table. And you wait for a man to look at you. When the man looks at you, you just look at him to see if it's OK, and you just do a smile. And he will show you the place where you dance. And if you agree to dance with him it's like this - just a small movement from the head. And he will just stand up and come to you and invite you to dance.
REPORTER: And you're not allowed to invite a man?
CLARA: No. You never invite a man. No, no, you would never. No, a woman It's not that you're not allowed, but you will never invite a man.
The woman is led totally by the man, so much so that the adept tanguera will shut her eyes while she is spun around a crowded floor.
CLARA: Sometimes also I can close my eyes, and just listen to the music, listen to the rhythm. I just close my eyes and the man leads, and I do my steps, and it's just paradise, you know. You know, like being in a dream you just listen to the music, which is really, really beautiful, especially when you have live music, and you just abandon yourself to the man, physically and emotionally also.
After spending a string of sleepless nights on the tango scene, I'm finally invited to the club where the high priests of the tango faithful perform. It's a simple old gymnasium - no flashing lights or booming music is needed. The dancing here is the pinnacle that foreigners like Clara and Isaac aspire to.
REPORTER: OK, so, now, I've never done any tango at all. OK.
But for a beginner like me, you've got to start somewhere. Whoa! Ahh! So I'm shown eight steps, which I'm told is as easy as walking in the street. It's alright. OK, um This foot? Er, ahead. After I've swept Clara off her feet, she tells me that the romance doesn't always end on the dance floor.
REPORTER: Is it nice when the romance of the dance spills into your real life, is that part of the point?
CLARA: Going out with a tanguero is a bit like a dream, it's not reality and you are just wondering when will the reality will come and catch me. And sometimes it comes and catches me.
Credits
Reporter
AARON LEWIS
Editor
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Subtitling
JORGE TURINI
Fixer/Translator
SARAH GILBERT