The passion of Argentine tango has not been lost on the people of Germany, with hundreds hot-footing it to one of the nation’s many dance classes and dance nights every week.

In just one session you can pick up the basic eight-step movement

Maybe it’s the heady mix of sensuality, stirring music and the opportunity for dance floor polygamy - partner swapping is de rigeur - that people find so tantalizing. Maybe it’s the challenging footwork.

Either way, there is no doubt that tango has gripped the nation, with Berlin now considered the biggest European hotspot for the dance outside of its homeland Argentina.

If you ask the people of Buenos Aires (commonly known as porteños, or the people of the port) who are living in Germany if they dance tango, many will reply that they leave it to their ageing relatives.

It has however been enjoying something of a revival over the last decade thanks to its roots in Argentine history.

And the dance that sprang to life among poor immigrant workers in Argentina is definitely big business over here; there was even a tango week in December, for all age groups.

A quick internet browse for example should throw up www.tangoberlin.de, which, if you click on the Tango in Berlin/Dailys rubric, gives a list of some 30 tango sessions – classes for all levels and a wealth of venues – across the week.

But don’t dismiss it if you live outside the capital as the bottom left-hand corner of the same page also gives links to tango sessions in Hamburg, Köln, Leipzig, Bremen, Großraum Mittelfranken, Ruhrgebiet (the area covering Munster, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Köln), Freiburg, and München.

If you get seriously addicted you can even think about taking your skills abroad on holiday by looking up what’s on offer in Switzerland, Vienna, Buenos Aires, St Petersburg and Scandinavia, available in the same list.

Joining one of my recent Berlin workshops was a young lady who had travelled all the way from north-west France to take part.

*quote1*Now there’s dedication, which is what you need as it could take six months before you can start to flow on the floor.

Those who have done it for several years can glide gracefully like ships through still night waters.

Most of today’s classes focus on the traditional footwork, the embrace, a feel for the music and, most importantly, the chemistry between the two dancers.

In just one session you can pick up the basic eight-stop movement and possibly even the figure-of-eight from expert instructors.

Some more modern tango sessions, however, break with tradition by allowing partners to separate, to develop dance steps on a more organic rather that strictly taught basis, and use more up-do-date music.

Milonga music can vary but one DJ in Berlin who played tunes from the soundtrack of kooky French film Amélie really made the heart beat faster and had legs kicking in all the right places. Red lighting, giving the feeling of a traditional hot, sweaty tango bar, finished off the atmosphere to perfection.

It - of course - takes two to tango, and nowadays most of the tango partnerships taking to the floor consist of a man and a woman.

But at the turn of the last century, when there were few immigrant women to dance with in Argentina, two men often practised together, the idea being that the few women that were available would pick the man with the niftiest moves.

If you have a dance partner to start with, of the opposite or the same sex, then all well and good, though most places offer a Tanzpartner Börse, a search engine to find a suitable other half if you don’t.

Some classes explicitly claim that they cater for singles as well as couples, and it is a good way to meet potential partners, but the reality is that most people turn up in pairs.

Finally, as tango enjoys renewed success in Argentina, it is probably worth pointing out that Germany had a key role to play in the story of the dance.

It’s a funny old world, but the bandoneón, or accordion, that became the symbol for Argentine tango was in fact a German import.

None were locally built but exported from the Rein region to Buenos Aires from the end of the 19th century.

So in a way the German people are enjoying the fruits of their own labour.
The tango trade is today more cultural than commercial, and heading in the opposite direction.

February 2005

[Copyright Expatica 2005]

Subject: Life in Germany, Tango