“The 
Argentine Tango is perhaps one of the country’s most famous musical icons; roiling with emotion and drama that’s sure to bring heat to nearly anyone’s blood.”
I wrote that for the shipboard newsletter before I had ever witnessed a tango performance. I realize now that I should have worded it a bit differently. I should have said that tango can’t be described, and if it doesn’t bring fire to your blood, if it doesn’t make your emotions boil, then I question whether or not you are in fact human.
When you’re lucky enough to sit in a tango salon in the city of the style’s birth, and watch it performed live, it isn’t just a dance it’s…I don’t even have a word, it renders you speechless.
There were dancers up there tonight that didn’t just dance, they were the music, they were each other, one person in two bodies. There was a woman who danced a full partner tango – complete with lifts and full-throw aerials – while blindfolded. The ultimate trust in your partner, one wrong move would have had her flying off the stage or caused her to break her neck. But of course no such thing happened. The dance itself made you blush and want to turn away, but you couldn’t, it caught up your nerves and held them tight, forcing you to keep your attention on the stage, and every so often making you check that your jaw wasn’t too close to the floor.
Every number tells a story, the young French couple meeting for the first time, all innocent spins around lampposts. The nightclub singer who ends up falling for the cheerful jigalo she’s so determined to avoid. The shy wallflower who transforms into a sultry beauty before your very eyes using only the power of her own imagination. And the young woman ravished in the night by a gentleman stranger that she isn’t sure is real or a highly erotic dream, how could she – she never sees his face until he spins her to the floor and leaves her there, letting her sweep the blindfold off her own eyes?
There are times when you forget to breathe. That’s one of the reasons you’re grateful that the show includes the occasional singer or instrumental break, it gives you a chance to get your heartrate back in line, and your thoughts somewhat in order before they’re sent back into the depths of light and shadows.
Tango was born in the murky back alleys of Buenos Aires, it’s a combination of styles held together by lust and power and the steamy Buenos Aires rain that comes of an evening, the same rain that pelted down on us when we left the theatre this evening and made our stunned way back to the ship.
It’s not an evening I’ll soon forget.