TANGO PARTY: A NEW YORK DIARY

As spring takes its first tentative steps in the city, Enid Stubin recalls a soiree she attended during a darker time of year:

Tango It may be Keats’s season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, but by me September signals back-to-school malaise, a grinding sense of guilt and the tantalising whiff of out-of-reach glamour. So the very idea of a tango celebration at the light-filled, second-floor atelier of Alicia Mugetti cheered me. Her dresses, hand-pleated and hand-painted works in Botticelli colours, are romantic and lyrical evocations of the world of dance and music. Alicia designs for Everywoman as well as performers, and she is a dedicated dancer herself.

Having determined at Nixon’s first inaugural that my dancing days were behind me, I arrived to help set up for the evening. Alicia’s husband Enrique Rodriguez was fiddling with some photographer’s gaffing, an extension cord and a roll of duct tape, and within minutes he’d turned the wooden deck adjacent to Alicia’s showroom into a magical aerie.

Lovita, their Maltese, had found an intriguing puddle from the third-floor air conditioner and was tracking pawprints onto the dance floor. I sallied forth with a roll of paper towels and managed to slip on a patch of iridescent green slime and fall on my ass. “Someone could sue,” observed my friend Doris, who came to pick up a diaphanous white silk blouse bought the week before. I hauled over some jardinières and arranged them around the slippery spot—they’d be in everyone’s way, but they’d protect that same traffic.

This tango subculture is a big thing in New York. People dance at different venues several times a week, investing heartily in lessons and in La Duca character shoes. There’s a range of ages; some come as couples, others become couples through dancing. One vibrant woman proudly told me that Alicia was making her wedding dress.

I fell in love with another Alicia, who looked like somebody’s Argentine abuela, comfortably upholstered and with a jaunty diasthema. Her footwork was gorgeous, and the gentlemen waited for an opportunity to partner her. I took her a ginger ale after every milonga. And there was Alex, a tiny, dapper fellow who had just had a birthday. An impossibly leggy young blonde lilted, “Alex, what will we do for your 90th?” He was apparently an uber-instructor. A lovely woman made off with him to a corner of the studio for an impromptu master class: I heard him counsel, “Soft knees . . . soft knees.”

It was a intriguing crowd, at once raffish and haimish. If there was envy or malice among the dancers, I couldn’t see it. The bonhomie was palpable, and the level of dancing skill--even I could discern--was high.

A really young couple, undergraduates at Hunter, arrived late. He was tall and lanky and somewhat awkward in repose, but when they began to dance you could see how she adored him. He had been dancing for four years and she was just learning. Watching them, I could imagine them at their own wedding and beyond, getting older but never aging, gliding and pivoting together over a lifetime.

Sore from my fall, I had my excuse for sitting out the tango lesson. Enrique still gallantly swept me up for a dance in which I felt like a balky Electrolux (“Eh-nid, you resist, you resist,” Alicia despaired). It’s fun to watch the dancers, but I felt at once too old and weary and young and callow to join them.

In my zeal to be helpful, I bussed the tables energetically and kept closing the door on the musical director, who would disappear into a closet whenever the programmed mix yielded to Fred Astaire singing “Cheek to Cheek.” One of the dancers, who’d arrived in a bustle skirt and serious corset, was interested in a midnight-blue velvet skirt. Fitting it to her with some straight pins, I could see the angry marks etched by the corset and mused on the price paid for performance.

By 1am, I was ready to make my excuses. Enrique sent me home with sandwiches and a special gift—an authentic-looking Chilean salami, my totem—and I left the kids to enjoy the rest of their evening.

~ ENID STUBIN

Picture credit: krismartis (via Flickr)