Buenos Aires ‘taxi dancers’ take tourists through daunting tango scene – Life & Style

BUENOS AIRES: For many people, dancing the tango during a visit to Buenos Aires is on the bucket list. The only problem: the steps are difficult to learn and venturing without knowledge onto a “milonga” dance floor can be a brutal experience.

Enter Argentina’s capital’s ‘taxi dancers’ – professionals who accompany novice dancers for a night on the town.

Without help from the inside, the experience can be “intimidating,” said taxi dancer David Tolosa, 35. AFP.

“The dance pilot… is like a showcase. People are constantly following you. There are many dancers, well-known dancers, who sit and look at the floor… You feel noticed, you feel this pressure.”

Experienced dancers can be impatient and “a little cruel” to outsiders who are new to the scene, Tolosa said, adding that the untrained could be elbowed out of the way or have their toes stepped on.

For women who are single, it can be a frustrating experience to have to wait – as is customary – for a dance invitation that may never come.

“Women prefer to hire me … because I can spend hours sitting” and waiting if they don’t have a guaranteed partner, Tolosa said.

His clients are almost exclusively foreigners, “mostly women, mainly Asian, Japanese, Chinese, but also French and British” who pay about $50 an hour.

Its busiest time is August, when Buenos Aires hosts the annual Tango Festival.

Even outside of the festival, “milongas” – social events where people gather to dance tango – are held throughout the year in the city.

“Learn by doing”

Most taxi dancers like Tolosa work independently, but the capital is also home to agencies like TangoTaxiDancers, with 17 years of experience.

It offers private lessons as well as escorted dance outings, promising on its website: “Don’t sit and wait – dance and enjoy.”

Just knowing the steps is not enough to enjoy an evening of tango, say those in the know.

For this, you must also know the art of the “cabeceo”, a non-verbal invitation to dance using only a movement of the head.

“There are certain codes in tango, like how to … ask someone to dance,” explained taxi dancer and teacher Laura Florencia Guardia, 28.

“There are still some traditional aspects, like inviting someone to dance with a look from one table to another… People have to learn that too. That’s why it’s good for them to hire dancers to show them this world.”

Guardia deftly avoided the feet of Salvador Bolanos, a Mexican tango enthusiast who attended one of her lessons, laughingly boasting that she “never had a client step on my feet!”

Bolanos, a 37-year-old systems engineer, said he was in Buenos Aires to “learn about music, in particular. I’m learning about tango: the culture, the composition.”

He said he liked the “melancholy of the tango, but at the same time the power it has”.

Tango tourists get something from “taxi dancers” that they might otherwise lack: real-world experience in a traditional setting, Guardia said.

“They’re shy at first, then they get brave,” she said AFP.

“You learn by doing.”