El Beso
Tuesday nights. A small, centrally located club with a single row of tables on three sides. Tastefully drab. The stylish hanging lamps are really two sizes of automobile air filters wired together – unused ones; too bad they couldn't be employed to take smoke out of the air of the club, though then they'd have to change them once a month (week?). The twenty-by-twenty floor was packed until close to closing time. Lots of foreigners and Argentines dancing in courteous close embrace. Frequent partner exchanging. Intimate and not for the claustrophobic. They also have a Saturday night happening until six in the morning which I hear is well attended.
Castel – Porteños y Bailarenes
Also Tuesday nights – attracts the late-nighters (after 1 am) leaving El Beso because it's only a block away. The Castel has two dance floors on either side of its "L" shape with the bar in the middle. It was very crowded both nights we were here. The back floor is assisted by two giant fans that send the smoke and heat flying out the front entrance; which is much appreciated except that when you dance by them they change the part of your hair and literally throw you off balance.
Each night at about 2 am they had a couple show-dance a few numbers. This was actually a good time to dance on the second floor and take advantage of the space.
It was in this club that I encountered the two rudest dancers of the trip: one, an Argentine man who bulled his way backwards down the line of dance; and the second, a European, I think, who made fast sweeping turns with his pointed elbow extended to clear-out room for his partner's boleos. And me without my knife (it fell out in the taxi). Only came here twice because it was close.
Dandi
One of our favorites and only a hundred feet from our room in San Telmo. Wednesday's only. Run by a dynamic Porteña standing all of 4'10", but well-rounded, who asks foreign men to dance regularly if you frequent her club (we went three times). The Dandi is small, bright, and cheery. It has a very good wood floor of ample size for the room with two big supporting poles to increase the level of difficulty or hide behind, as the case may be. Supports a regular cast of friendly Argentines and draws tourists as well. Actually has a non-smoking section, which means you have to ask for an ashtray (don't worry, there's plenty of them).
Confiteria La Ideal
Big deteriorating hall with restaurant below in the center of downtown. One of those places where the waiters during the day are so old you're not sure they'll make it through the meal. Frequently boasts a live orchestra on Thursdays, which is when we were there. La Ideal also has several afternoon dances (ends before midnight). The atmosphere is grand, if you don't focus on details too clearly, which a lot of the senior clientele can no longer do anyway. The floor is giant, tile on wood and in better shape than the walls. The orchestra was great and played early (about midnight). When they returned to recorded music around 1 am, the crowd thinned out fast. Both "The Tango Lesson" and "Evita" used this space for a movie-scene. Definitely merits one evening.
Salon El Pial – La Baldosa
Way out on the Northwest fringe of the city, but worth it (a whopping $4 cab ride). El Pial is a neighborhood club of mixed age Porteños – just a handful of foreigners. Large tile floor in a no frills meeting hall with great live music on Fridays, although the orchestra doesn't start until 2 am and only plays forty-five minutes. People were exceedingly friendly, but mainly danced within their own groups. A lot of mediocre dancers having fun with a few youngsters dancing open in the middle. Good pizza.
Lo de Celia
Tucked into the transvestite fringe of San Telmo (seen from the cab ride to and fro), Lo de Celia boasts many of the best old dancers on Sunday nights. Close embrace tango at its finest by a crowd that has been dancing for a very long time. Intimidating because nearly everyone is great, but they were still very welcoming. Take a table around the twenty-five foot square floor and watch for awhile. They make it look so deceptively easy. Swing and Latin sets are included on Sunday; some of the old guys and gals shake-out a mean meringue. On Monday, the crowd was way different, younger, and more foreigners; amazing the contrast on back-to-back nights.
Mi Club
Our one foray outside of the Distrito Federal for tango. We were invited to an open invitation birthday bash for a teacher of tango in this giant dance hall with five floors – three inside and two outside, though only one of the interior floors was being used. I felt welcome, but out of place; the moderate crowd all appeared to have lots of friends. I wanted a hundred more people, strangers to each other and all floors hopping. Mi Club looked like a budget (although large) seventies disco hall, but I saw it mentioned as a major club in the forties, though I suspect it has been remodeled. More effort than it was worth (a $6, 40 minute cab ride), but interesting.
La Catedral
I went from feeling like "one of the kids" at Lo de Celia to a parent at La Catedral, although there were about ten people older than me. The cab dropped me off at the appropriate corner and left. I walked around looking for the 4006 address, but that number didn't exist. No signs either about a club of any kind. Hardly even any lights. One young guy with long hair comes walking out of the darkness holding a singe rose in front of his face. I ask if he knows of a tango club real close to here. "La Catedral, behind those doors. You're welcome." I approach the black unmarked double doors and push. It creaks open and I see a decaying stairway ascending in a milky light. I take a few steps inside and then, the music. Two flights up in a building that would be closed to the public in the States is a tango club unlike anything I've ever heard of. Thirty foot walls with a patched tin roof keep out most of the rain. Large wild modern paintings adorn the walls of the otherwise techno-grunge décor. A dozen old pieces of furniture and cushions act as couches covered with sprawled-out, dressed-down youth. Another ten tables with mix-matched chairs give one a foot-hold on normal.
I change shoes on a couch more duct-tape than vinyl, abandoned because of a drip directly above and stash my stuff near an abyss with a wired-off spiral staircase that descends into garbage. The floor is wood with the level of cobblestones. Most of the time, the music is the same as everywhere else at milongas around the world. Then they play a "Narco Tango" set and change that. The quality of dancing is pretty good, though a few beginners blunder along. Perhaps a third are foreigners. The floor is only about twenty by twenty (it undulates, or was there something in my agua sin gas?), but it's rarely too full. They still mainly dance close embrace, which surprises me.
At 2 am a long white cloth is stretched to contain a slideshow of Diane Arbus-like street scenes while Spanish, English, and German poetry drones. Next, they empty bags of dry garbage on the dance floor and pick it up with packaging tape in snowballing bundles. Then they spread a ten by fifteen plastic sheet on the floor and pull five (two women, three men) previously arranged members from the audience (I hope) and strip them naked, lay them on the plastic, pour mud on them and mop them down. This not being enough, they paint them multi-colors with their hands. For the finale, they throw a tarp over them and all five living canvases and their three painters scream and tumble together. Show's over.
Anyone for a Pugliese set? The floor was crowded – obviously just the right kind of inspiration for the group.
Intriguing fact: La Catedral had the best sound system and volume setting combination of all the clubs – most places being too loud, sometimes painfully, especially when you dance by the speakers. The kids had it right.
Nino Bien
Nino Bien is one of the most upscale major venues (La Catedral not being on the scale). It has the grandness of La Ideal without the decay. Vaulted ceilings capturing the smoke. Big enough for three rows of tables all the way around an eighty-by-twenty dance floor which was still full by the end of the second song of each tanda. Lots of great dancers. We saw Eduardo and Gloria of "Forever Tango" fame, but they weren't dancing, at least not by when we left close to 3 am. This was the most elegant club we went to.
Sunderland Club
On Saturdays only, they lift the basketball apparatus back against the walls of the gymnasium and invent the Sunderland Club. Most of the bleachers are pulled back to make room for a large number of tables. The floor is, oddly enough, tile (I would hate to play basketball on it) and a forty-by-forty square. The sound is loud and tinny, since there isn't a soft surface in the room other than the humans. Very friendly big group of dancers though, mostly Argentines. Four giant propeller fans (think WWII fighter planes) "grace" the corners of the gym about twenty feet high; when they engage them, the smoke roars out of the clerestory windows and it's hard to hear the music. They don't leave them on long. Very mixed age group. Great dancers.
Torquato Tasso
Great live music every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but this club on the Sunday I went was more of a listening venue than dance joint. Yes, they have a tiny ten-by-fifteen floor, but hardly anyone danced when the band of four guitars and singer were performing (they were very good). When the recorded music began, the floor filled instantly to way more than comfortable. Some yahoos still tried big open work, bumping into people with regularity. Nobody got upset though. Reminded me of taxi rides on the eighteen-lane Avenida 9 de Julio during rush hour; there are no apparent rules except try to miss everyone and no one gets tweaked. I still had enthusiastic dancers and good conversations, but I doubt that I'll go back.
Salon Canning
This is one of the six places you can dance on a Monday night (there are twenty on Saturday) and it turned out to be my favorite venue period. We paid twice what we paid to get in anywhere else (about $4). The square, high ceiling room is bright and clean; large interesting art on the walls and a beautiful thirty-by-thirty wood floor. At least half in attendance were foreigners, but the dancing caliber was still high. At one o'clock a guitar and bandoneon played for dancing – marvelous. They played twenty minutes, took an hour break, and played another set. A great place to both dance and meet people.
Centro Armenio "La Viruta"
The "Big Saturday Dance" I'd been anxious to see was too crowded to be simpatico, but too Buenos Aires to be unfriendly. It was just too much. The large floor was packed, yet they added tables to the floor space for extra seating room; something's wrong with this picture. Too many people milling all about to feel relaxed. The low ceiling in this barren meeting hall just added to the din and repressive air. Maybe it would be better on a Wednesday or Friday. Someone told me it was best from 4 to 6 in the morning. A singer and keyboard appeared on the floor for a half-hour show. At 3 am the crowd was still at maximum and we left to walk the two blocks to Salon Canning to catch the last hour there. There were maybe fifteen older Argentines fanning a dying flame of what had been my favorite place only the last Monday. Why couldn't a hundred people from Centro Armenio (out of the 400+) join us here? It was only a five minute walk. Just one of the mysteries of the Buenos Aires tango scene.
Copywrite © 2004, Larry Sawyer. All rights reserved.
