- Uki Goni in Buenos Aires
- guardian.co.uk, Sunday November 18 2007 23.50 GMT
- The Observer, Sunday November 18 2007
The Salon Canning is an authentic milonga, a bare hall in the old Palermo district of Buenos Aires where dancers gyrate into the early morning to Argentina's most distinctive musical style, the tango. At one of the tables a tall, dark-haired man scans the room, his attention resting on female tourists sitting alone or in groups waiting to be asked to dance.(...)
He is not a tango instructor or a lothario seeking easy prey. Eduardo Amarillo is a 'tango taxi dancer,' and he aims to ensure no tango-loving foreigner leaves Argentina without twirling a few times around the floor. 'I learnt the tango from my grandmother in the 1970s,' says Amarillo, 39, dressed in rigorous black. 'I was a young boy dancing with my head stuffed between her breasts.' Like many Argentinians of his generation, Amarillo forgot about the tango as he grew older and the milongas went out of fashion. (...)
But now the tango has made a startling comeback. Boosted by the worldwide success of reality TV shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with Stars, Argentinians have rediscovered their tango roots and Amarillo is among those who have started frequenting the old tango salons that still dot the city (...)
He is not a tango instructor or a lothario seeking easy prey. Eduardo Amarillo is a 'tango taxi dancer,' and he aims to ensure no tango-loving foreigner leaves Argentina without twirling a few times around the floor. 'I learnt the tango from my grandmother in the 1970s,' says Amarillo, 39, dressed in rigorous black. 'I was a young boy dancing with my head stuffed between her breasts.' Like many Argentinians of his generation, Amarillo forgot about the tango as he grew older and the milongas went out of fashion. (...)
But now the tango has made a startling comeback. Boosted by the worldwide success of reality TV shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with Stars, Argentinians have rediscovered their tango roots and Amarillo is among those who have started frequenting the old tango salons that still dot the city (...)
Tango instructor Julieta Lotti often hires Amarillo's dancers for her students, greeting them with champagne for their first lesson. 'Experienced dancers tend to be men who exist only for the tango,' Lotti says. 'They can be very romantic characters. As more foreign women came to Buenos Aires in search of a real tango experience, these men were drawn to them like honey.'