Maybe I´ll give it a try...

After several grosse German beers at the Balhaus in Mitte, the idea of dancing my first tango wearing Birkenstocks seemed strangely appropriate. When Ismael Zurack, a Moroccan from Rabat told me during our interview that by the end of the night I´d be dancing with him, I laughed him off, shook my head and sipped my beer. `Neun, neun,´ I said `I´ll step on you.´ Three hours later, I did.

Ismael was here for an internship with a German economist. He had been dancing tango for a few years, and since he lived around the corner from the salon, he came often. At first he was a little hesistant to talk about himself, but warmed up to me after I told him about my adventures in Morocco. Still, he was very camera-shy, and everytime I snuck in a picture he´d look away. `I´m only doing this for a dance,´ he said almost threateningly `So I´m coming back.´ With that, he stood up to find himself a partner.

When he did come back, I looked at him with fear and wiped off my hands. I would like to think they were wet from the beer, but I doubt it. Once on the dance floor, he stopped me after a couple of steps and told me not to look at my feet. `I´m right here,´ he said, pointing to his face. And after his instructions (most memorably `use my shoulder as your steering wheel´) I stumbled through the song laughing and apologizing, leading and sweating. But when I heard the final `chan chan´ signalling the end of the song, I thanked him and found myself surprisingly disappointed that it had ended so soon.

Frau Ben Vand

The first time I met Ben Vand was at the Roter Salon in Mitte, where this photo was taken. She (and probably everyone else in the milonga) had noticed the flash of my camera and approached me, asking about my pictures. She was very enthusiastic about what I showed her, and she made me promise to take more pictures of her and send them to her via email.

Ben was hard to miss. She was wearing baggy army pants, a Japanese-print button-down and wore her long hair in a single braid down her back. Clearly not the most obvious choice of clothing for a milonga woman. She danced only with women, and she gracefully led them across the dancefloor. Later, we would meet a couple more times, at the Spree bar and then at the Balhaus in Mitte. Each time, she would greet me warmly and ask about my photos. One night, I finally caught up with her outside on the patio, and she told me, in her shy voice, about herself.

Ben is a milonga fiend. She has two homes, one in Halle and one in Berlin. She is 24 years old and has been dancing tango for 5 and a half years. She comes to Berlin a few times a week, just to dance, and when she is in Halle she teaches tango. Her life is tango. Whenever I´ve seen her at the milongas she rarely has off-time, she is dancing practically the whole night. Knowing this, I cut the interview short and thanked her. When I made my way back inside a few minutes later, she was already dancing with a blonde.

http://www.pinktango.de/en/index.html

`Denying the passage of time or maybe looking for inspiration in the past, that´s how you dance the tango. On these days of physical loneliness, when friendship, sex and affection find internet solutions, tango gives you a chance for a real live encounter, body to body, and a space to have experiences with diverse emotional, sensual and artistic qualities.´

-Ebadi

The price of fashion...

At the milongas, checking out the tango costume was half the fun. Mostly, the dance floor was a sea of black, with red, white, polka dot, and houndstooth sprinkled in. The men came in mostly suited, sweating under heavy shirts. The women came in wearing strappy heels, hurrying back to their seats after a dance to change into comfortable flats, and apply bandages to their bleeding feet.

Cultures collide...

...a French woman flips open a Spanish fan which frames a passing German couple...

The tango is no stranger to cultural fusions. The dance originated in Argentina, brought by immigrants from Europe to Buenos Aires and contains African dance forms.

In my experience in the milongas, I have met Mexicans, Argentines, Spaniards, Moroccans, Germans, Americans, Italians and French and Japanese people. Expats come and dance, and because of the nature of the tango, it is very possible that two people from across the globe come together on the dance floor and, since they don´t exchange words, not even know it.

`Light and shadow, sparkles and darkness, a play of light and dark. Artificial light in the dance hall, the shimmer of the women´s clothes , the dark of the couple with their eyes half closed in a hallway.

You need enought light to see each other´s eyes and invite to dance. Enough light to enjoy seeing the others dance. Half light to accopany the intimacy of the embrace.´

-Sonia Ebadi

Desire.

When George Bernard Shaw said "dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire," I´m sure he had the tango in mind. Some danced with their eyes closed, cheek to cheek, others danced with more distance, looking at each other, looking around. Either way, there was an intimate exchange. There was privacy although the other dancers came swirling by, and the outside world was forgotten, if only for one song.