‘Tango Is Like an Argument,’ Winning Fast-Stepping Aficionados

Men and women line up facing each other inside Norah’s Authentic Argentine Restaurant in North Hollywood as veteran tango instructor Orlando Paiva begins his tango clinic. “Tango is like an argument,” Paiva explains.

The first figura or dance step he teaches is the “running step.” With Miranda Garrison, tango fanatic and organizer of this event, Paiva puts his words into motion. Standing tall and slender, he nods slightly and cuts the air sharply with his arms. She acknowledges with her eyes, places her hands in his and awaits his lead.

Quickly he guides her backwards across the floor. She moves to the outside and he counters by stepping in. She crosses her legs and coquettishly leans her full weight against his body. He gives in to her overture and together they step to the side. The argument is a draw.

Paiva’s students follow his instructions but the result resembles a gossip column more than an argument. The physical language of the tango is not easy to grasp at first, but, with practice and concentration, the students master it fairly well.

Casts Musical Spell

Soon, the hypnotic sounds of the tango band cast a musical spell. Only the waiters seem unaffected, holding sizzling trays of Argentine delicacies high above their heads as they weave around the stray limbs of couples who twirl, kick and dip their way across the dance floor.

The tango is enjoying new-found popularity on the Los Angeles night scene. With the start of live tango music, lessons and dancing at Norah’s on Thursday through Saturday nights, the Argentine dance seems guaranteed to become the dance of the season. “It’s very gracious,” said Irma Jabalia designer from Van Nuys, “and will probably be in for the next 10 years. The tango has a helluva lot of class.”

After a few dances, the floor clears as Garrison and her tango partner, Billy Royo, begin to dance. Royo, a Van Nuys choreographer, dance teacher and champion ballroom dancer for the last seven years, leads the dance like the ruler of some dance hall kingdom. Royo flings her away, pulls her back and, at times, seems to come close to tearing his lithesome partner limb from limb.

Garrison later explained, however, that their version of the dance, called the tango apache is a theatrical dance which involves more lifts as well as daring, showy moves. It was influenced by the street brawl style of dancing that literally came out of the bars and onto the streets of Paris in the 1930s.

Giving weekly tango demonstrations at the Hollywood Roosevelt’s Cinegrille, Garrison and Royo have lent Los Angeles’ tango revival much of its momentum. The tango renaissance has received even greater attention in Los Angeles since the show “Tango Argentino” opened at the Pantages Theatre on May 20.

At Norah’s last week were Robert Duvall as well as “Tango Argentino’s” star dancer-choreographer, Juan Carlos Copes. Duvall, who saw the show in New York, began studying tango with cast member Nelson Avilla. When the show came to Los Angeles, Duvall continued his lessons here on the West Coast.

‘Never Danced in a Movie’

“I saw Francis Ford Coppola at ‘Tango Argentino,’ ” Duvall said. “He once told me I should play a tango dancer. I’ve never really danced in a movie, but the tango just has something about it . . . the soul, the concentration, that makes it very satisfying.”

Copes expands on Duvall’s statements. “I think it is like a love dance. It is a social expression, yes, but it starts here,” he said, putting both hands on his heart, “then it comes from the head, the body and then the feet. Each couple does their figuras and their tricks, but the point of the tango is the feeling.

“The feeling of the music and the feeling of the composer. You must respect this very much when you dance the tango. That is why it is like love. When the feeling is happy, we dance fast and happy, but when it is serious, we dance serious, strong and elegant.”

After studying with members of the “Tango Argentino” cast while the show was playing on Broadway, Miranda Garrison, a self-described “nut-case fan” of the show, returned West in search of new places to tango. “Basically, I wanted to find a place where I could dance the tango, but there just wasn’t any place around.

“I found Orlando Paiva and the band Tres Para El Tango, and then I started organizing the dances. Everybody seems to have a great time. When you start hearing the music, it does something to you. It takes you into a different space and makes you want to get up and dance.”

That’s what happened at Norah’s as Garrison and some friends were dining there one evening. “Miranda, Robert Duvall and Royo were having dinner here,” Norah Lopez recalled. “The wine, the music and the atmosphere must have had an effect because they started dancing between the tables.” Not long after that, Lopez found herself taking out some tables, installing a dance floor and hiring a three-piece tango band to play three nights a week. “If this keeps up, tango is going to be the most popular, danceable music in the United States,” said a wide-eyed Paiva as he watched his new tango converts gliding along the dance floor.

Norah’s is not the only place tango fever has struck. Dance studios all over Los Angeles are reporting that everyone is asking to learn the tango. “It’s like when ‘Saturday Night Fever’ hit in ‘79,” said George Chandler, director of the Dance Resort in Reseda. “The hustle was hot all across the U.S. and everyone wanted to learn it. Now it’s the tango. People see the show or just hear about it and they want to learn it.”

20 to 30 New Students Weekly

Chandler estimates the Reseda studio is attracting 20 to 30 new students a week, “and they all want to learn the Argentine Tango.”

But when the “Tap-Dance Kid” made a big splash in theaters around the country, you didn’t see everyone rushing out to buy tap shoes. Why, then, the sudden interest in tango?

“Tango has a very different feeling from other dances,” said Irma Jabali. “It takes a lot of concentration but it’s really more fulfilling. It’s the romance and ecstasy I really love.”

Returning from the dance floor flushed and gasping for breath, Phyllis D’Amore, a waitress from Agoura, explained why she got involved with the dance. “I heard it was really hot in New York and, when it came out here, I really wanted to try it. I wanted to be a dancer when I was a girl and now I do it for fun and exercise. The dramatic part of the tango, looks between the man and the woman, is what I really like.”

According to Paiva, the tango is so appealing because “the man acts like a man when he dances and makes the woman feel wanted in the dance. She is a very special part of the dance.”

‘Breathe as One Person’

Garrison agrees: “The woman is 100 percent woman and the man is 100 percent man in the tango. He leads absolutely, but that’s not to say he’s a macho brute. The woman responds back in kind with equal muscularity. You have to breathe as one person.”

One newcomer to the tango complained that for men the dance is difficult to learn because of the enormous responsibility of leading. To which D’Amore replied: “But, if the man is a good dancer, it’s not really hard to do. The woman just has to know her part.”

Originally a dance for two men, the tango is a physical record of Argentina’s rich cultural history. In the 1880s, when the outskirts of Buenos Aires were full of gauchos, displaced Europeans, Indians and inactive soldiers, much of the social life centered around the bordello. The Portenos (men of the port) would while away the time waiting for the ladies of the evening by dancing together. With the introduction of the bandoneon (an instrument resembling a small accordion) from Germany, as well as Indian, African and European musical influences, the dance was taught to the women and the tango was born.

Since then, the tango has undergone several variations, declines and revivals. It was even banned in Argentina in the 1930s when a repressive military regime took power. Eva Peron, once a dancer herself, restored the tango as the dance of the people.

Although the tango has a rich history, it still revolves around the two individuals who share the dance. “Today, dancing in the discos, people dance separately and don’t feel for one another,” Copes observed. “The tango is two people doing something together, and, when a man and a woman come together to do something they feel, they are thinking about the future.”