OC LIVE : DANCE : Tango X 2 helped restore what had become a tourist attraction to a national treasure. The troupe takes the stage tonight in Costa Mesa. : Argentina’s Prized Export

Milena Plebs and Miguel Angel Zotto circled the globe while touring with “Tango Argentino,” the hit 1980s Broadway revue that sent throngs scurrying to learn the intensely passionate dance.

But after four years of trips to Europe, Japan and the United States, they yearned to perform back home in Argentina, where tango had long been marginalized as a tourist attraction and “Tango Argentino” had no plans to go. So, in 1988 they returned to Buenos Aires to start their own troupe.

“The idea was to do a very traditional show for Argentina first, not a show to export all over the world,” said Plebs, whose company, Tango X 2, danced only at home for its first several seasons.

“We contributed to the revival of tango in Argentina,” Plebs said, “where it had been a little bit lost in the ‘60s and ‘70s.”

Tango X 2, which has won raves internationally for its sensual, virtuosic dancing and adroit theatricality, appears tonight at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The event is sponsored by the Philharmonic Society of Orange County and the center. The troupe, making its West Coast debut, also performs Friday and Saturday at Los Angeles’ Veterans Wadsworth Theater.

Plebs and Zotto dance, direct and choreograph. They are joined on stage by two other accomplished couples, seven musicians--including two masters of the signature tango instrument, the accordion-like bandoneon--and well-known Argentine chanteuse Roxana Fontan.

The program surveys tango’s history and stylistic variations through two dozen vignettes, some of which are strictly musical, some of which relate short narratives: Youths fall in love; a man searches for his ideal mate.

“Tango Argentino” was “more showy, more for export” than Tango X 2, Plebs said during a phone interview from a recent tour stop in El Paso. “I think our show is more intimate--maybe more simple, but more intimate.”

It also strives for greater authenticity, she said.

“For instance, if we do the dance of the clubs [salon-tango style], it’s very slow, very simple. If we do the American ballroom tango, the movements are bigger and the steps are bigger. . . . We did a very intense research, studying different styles of the tango with popular teachers and dancers and through videos, books, articles and films.”

The program illustrates “a more happy and fun side of the tango,” Plebs said, which has been part of its essence--alongside a profound melancholy--almost from its inception in the late-19th Century.

Historians trace tango’s origins to Buenos Aires’ brothels. “Good girls” were prohibited from dancing it because “of the closeness of the bodies,” Plebs said, so men sought out prostitutes for partners.

But even before tango surfaced in bordellos, it was danced by African slaves and destitute European immigrants living on Buenos Aires’ streets, she said. “The tango has a sadness, which I think comes from these poor people and all the immigrants who left their countries to start again in a new country.”

The more upbeat element of tango, Plebs said, came from others who imitated original tango dancers’ basic figure-eight step, called an ocho . “They would draw an 8 on the floor with their foot, and all that was very fun, it was like a joke.”

Tango X 2 strives to show the full picture, Plebs said. “We try to express all of the different sides. It could be fun, it could be dramatic, it could be very quiet and inside, it could be explosive.

“As in life, you are not feeling the same always,” she said. “Sometimes you go dancing and you feel happy, sometimes you go dancing and you feel sad. Tango reflects that very clearly.”

Argentina’s social history is reflected in tango too. “Mi Buenos Aires Querido” pays homage to Azucena Maizani, a famous 1930s singer. The piece takes place in a shadowy, smoke-filled cafe devoid of women except for Maizani, who is dressed as a man.

“It was a way of being accepted because the society at that time was very machismo,” Plebs said. “There were many male tango singers and just a few women.”

One of those male singers, tango titan Carlos Gardel, is given a tribute as well, Plebs said, through works danced to his compositions. “He died 60 years ago or more, but there is a phrase that people in Argentina use: ‘Gardel, he sings better day by day.’ He is a national idol.”

The ocho is still the basis of the tango, Plebs said, embellished by walking steps, turns and fancy gancho , or hook, steps in which the man or the woman kicks inside the legs of his or her partner with stunning precision and speed.

Plebs, 34, began her training at the ballet barre, then switched to modern dance and performed with Argentina’s leading modern-dance troupe for six years. After she saw her first professional tango troupe, in which Zotto starred, she became his student.

“We started dancing together, and we joined ‘Tango Argentino’ seven months later,” re-creating a suave, romantic Rudolph Valentino-style tango as their tour de force.

Unlike some professional ballroom dancers, Plebs still finds time to dance for fun, which she prefers to performing, with its pressure of remembering choreography and myriad other details.

“In the clubs, you are improvising,” she said, “and especially for the woman, you let yourself go. The man is leading and you have to follow. So if your mind is blank, it’s better. It’s better if you don’t think. It’s better if you feel.”

* What: Tango X 2.

* When: Tonight at 8.

* Where: The Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

* Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Avenue exit north. Turn right from Bristol onto Town Center Drive.

* Wherewithal: $10 to $37.

* Where to call: (714) 553-2422.