Sensuality, power and desire, but the thigh's the limit

THE tango began in the backstreets and brothels of Buenos Aires. Like the flamenco in Spain, it grew in popularity as a national dance the more Argentina was dominated by outside influences.
Tango Fire opened in a smoky replica of a dance hall, with band, singer, and five black-haired men cruising and appraising the women, offering invitations to dance with a discreet raise of the eyebrow to avoid humiliation should they be refused.
This peacock display was wonderfully executed, with an almost identical straightening of tie, adjustment of cuffs, a slide of hand over oiled hair, and a cocky smirk.
It was rather like looking at a boxed set of Antonio Banderases. The routines were dazzling. If flamenco is mostly about the feet, then tango is all about the lower leg.
With torsos aligned, the lower legs twirled with a life of their own, and snapped with a knee-jerk kick backwards and forwards through the half opened legs of their - obviously trusting - partners. The leg was also employed to curl like a velvet vice along the man's taut spine.
The second half, on a bare set except for the band, contained more of the sensual moves you expect from the tango, the kind you get arrested for. Those poised initial movements slid, as they do, into desire-filled horizontal clinches, which could but end in the man's agonised face being laid upon his partners stomach, and his wide-fingered hand being slid along her long thigh. That's the tango for you: beats a night in watching television any day.The 10 dancers were impressively skilled, and visually stunning, the women's dresses slit to the thigh and glowing with colour and jewelled embellishment. It was inspiring to watch the power displayed as those strong women were tossed arrogantly up and over the head, hurled downwards, and nonchalantly aided to glide mercury-like across the floor. To add to all that was the virtuosity of the band, Quatrotango, made up of violin (Marcelo Rebuffi), bandoneon (Hugo Satorre), piano (Gabriel Clenar) and double bass (Gerardo Scaglione). Their soulful, minor-keyed music was painfully beautiful and conjured visions of an ardent Argentina.