Last night I went to Atlantis, a Tallahassee bar and grill sort of restaurant with fine food and atmosphere. One half of the dig is the restaurant, the other a dance lounge sort of place with nice cabaret-style booths along one side, a raised DJ stand on the other with a large mirror in front of it, and a fairly good floor. There is dancing on most evenings.
Wednesday is advertised as the "Argentine Tango" night. I do remember several years ago coming to Atlantis on Tuesdays to dance (they switched to Wednesdays some time ago)-- I DJ-ed some of those events. Those were the days when we actually danced tandas of argentine tangos, milongas, and valses. The floor was crowded most of the time. Then things changed.
The music was really nice last night, but it was not tango at all, most of the pieces did not even resemble tango. Again, very nice, but not tango. I watched as one or two couple danced and was amused. While at least one couple danced very creatively, they did not seem to need the music to dance at all. So, clearly the fact that they moved about with some form of tango-like steps and figures to non-tango music did not matter to them.
I enjoyed the music and left after about an hour with no dancing to speak of. I miss Buenos Aires.
Clearly, for the people in Rio de la Plata region, tango is part of the culture, for the rest of the world it is only a dance.
