TriANGulO
Carina Moeller's studio
for Argentine Tango
(btwn 6th & 7th Aves)
New York City, NY, 10011
(212) 633-6445
map
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TriANGulOCarina Moeller's studiofor Argentine Tango |
135 West 20th St, #301 (btwn 6th & 7th Aves) New York City, NY, 10011 (212) 633-6445 map | ||||
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - It is midnight in the meatpacking district and, while meat processing houses will be quiet for another two hours, the transvestite hookers are in full cry. Clients pull up in cars and the prostitutes scramble to greet them, careful not to get their high heels stuck between the cobblestones of the historic Manhattan streets.
But in a triangular building at the intersection of Hudson and West 14th streets, another world dances by.
From the sidewalk, strings of red and yellow party lights guide the eye to third-floor windows where couples mysteriously glide into view and then disappear and tango music drifts out among recently converted loft apartments.
Drawn by the darkly romantic rhythm, a visitor skirts past the entrance to a basement S&M club called Hellfire and past a first-floor biker bar called the Hogpit, rings a buzzer and climbs the stairs. Defunct gas light fixtures dot the walls on the way up, left over from the days when the building served as a Civil War hospital.
It costs $10 to get into the triangular dance studio, where a woman is led by her partner in a series of backward turns called ochos. Chest-to-chest, they look away from each other, through 20 or so other couples, toward worn red brick walls.
It is Tuesday night at Triangulo, the only dance school in New York devoted exclusively to Argentine tango.
Tango is becoming more popular in New York, due in part to its elegant depiction in recent movies and live shows such as Tango Argentino, now at the Gershwin Theater. If it were not so hard to do, it might well become a craze -- as swing dancing has -- in this craze-happy town.
Half a block south of 130-year-old landmark Old Homestead Steakhouse and half a block east of Dizzy Izzy's bagelry, it is at the crossroads of a neighborhood where hip new restaurants and galleries are opening on blocks known in the 1970s as New York's gay sex club mecca and ground zero for the U.S. East Coast AIDS crisis.
Triangulo was founded in 1997 by Hamburg-born, Berlin- and Buenos Aires-trained dance teacher Carina Moeller, who set out to create a place where tango students of all ages and backgrounds could take classes and socialize.
It has turned into a favorite spot for expatriate European and South American dance enthusiasts who shy away from Manhattan's larger, brighter and more impersonal studios.
"Triangulo is like the friendly corner bookshop you'd rather go to than one of the big chain bookstores," one of Moeller's students said.
"Some of the best dancers in the world come here to relax because it's a lot cozier than the other studios," said another. For example, Paris-based Pablo Veron, star of the 1998 film "The Tango Lesson," comes here when he is in town.
The true origins of tango are obscure but one tradition has it that the dance was developed in the early morning hours on the docks of Buenos Aires when stevedores and prostitutes gathered to relax after their night's work.
Moeller says tango is based on the simple act of walking. After one step, the next always comes with the other foot. "But it is important to dance it beautifully, and you can spend your whole life learning."
Simple in concept, complicated in execution, tango continuously challenges dancers to reach for step combinations that are more intricate and graceful. The payoff is that the union between partners and the music can be sublime.
Legs intertwine, capturing and releasing each partner in an interplay of tension and surrender.
Some of the more enthusiastic members of the city's tango circuit dance most nights as Manhattan offers at least one tango party each night. The other venues include ballroom dance studios and clubs that block certain times out for tango.
Word of mouth, a hotline at 718-35-TANGO and tango-devoted Web sites with addresses like http://www.tangonyc.com, will point you in the right direction.
"I come closer to my real self when I tango because there is no pretense," said Edith Shapiro, a clothing designer and Triangulo regular. "The goal is the moment and the step, not 'Where do I go next?' It's very intimate."
Shapiro has tangoed every night this week. "I'm not obsessed," she insisted, "but most people are."
She and others say tango provides a safe way for women to go out alone to dance without others assuming they are looking for a man. In fact, plenty of married men and women go out to dance without their spouses.
"Everybody seems single but they can't all be," one Triangulo patron said.
Moeller, the red-haired, swan-like high priestess of the dance, presides over a tango party called a milonga every Tuesday night and holds private and group classes on the other weeknights.
Back at the party, it is getting late and shoes are getting scuffed as the floor becomes crowded with dancers. The perfume on the ladies mixes with sweat, adding an extra dimension to the "good-love-gone-bad" atmosphere created by the lyrics.
The dancers have gotten their Tuesday night fix. But as sensual as the evening has been, most leave alone in the small hours of the morning, just as the meatpacking houses start to come to life.