The heart of Buenos Aires

By PETER CALDER

The sound was scratchy but the tempo was unmistakable and within seconds a small crowd had formed. In the square where they hold the Sunday antiques market in San Telmo, the fashionable inner-city barrio of Buenos Aires, the air was thick with tango. Ringed three-deep with curious onlookers, the couple danced, cheek-to-cheek.

But something wasn't right. Instead of tight trousers and fedora, this man wore track pants and a cheesecutter. The woman was modestly clad in a jersey pantsuit rather than a swirling satin dress, split to the neck. Their movements, as befitted a couple of octogenarians, were slight, almost shuffling — quite devoid of the tango's extravagant twirls and flourishes. And they were smiling.

They were breaking all the rules, as old people have a habit of doing. Even a nodding acquaintance with the tango will demonstrate that it's a dance of lithe and leonine grace, practised by rake-thin couples in pinstripe suits and fishnet stockings. It may drip with sexual tension but it's devoid of sexiness. The dancers, cemented together at temple and waist, never make eye contact. And they never smile.

If Vienna invented the waltz and the cancan was born in the music halls of Paris, Buenos Aires gave us the tango. And in this dance can be read the story of the city.

The songs blend gaucho verse with the gypsy-tinged music of the Old World played by a combo typically composed of piano, bass, violin and bandoneon — a keyless, button accordion.

It was considered the vulgar pursuit of the demimonde, until Carlos Gardel, who was known as "El Zorzal Criollo" or "the songbird of BA" took it to the concert platforms of Europe and made it fashionable among the Argentine elite.

He earned immortality the Buddy Holly way by dying young, in 1935, in a plane crash. In memory, he lives, enthusiastically impersonated in cabarets and by street-corner buskers, and portenos still remark that "Gardel sings better every day."

Now the tango — the song and the dance — is as inseparable from the spirit of the city as the blues is from Memphis. Tango blares from record shops and drifts through the air in restaurants and cafes as well. It warbles from the windows of private houses. One FM station has nothing else on its playlist.

Hip classical musicians like violinist Yo-Yo Ma, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Daniel Barenboim are a few of many who have recorded albums of tango music, although the portenos are sceptical that foreigners can get its measure.

Unsurprisingly, the tango is one of Buenos Aires' principal tourist attractions. No visitor should leave town without taking in one of the dinner tango shows which, while pricey ($100 for dinner and performance), showcase the work of the city's finest dancers and singers.

But, as the octogenarians in the marketplace attest, it is not only after dark and under lights that the tango is to be heard and seen. Keep your eyes and ears open on the street and you're bound to be rewarded with at least a glimpse of the heartbeat of Buenos Aires.

• Peter Calder travelled to the home of the tango as a guest of Aerolineas Argentinas.