Free Hold Me Tight and Tango Me Home by Maria Finn Page A

anything to do with the Indians, the cowboys, and especially the Africans. Still, the backlash from the top of the social hierarchies was fierce.
    Queen Mary announced that tango must be banned from any society affairs that she attended. Kaiser Wilhelm officially forbade the tango; officers in the army or navy would be dismissed if they were even seen in places where the tango was danced. The pope weighed in and expressed the official disapproval of the Vatican, and the archbishop of Paris outlawed the dance.
    Despite this, the masses continued to dance and the tango flourished. As an editorial writer during that time pointed out, “Tango teas are a symptom of a common complaint, namely — the need for more happiness and more individual expression in life.” Tango was popular with older, wealthy women whose husbands worked late or traveled out of town, so New York establishments started hiring accomplished male dancers to entertain them. These young men were designated “gigolos,” the most famous being a tall, dark, and handsome immigrant from Italy, Rudolph Valentino, who originally wanted to be a gardener.Valentino was having a hard time finding work in New York City, so he started dancing professionally. He worked his way from New York to Hollywood as a tango escort and teacher (still hoping to be a landscaper), and then started working as an extra in silent films. He was cast as an Argentinean who danced tango in the movie
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
(1921), which not only made him a star but helped fan the tango craze internationally. This created the fantasy — or stereotype — of the Latin Lover.
    I kept hearing that tango was now on the rise around the world. A popular television show,
Dancing with the Stars
, matched famous and quasifamous people with professional dancers. They competed in ballroom and Latin dance. I cringed when I watched the show, though, admittedly, I rarely missed it. Sometimes I had to call Claire and lament, “Dear God, Wayne Newton is dancing something they’re calling the tango. It’s terrible, but I can’t seem to avert my eyes.”
    “What’s a Wayne Newton?” she asked.
    “He’s a singer, I think,” I answered.
    Then I’d get upset when the professional dancer gave a completely inaccurate history of the tango. Once, the professional dancer informed millions of viewers that you keep your back straight in tango because that’s the way Argentinean cowboys ride horses. I’d yell, “No! You’re so wrong,” at the television set. It was a highly emotional hour for me. But apparently this show has more and more Americans out there learning the waltz, chacha, and tango.
    In New York City you could find at least one milonga every night of the week, and this subculture didn’t seem to have much influence on the mainstream. At a milonga I attended one night, couples left the dance floor and made their way toward a card table laden with stale cookies and crackers and malleable potato chips; Breast Nester, the man who liked to dance with tall women so he was at eye level with their cleavage, came to the table and helped himself to a saltine and a squirt of wine out of the box. This didn’t really feel like a glamorous craze — it was more like a random club.
    Allen and I helped ourselves to some snacks.
    “Hey, how did your date go the other day?” I asked Allen.
    “Really well,” he said. “We’ve gone out once since then and I think we’ll see each other again. She’s really interesting.”
    “What’s that mean?” I asked.
    “You know, it was good. She was interesting.” He blushed a little.
    “Interesting in a good way, hmm,” I said. “So there was chemistry?”
    “Yep,” he said. And I thought I saw him smile a little. Then he blushed, “At least, I think so,” he added.
    Allen asked Marcel, who had joined us, about what he did for a living. He wanted to make conversation but almost immediately knew that this was a faux pas. People were here