The city is dirty and run down but traces of former colonial splendour still push through the bustling mayhem like the weeds through cracked pavements. I was lured here by the promise of glamour and romance. They are here, and you can find them if you chase them like an aroma on the air. Listen and follow the distinctive notes of the tango. Tango is one of Argentina’s most successful exports, and a lucrative source of hard currency for the many young dancing couples seeking to escape an economy battered by recession. Competition between couples is fierce, and fashions of dancing change very subtly from one year to the next. This year the fashion is for a close embrace, the dancers clinging to each other with a desperate passion as though every dance was their last. Last year was an angled embrace, the women dancing precariously on their tip toes, reliant on the skilful manoeuvres of their partners to avoid an ungainly fall. The tango, like the city itself is a hotch-potch of influences. Formal European ballroom dancing imported by the British collided with canyengue a dance developed by African slaves. The result is a dance that is simultaneously sensual and restrained, intimate but with strict and complex social rules. Tango can only be danced on a smooth floor otherwise the tiny heels of the women’s expensive shoes catch in the imperfections. The ceiling of a dance hall may be crumbling, but the floor will be pristine. Unfortunately, cave ins at packed venues are not unknown. At traditional dance clubs women sit together on tiered seating like gorgeously plumed roosting birds. The men move around trying to catch the eye of a potential partner. It would be easy to assume that the man’s request for a dance through a prolonged stare, the “mirada” followed by the woman’s acquiescence via the subtlest of nods – the “cabaceo”, often conducted across a crowded room, make tango a patriarchal dance. Not so. The dance originated in the clubs of early 20th century Buenos Aires where immigrant male workers from all over the world vastly outnumbered women. The only way to dance with a woman was to display the appropriate level of skill. A skill that could only be learned through months of practice with the only available partner – another man. It remains common, and perplexing for Westerners, to see men of all ages dancing together at practice sessions “practicas” normally conducted in the afternoons or early evening. Here teaching is encouraged and mistakes tolerated. It is at the practicas where you will discover next year’s tango fashion in development. Is the emphasis on turns or lifts? Are movements jerky or smooth? Understated or overstated? Over the season a consensus is formed. Couples are not possessive; partner swapping is routine. It is a mark of the skill of a dancer to be able to accommodate the quirks of a stranger. Buenos Aires embraces its tango tourists. One district is purely shoe shops, specialising in sexy but sturdy high heels, another makes the loose fitting baggy trousered suits favoured by dancers to order in a few days. Everything must be paid for in US dollars. The pinnacle of the social scene is the milonga – the evening dance. Foreigners are not treated as an intrusion, but accepted as a feature of a city where immigration was the norm. At the Confiteria Ideal, an iconic pillared venue, impeccably suited elderly men graciously and skilfully dance with blushing young tourists. At La Viruta the evening is only beginning at eleven. Young beginners stumble around the floor, slowly making way for the local experts, who appear like emerging fireflies in the early hours of the morning. People who dance for a living rarely need an early start. The middle aged are conspicuously absent. Many are home with their families in this conservative country. Many never learned to dance: victims of a generation where dancing was an act of political subversion. The distinctive sound of tango music, syncopated and oscillating between major and minor keys, reflects the fortunes of the country. Joyful, hopeful but layered with a deep sadness. The tango both an expression of emotion and a portal for escape.