Tango stirs dance veterans and beginners

Below a ceiling draped in blue and white twinkle lights, people of all ages danced the Argentine tango Sunday afternoon at the darkened Ruba Club in Northern Liberties.

Some wore sneakers, others were in dress shoes.

Meredith Klein, 37, codirector of the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School, looked to her six years in Buenos Aires to describe what she saw.

"Tiene onda," she said in Spanish: there was a good vibe.

The dance was one of many workshops at the club associated with the four-day Philadelphia Tango Festival, which ends Monday. More than 300 people turned out over the weekend, some staying up until 6 a.m. Sunday to participate in milongas, or social dances. The festival was the second Klein had organized, with the first in 2010. She said she planned to hold another on Memorial Day weekend next year.

Argentine tango, sometimes called the "original tango," began in Buenos Aires in the 1890s, said Klein, who grew up in Philadelphia in a non-Spanish-speaking family. The dance, she said, is more social and improvisational than the ballroom tango most people are familiar with.

"Learning tango is endless — there's always more, and you're still working and figuring out the dance," Klein said.

Cigdem "Ciko" Tanik, one of the veteran dancers, born in Turkey, said, "It's like an amazing hug that you can share with someone you've met for the first time. It can be playful, it can be sensual — it's not like anything else I know."

Tanik, 39, came from New York for the weekend to teach an intermediate-level workshop with her dance partner of nine years, Adam Hoopengarden, 29. Tanik started dancing the Argentine tango because the music drew her in, but said her enjoyment now came from the social aspect, describing tango as "therapeutic."

Klein, cofounder of the school and a Philadelphia native, stumbled upon tango as an undergraduate studying music theory at Amherst College in Massachusetts, and took up the dance in 1999 after her friends took lessons. In 2005, she moved to Buenos Aires, where she met her current dance partner, Andres Amarilla. The two returned to Philadelphia and founded the school, in Fishtown, together in 2008.

The Argentine tango is about the details, Klein said. The follower does not know what the leader will improvise next, bringing the couple into the moment.

"Even if done with precision, it can be difficult," Klein said.

The dance can be learned at any age and dancers will never stop learning, Klein said. Each person who takes up the dance has a different story or background, she said.

Another of the dance instructors, Damian Lobato, an Argentine native who lives in Philadelphia, went to the Ruba Club dance events with his American-born wife, Sarah Choung, one of his former students.

Ten years ago, Lobato, 40, was a dentist. But seeking a life of travel and fun, he turned to the tango.

Today, Lobato said he is doing what he loves. He now teaches three group classes and five to 15 private classes per week through the school.

"It is in my body to dance," Lobato said.