el Catedral

It's fitting that the very neighourhoods of Buenos Aires in which tango was born are now becoming home to venues for young people to dance and listen to it. Neighbourhoods like Almagro, historic home to tango legend Carlos Gardel, are full of small underground bars, theatres and clubs where not only tango but independant theatre and art flourish.

It's a formula we've seen in cities all over the world. You've got a run down, working class neighbourhood where the rents are low. Artists, many of whom are not of the working class stock the neighbourhood is made up of, flock there, because of ample cheap studio and living space. Low rent means less time working the lame day job, more time being creative. (Of course, the cycle finishes off when the artists and related activity transform the face of the neighbourhood into something more broadly appealing, it becomes an attractive place to live for the yuppie class, and rents go up, eventually driving out the original inhabitants. Gentrification, baby.)

Almagro, though, has not become completly gentrified as of yet. It's still in the stage where it's just home to a lot of great theatre and underground clubs. Like El Catedral, where I ended up both Wednesday and Thursday nights. I don't know what it used to be before. It's huge vaulted ceilings recall a silo or warehouse. A humungous open space, with worn hardwood floors, an ecelectic mismatch of tables and chairs I'm sure were pulled out of the garbage, with an open dance floor/performance space in the middle. The walls are covered with a range of, well, stuff, some we could refer to as art, others that some would, nicely, call found objects, or less nicely, call junk. The crowning piece is a huge red fabric lampshade/chandelier that mildly resembles an oversized, deformed heart. The bar is run by a group of guys who supposedly live on the premises, though I'm not sure where. The bar was quite the going concern for a while, but then was closed down for a while. It's been open again for a couple of months, and getting back on its feet.

Thursdays are milonga nights at the Catedral. Tango dancing, though nothing resembling your stereotypical tango affair. The revival of tango amongst Buenos Aires' youth means that they dance tango in a way adapted to their own style. so on the Catedral's dance floor you see everything from jeans, shorts and sports sandals to those baggy canvas hippy pants. And a couple of couples dressed to the nines in low-cut dresses and dress pants and shirts. A pair of high, strappy heels is obligatory for the woman, though, no matter what their style.

And so we just watched them dance. And joined in for a couple of songs. But the endless variations of styles and personalities on any packed tango dancefloor is quite mesmerizing. And as opposed to your traditional milonga, a quirky, informal milonga at a place like the Catedral for me represents the new, modern, evolving face of the artform. It's fascinating.