Love affair

Tango dancers in Europe are a unique breed. Wherever they go – whether on overnight business trips or skiing holidays – they tend to bring their dance shoes along. The uninitiated who land in Berlin and ask local aficionados where they can go dancing are asked to be more specific: what kind of floor, music, style do they like? Do they want to be out late, later, or early?

In the milonga metropolis

On any given Sunday, for example, the tango enthusiast in Berlin has nine venues to choose from.

The spectrum extends from the musty backroom of Max and Moritz, one of Kreuzberg’s oldest pubs, to the lofty salon of the Löwenpalais villa in Grunewald; from the clear sweep of linoleum at Estudio Sudamerica in Mitte to the packed parquet of the Tango Loft in Wedding. If it’s summer, there may be open air tango under the colonnades of the Museum Island or on the sloped plane in front of the Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz. And that’s Sunday – not really a big night for going out. Berlin, the world’s second largest tango metropolis after Buenos Aires, is home to an estimated 80 tango teachers, 2000 students and uncountable droves of recreational dancers. What explains the immense popularity of ...