Forget the cheek-to-cheek stuff, the dip-your-partner-to-the-floor routine while clenching a long-stemmed rose between your teeth.
There is only one true way to tango, says Steven Payne, and that is to get a group of friends together, turn on some lively South American music and do the Argentine tango.
"Anything else is just Hollywood," he says, slipping into his dance shoes for another practice session with the Wasatch Tango Club at Salt Lake City's DanceSport studio. "Once the Argentine tango bites you, it's too late. It becomes your passion, it takes over your life. You have no choice except to do it."
As president of the tango club, Steven, 32 — who works in a kitchen supply shop when he isn't on the dance floor — feels a responsibility to share his love for the tango with everyone he meets. He recently invited me to join him for a Free Lunch of tea sandwiches and cookies at one of the group's weekly gatherings, hoping to hook yet another person on the dance that changed his life.
"My wife and I took ballroom dancing lessons," he says, "but it never was as fun as this. A lot of women would probably have to drag their husbands to try the tango. Most guys in this country don't dance. But look at this." He motions to more than a dozen men, gracefully leading the club's female members around the studio's shiny dance floor.
"Once they try it," says Steven, "they become obsessed. Like no other dance, the tango forms an immediate connection with another person. There's no competition — it's a social dance. Your score is whether the woman says 'ahhh' at the end of the dance."
There are always more than enough sighs to go around when the tango club gets together. These people can't wait to embrace each other and glide around the room.
"I almost felt like I was dead until I found tango," says Joan Moon, 57, a former member of Repertory Dance Theater who now makes a living in real estate. "It has the essence of an intimate relationship with somebody you don't know, but from the ribs down, you don't even touch. It's a blending of the hearts, that's what it is. A blending of souls."
Wilson Butz, a 29-year-old clinical psychology student, secretly longed to learn the Argentine tango for years, ever since he saw a movie about the dance several years ago. Then, while sitting in a coffee bar one day with his wife, he looked up and saw a flier about the Wasatch Tango Club. The next day, he and Ashley signed up for lessons.
"It adds to everything in your life — your marriage, your job," he says, watching Ashley, four months pregnant, spin around the room with Steven. "When we learned the tango, we pulled up the rugs and turned our dining room into a dance floor. Now we tango every chance we get."
After the birth of their son three years ago, Steven and his wife, Jane, started bringing Benjamin's crib to tango sessions, rather than miss out on dancing. Benjamin even tagged along on a six-week vacation in Argentina, so his parents could indulge their dream of sharing the dance floor with some of the best tango dancers in the world.
"One of us would watch Benjamin and the other would go dancing," says Steven. "We danced with as many people as we could, but I never walked up to the table to ask for a dance. You're considered a clod if you do that in tango. Instead, you make an agreement with your eyes."
When you know how to tango, he says with a smile, no words are needed.
Have a story? Let's hear it over lunch. E-mail your name, phone number and what's on your mind to freelunch@desnews.com or send a fax to 466-2851. You can also write me at the Deseret News, P.O. Box 1257, Salt Lake City, UT 84110.