Tango Pimping

This is kind of an irrelevant post with all that's gone on in Greece. What can I say that hasn't been said already? There are plenty of other blogs covering this perfectly well. Last night I was at a show and while I was watching, I thought it would make good blog fodder. So here you go.

I shall not name any names, suffice to say it was a tango show and I went to support my brilliant and long-suffering tango teacher. I thought he was the best dancer, and always give him extra brownie points for tolerating my complete inability to progress in tango.

Now, we all know the history of tango and how it began in the brothels of Argentina, blahdy blah blah, and that tango is serious and dark and full of people making orgasm faces. Whatevs, said I, and went along for some light entertainment.

This is how it played out. Here's the story:

La Vie en Rose is playing. That must mean we're in Paris, chérie! A bunch of tango peeps are sitting in a cafe and enjoying themselves. They then break into spontaneous tango. Hurrah! Tango over, they go sit down. But, quelle horreur ! What is this? The hot waitress is being molested by a customer! He proceeds to rip off her skirt and tango-molest her. Then he decides he's packing this hot tottie off to Argentina with him. I could see it coming. She looked too happy.


Nooo wails the waitress, and the waiter tries in vain to wrestle her away from the evil Argentine, but he succeeds in taking her away. See, when I read that in the programme I thought they fall in love and run away to Argentina. But oh well. Kidnapping is good too.

The scene changes. On the boat over from Paris, the kidnapped and molested waitress gets a change of wardrobe and a lobotomy, because now she's totally happy to be hanging out with her kidnapper in Buenos Aires. But hark... all the other women here are prostitutes, and the head hooker ain't having none of this. She marches over to the evil Argentine and they dance, of course.

Dancing over, the fawning waitress is thrown to the group of hookers and then she realises she's been trafficked. Heinous!

Much tango dancing ensues along with looks of anguish from the waitress who is being dressed by all the other happy hookers of Buenos Aires. She's all weepy and stuff until she spots her pimp again, and then she's all "Yay there's my pimp!" Lots of hugs and dancing ensue.

The scene changes. Waitress has again decided she's pretty pissed at her involuntary change of career and delivers a passionate modern dance interpretation of her misery. Then the waiter from Paris appears and they're both like "OMG where have you been all this time! Let's go back to Paris."

But oh no, you guys! There's the pimp again! And he's not letting go of his prize cash cow. Dance fighting ensues, the waitress tries to flee onto a boat, and is stabbed by the jealous head hooker and DIES!

The End.

And now what's happening? Everyone is dancing again. So is this part of the show or what? Are they in heaven now? If so, why is everyone wearing black? Or is Hell this tangotastic?

I was sitting there, feeling totally depressed by all this. The dancing was great, no question, and the live music absolutely wonderful. But jeez, people. I came out to have my spirits lifted and ended up thinking about human trafficking, and that made me feel sad.