On Friday nights, tango moves out of its Argentinean confines and into a comfy little Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village, aptly named The East Village Ukrainian Restaurant.
There, a group gathers off to the side of the restaurant to dance and listen to the music. These milongas, as the tango parties are called, attract a variety of folks.
One cold February night, there was a former New York Knicks dancer, Rebecca, with her Wall Street-type boyfriend, Steve; couples from France who could speak very little English but were eager to talk about their love for tango; another couple, Ivan and Sara, who met dancing tango, as well as first-timers from the former Yugoslavia and long-time tango lovers from Argentina and Ecuador.
They all have their own reasons for gathering at the milonga. Some want to make new friends and do something out of the ordinary; others just want to dance the night away.
Listen to the sounds of tango and the voices of the dancers as they tell the story of how they ended up in an East Village Ukrainian restaurant dancing to Argentinean music surrounded by people from all over the world.
