Tango in Berlin: Dance until the police arrive

BERLIN - Even from a distance the large group of dancers is easy to spot. About 20 pairs bob and turn to the sound of tango music in front of a Berlin concert house. A sound system stands in the middle of the group, its speakers looking out from a pile of purses and bags. A cluster of spectators has formed along the edge of the improvised dance floor. At first they just look, but eventually they clap between numbers.

The organiser of the event, called a tango hit-and-run, is Thomas Rieser, who snaps photos with his digital camera. There were three such tango evenings in August in Berlin and more are planned.

The events are called hit-and-run because the dancers set up their sound equipment and start dancing. That’s the hit. They evacuate the area when the police come. That’s the run. The milonga, the word tango dancers use to describe a tango event, isn’t scheduled or registered as an official event.

“Until now there was just one time when the police asked us to leave in a friendly way,” said Rieser. “We are nice.” These hit-and-run tango events are, after all, a tourist attraction.

Rieser, a tango teacher, got the idea for the hit-and-run dances from San Francisco where in 2003 he organised “tango-for-peace” events that were part of larger demonstrations against the Iraq war.

In Berlin it’s just for fun, Rieser said. In the summer it’s more pleasant to dance outside at an interesting venue than inside overheated rooms, which in addition cost a lot of money to rent. It’s also more exciting than participating in regularly scheduled and well-attended milongas.

In the US hit-and-run tangos operate under the flash-mob concept. They have taken place in large cities like St Louis, Missouri, and smaller ones like Richmond, Virginia. The first hit-and-run tango in Central Park in New York City in 1997 has even developed into an established milonga.

At the Berlin milonga in August Rieser waited for the last tone of a tango and shut off the sound system around 9 p.m. He called to the dancers to carry on and they collected their bags and purses and headed to a nearby plaza. Soon about 80 people moved to the music on the edge of Berlin’s famous Unter den Linden street.

Women wore high-heeled shoes or sandals, while the majority of men were in gym shoes. The average age of the crowd was early 30s. The dancers’ legs flew and crossed over one another while beads of sweat glistened in the light of a street lamp. After a few rapid-paced numbers many tango dancers stood exhausted on the sidelines.

Facebook in addition to word-of-mouth communication is an important instrument for getting the word out, Rieser said. The hit-and-run group in the social networking website has more than 200 members.

About 40 dancers came to the first event during the summer in Berlin. The second, held on the Kurfuerstendamm, a famous shopping and entertainment avenue, had about 60. The first ever milonga organised by Rieser in Berlin took place last year.

The last station in the August evening’s milonga was at Pariser Platz in front of the Brandenburg Gate after 10 p.m. It had to be moved to a location on the bank of the Spree River because a film crew was working at the Berlin landmark.

But as soon as it was set up at the new location electro-tango music rang from between one building with a glass facade and another with a concrete facade. Before asking the woman seated next to him for a dance, one tango dancer said the surrounding architecture fit the music better than the gate would have.

Rieser announced around 11.30 p.m that he had received permission on the spot for the dance to continue until midnight, and the dancers cheered.

When the dancing is over most of the participants throw some money into a bag. It is being collected so that the sound system, which the group borrowed, can be purchased and used to continue hit-and-run tangos.