When you walk into the Tango, the first thing you feel is surprise. On a Chinese street in the heart of Paris, right at the north of the gay “Marais” district, there is a place out of time. Behind the plain doors, leatherette booths and old wooden floorboards take us straight back to a lost past. Beat-box techno has never crossed those doors. The music is already different from other clubs – a mix of French “oldies”, pop songs, and world music – and the “bal musette” before midnight. Willfully off-trend. Aside from the waltzing and the tango and the twosteps, the club holds theme nights, drag shows, and then the dancefloor fills up like a regular nightclub. Do not, however, expect a regular nightclub scene when you walk through the door under the watching eye of Club-mistress Hervé, “La Taulière” once a teacher, now an occasional drag queen and a faithful keeper of his nightly flock.

What exactly is the Tango? A gay, lesbian and transgender club, open on Friday and Saturday nights at 11, rue au Maire, in the 3rd arrondissement (Arts et Métiers station). It is close enough to the center of Paris to merit a mention, but far enough from the center of city nightlife to escape the dictatorship of fashion. Resolutely eccentric. For the opening hours, the club hosts a “bal musette” during which the dancefloor is dedicated to couple dancing. It is the only bal musette of its kind in France; possibly even in the world. Experienced dancers twirl round the dancefloor whilst the onlookers watch, rapt, amused, tender. Everyone comes together for the famous Madison, which marks the start of the second part of the evening, and little by little everyone melts into one crowd. The dancefloor is small, encouraging promiscuity. Out-of-breath dancers and wide-ranging conversations sprawl on the leatherette booths, as is always the case when night and music mix.

In some ways the Tango is just like sodomy: understanding and appreciation come with practice. Only then can you truly consider yourself acolyte or enemy. You don’t just happen upon the Tango; you settle in. Your eyes accommodate the twilight which wraps around peoples’ inhibitions but hides nothing else; your ears tune in to all those well-known songs which shape the easy-going atmosphere around the dance-floor.

Ironically, proudly, the Tango is the most hetero-geneous (!) of gay clubs. While you might mostly see graying-haired people at the ‘bal’ and dyed blond highlights afterwards, people of all ages cheerfully mix within the club. It is no place for sectarianism, even if men are in the majority. Hervé is clear: “I’m not a ‘lesbro’. But I’m proud that girls come here too and feel safe.” Straight people are spotted here sometimes too, as long as they behave, but Hervé is vigilant about the mix, “to keep the soul of this place alive”.

One night I was sitting in the Tango with a friend when a middle-aged man came up to us and asked us where in the room he should be standing. He shook his head as we pointed out potentially good spots in the club, and finally sat next to us, only “until he found the right place.” Through his disillusioned eyes, the whole place seemed different, a heap of bodies getting high on sweat and sound. What is there to do when you’re alone in a nightclub? What can you do once you’ve stopped pretending to have found your spot? He needed a place to sit and find his breath again, and with this breath put a name to his helplessness. The Tango is “something else”, somewhere he could talk and have someone listen. A listening ear doesn’t cure loneliness, but it eases the ill and spawns the hope that someplace, sometime, you might find the right person to whisper sweet things to.

The Tango is a one-night getaway where people come to be themselves in the dance, the drinks, the sound of Dalida and Madonna on the speakers, in the company of glamorous transvestites whose outward sensuality and femininity would make many women blush. It is when you can forget about what you show than you can find who you are, softly. The Tango transcends gender, sexuality, age and time itself. It is a place in which to laugh, share, and let go – to take a deep breath before you leave again. And sometimes – it happens – as you wander through the club, you’ll find a spot where you belong.

A suivre... Une interview de La Taulière sera publiée demain !

MARION TRICOIRE
(Texte écrit dans le cadre d'un cours sur l'écriture d'articles de magazine, au sein de l'Université Américaine de Paris)