It takes one Javier Bucher charges up Maine’s Tango lovers BY SARA DONNELLY

Javier Bucher is the reigning king of Portland’s Argentine Tango scene. For all intents and purposes, he is a benevolent ruler — as long as you maintain your poise, execute your twists, and generally give everything he teaches you the old college try, he has no problem with you. But hang out in the back of the Maine Ballroom Dance studio chatting with a friend for too long during his Tango class and his soft, thickly accented voice has been known to hitch up, strained and thin. He will interrupt you with a "Please, dance! Dance!", or something to that effect, coupled with a wave of both hands like a distracted mother urging her kids out to play. Argentine Tango may be the ultimate "social dance," but while the upper bodies of the pair can be pressed together in absolute stillness, the legs must always be moving. Bucher takes his dance seriously.

You can pick Bucher out of a crowd by his dark curly hair, even darker eyes, and still darker taste in tight T-shirts and pants. He exudes the easy sensuality one might expect from a world-class Tango teacher, mixed lately with a touch of secret restlessness that flickers across his face when he talks about traveling around the United States, which he has done more than once. He has been dancing the Tango in his native Argentina for about 20 years and here in Portland for two and a half. Back in Rosario City, where he learned the dance, Bucher also worked full-time as a psychiatrist specializing in public health. Here in Portland, he supplements the dance with a full-time gig with South Portland’s Tara Tango Shoes, working as the liaison with their shoe factory in Uruguay.

Members of his strong Tango following at Maine Ballroom Dance say the local Tango scene begins and ends in his six-foot frame. They say the Tango before him, well, it was always good. But now, the Tango is great.

"I’m in love with Tango," says an advanced student named James. "I knew right away, like, this is it. It was meant to be."

James runs an email list for local Argentine Tango enthusiasts that has ballooned over the past two years to include over 80 subscribers. He says Bucher is the main reason people are signing up.

"Before Javier, we couldn’t build enough sustained interest. He’s an excellent teacher. He’s friendly and accessible."

Sharon Pederson is a Senior Database Analyst and Programmer for Bowdoin College’s Information Technology Department. She’s also an Argentine Tango enthusiast. Pederson has been dancing for about 12 years and frequently drives down to Boston, where the scene is really hopping, to attend open Tango dances, or "milongas." Pederson says Bucher keeps the magic in the dance, which is why she agrees that he forms the core of the current Portland scene.

"What he’s done is he’s identified what the physical principles are that make it work," she says. "He also makes it interesting and fun so the whole way along you’ll feel like you’re dancing and moving. You can feel how magical the dance can be."

Argentine Tango is an improvisational couples dance in which, traditionally, the male partner acts as the leader and the female as the follower. Both dancers should have a good handle on a few basic moves (including the walk, the cross, and the figure eight) from which they can then mix and match and insert their own personality. Historically, the dance was used to help single Argentine men meet eligible, hot ladies whose parents otherwise wouldn’t leave them alone together, which might explain why the dance is all about communicating with your partner and finding your own special rhythm — as Pederson says on her Argentine Tango Web site: "It’s about making a connection of souls, ‘el Tango del corazón.’ "

On a recent Wednesday night, Pederson and about 30 other dance hobbyists gather at Maine Ballroom’s Congress Street studio for Bucher’s Tango class. Bucher runs classes from beginner to the advanced level, one after the other, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Often, participants will pay for more than one class for the privilege of dancing with a partner with more experience. Pederson arrives a little before six, a 5’10" woman with shoulder-length blonde hair pulled back in a loose half-ponytail and frizzed out around her face. Though Pederson has been dancing for over a decade, she still enjoys hanging out in the beginners’ class to brush up on the basics. Behind her, a brunette decked out in a black sequined dress and black Tango shoes with three-inch heels stands with her back to us, reading the GO! section and lazily flipping her arm slowly, slowly over her head and back down to her side, back and forth to the tune of "Moon River" pumping through the studio speakers.

Besides the three of us, the studio is empty. The mood seems distinctly reminiscent of one of my favorite dance films — Strictly Ballroom. Any minute, the music might suddenly change and dozens of black-clad Tango dancers will crowd the floor in an intense Tango competition in which hearts will be broken and lives will be transformed. Pederson doesn’t seem to feel the same dramatic tension. She adjusts her thick tan cardigan and talks a bit about her volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity.

Then she dives into a synopsis of the history of Argentine Tango, which she knows a lot about after having twice visited the birthplace of the style in Buenos Aires.

"It started around the late 1800s," she says. "Around the turn of the century in Buenos Aires. It was really, in a way, danced by male immigrants [from Spain] and was practiced in male social clubs. The number of women was very small and limited and [the men] would practice with each other."

The brunette turns to face us and walks dreamily across the floor, admiring her shoes.

Pederson continues.

"In Spanish culture then, the women were pretty much divided into two categories — they’d either be a prostitute or good decent girls. The good, decent girls were heavily chaperoned and the only time the men could talk to them was on the dance floor."

Traditionally, good, decent girls would hook up with experienced Tango partners after dropping the most subtle of hints. A brief moment of eye contact followed by the lady’s glance at the dance floor would be one way for a chaperoned woman to "choose" the man across the room who she wanted to be her partner. This tradition, says Pederson, was meant to save face for both parties.

"You would want to know before you got up to go over there that the person is always going to say yes."

Now, I could tell you that the dance that night in the beginner’s class was sometimes stilted, oftentimes careful, and occasionally intimate. I could also tell you the couples gliding across the floor in a tight embrace seemed to me necessarily romantic, el Tango del corazón. But don’t tell Bucher that. He believes we Americans see romance in the dance’s close embrace because we spend so much time everyday avoiding the touch of strangers in the supermarket. In Argentina, he says, this is not the case. Tango can be romantic, but the closeness of it isn’t unusual enough to make it necessarily so. Bucher seems to think America’s whole obsession with the romance of the Tango is a little ridiculous. Finally, after some thought, he reluctantly admits that the dance could be inherently intimate. He shrugs his shoulders high up to his ears and giggles.

"When you’re close to someone and you can feel the temperature of the other person’s body with your whole body, you can listen to the way the other person breathes, of course." He pauses to giggle again. "It’s very romantic."

Sara Donnelly can be reached at donnelly_sara@yahoo.com

Bucher runs the Wednesday night classes in unofficial blocks, meaning technically you can join at any time but realistically he doesn’t encourage beginners to sign up until June when the next block of lessons begins. Call Maine Ballroom Dance, (207) 773-0002.