It may only take two to tango, but in Buenos Aires, everyone seems to be doing it. Pedestrians on the sidewalk make way for tangoing young buskers in classy Recoleta or a couple of agile octogenarians in atmospheric old San Telmo. Whatever the barrio in this tango-obsessed city, somebody’s dancing.

Tango was born in San Telmo in the 1870s, spreading to its equally poor neighboring barrio, La Boca, as a music and dance of lower-class Porteños long before going worldwide in the roaring Twenties.

Sensual, sultry and seductive, it’s almost required of anyone visiting Buenos Aires. There are many ways to experience tango here. Watch a theatrically choreographed show (called tango de salón) performed to an orchestra — Teatro Astor Piazzolla is the best — or the more spontaneous and traditional tango milonguero at a milonga, or neighborhood dance hall, or on Sunday afternoons in San Telmo’s Plaza Derrego.

Often milongas like El Beso, which is operated by La Academia del Tango Milonguero, also give lessons. Or if you already tango, you can join right in. But not without the right footwear: Buy tango shoes at Artesanal, near Museo Casa Carlos Gardel, a new museum celebrating this art’s most legendary figure, Carlos Gardel. You’ll still find fresh flowers on his tomb at Cementerio la Chacarita.

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