Don't get into an argument with an Argentine tango dancer. You will be beaten to a pulp, mercilessly, especially if she is a woman. If the subject of the "discussion" is tango dancing, pray.

At first you will think you are just prompting a friendly conversation. You've been happily chatting atop a Congreso apartment rooftop, enjoying the spring breeze and red wine and red steak. The asado behind you is still grilling more meat and there are still three more rounds of meat-passing until it becomes polite to refuse the plate that gets passed around the table. Your friends, the hosts, have settled and everyone has caught up on current job situations, the weather, and photos of new nieces and nephews. At the end of a round of stories and jokes, everyone around you is relaxed and smiling, experiencing the aftershocks of laughter, while you are still not sure whether or not you understood the last couple of "burlas," mentally analyzing some of the language, knowing that "in balls" and "the egg sucks me" have to have some deeper, more poetic meaning in English when stated so fiercely in the context of playful conversation.

What you don't know is that before the first comment is even made regarding tango, the scene has been set. She is armed. The food has fueled her, the wine has started to stoke her embers, and the breeze is providing enough oxygen to turn words into fire.

Then she will begin to raise her voice and it begins. Argentines have a genetic advantage when it comes to arguing. They are born into a maelstrom of passion, language, and the unexpected, improvisational expression being an important survival skill.

It doesn't have a very clear beginning or end, but the middle is beautiful. Long strings of explanations with more "egg"-sucking and "balls" this and "son-of-a-bitch" that. But somehow it has a rhythm and flow. She turns to her boyfriend, fifteen years her junior, and argues with him about how unfair life is, tango is, learning it these days. It took her twenty five years to get where she is, and for him it only five years of lessons. She talks about how there are clear "right" and "wrong" ways of dancing in tango, no matter what kind of beautiful "interpretations" may have evolved. Talking is not enough. She grabs him from the table, yanking him mid sip from his mate, to demonstrate. When she finishes, she plops back into her chair and continues her point.

What she doesn't know is that her voice and her body language are paying homage to years of dancing tango, humbling her boyfriend who only manages a few feeble attempts to counter her points, talking about how he loves when women provide their own interpretation of the music or when young dancers create their own styles. Occasionally others at the table interject their own opinions as well. She nods, then tosses their ideas off the roof, her hands like swords, chopping through the air as she speaks. Throughout the course of her debate, she dances with almost everyone at the table at different times to make different points, sometimes as the leader and sometimes as the follower. It doesn't matter that she is in platform wedges and jeans so tight they could be painted on her. She is the one with the balls now.

At the end of the night, if you are lucky enough to still be standing and comprehending all this, somehow the conversation will be over, dropped like a dead fly. She will kiss you on the cheek and tell you what a pleasure it has been, she is sorry, but unfortunately she has to be somewhere by 5am.

Chan-chan.