Tango and La Cámpora

On a recent Sunday a friend and I strolled down Defensa, the weekly site of a lively artisans' fair, looking for a tango lesson. Our pursuit led us to the local office of La Cámpora, the youth-led movement founded by Máximo Kirchner to support his father's campaign for president in 2003. There a Sunday evening class was offered free to the public, though a small donation for the local was requested at the end of the dancing. The 7 of us, all more or less beginners, followed the instructor's lead with uncertain steps, surrounded by the gaze of Juan and Eva Perón and their political heirs, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. "This is a dance where you have to learn to lead or be led," she said. "There are not steps, only feeling." The tango crosses Argentina's socioeconomic divisions. It is cultural patrimony for many Argentines. La Cámpora likely offers free tango classes for the same reason it makes temples to politicians past and present, to encourage a kind of nationalism that sees Argentina's destiny as apart from the world's.