It was after midnight in Eugene and, after getting a few drinks with a friend, I was walking on a fairly quiet strip of downtown. Aside from a few bars, all the businesses were closed. It almost felt like a ghost town. All of a sudden, in the middle of this dark, quiet block, there were lights and Latin music emanating from a building. I peered in through the window and saw people dancing. But this wasn’t the kind of fast-paced, pelvic-thrusting, hips-gyrating dancing you’d find at a club. This was a smooth, elegant and sensual dance. This was tango.

With my curiosity piqued, a couple weeks later I decide to investigate further into this tango scene. After all, this is Eugene, not exactly the first place you think of when you think of tango, a dance with its roots in Argentina.

I discover that not only does The Tango Center in downtown Eugene feature regular tango dancing, but that there is a sizable community of regular tango dancers in the city. When I go into the center to inquire about lessons on Saturday nights, Greg Bryant, the executive director, tells me to expect about 100 people.

While there aren’t quite that many people on my visit on a recent Saturday night, there is still a fairly solid turnout. I arrive a few minutes late to the eight o’clock lesson for beginners, but quickly join the circle in time to introduce myself and to name my favorite ice cream flavor, as we are all asked to do.

After the opening ice breaker, we stay in the circle while Charles and Liz, our two young instructors, go into the center to talk briefly about tango and to ease us into the basic moves. We then find a partner and slowly begin to tango.

Still in the circle and walking counter-clockwise, we learn how to lead, follow, walk backwards (trusting our partner won’t lead us into the couple ahead), pause, side-step and spin, making sure to keep our pivot foot in relatively the same position.

Throughout the one-hour lesson, Liz frequently mentions that we are one of the best groups she’s taught. I hope she doesn’t say that to all the groups.

At the end of the lesson, to prepare us for the open dancing that follows, Charles and Liz give us a few final tips. If we see someone we want to dance with, we stare at them from across the room. If they stare back, we know they are interested. This saves us from the embarrassment of walking across the room to ask for a dance, only to be turned away in rejection. Also, when we ask someone to dance, it is expected that that will include a three-song set, as is tradition.

Inside the dimly lit center, there are tables and chairs along the perimeter of the large wood dance floor. A couple of reddish lamps on the walls and a few strands of Christmas lights provide most of the lighting. With the arch in the back of the building and the tropical-looking plants that evoke images of South America, it’s easy to forget that we are in the Pacific Northwest.

Harold, originally from El Salvador and who appears to be in his mid-30s, tells me that Saturday is the big night at The Tango Center. But he says that on this particular night there aren’t nearly as many people as usual. He suspects that many may be saving their energy for the center’s fifth anniversary party, scheduled for the following Saturday night.

Harold is somewhat of a regular, and says that “when learning a dance it helps when you have a partner. You can advance together, enhancing your skills.” But he says the tango “is all in good fun.” He likes the mix of young and old people and says “it gives it elegance and style.”

He says he hasn’t been to the center in about three weeks. “I get bored if I come week after week,” he tells me. But he figures it’s time to become part of the group again.

As far as his attraction to the dance, Harold says, “Tango’s got passion; it’s got grace, elegance, sophistication. It’s very romantic. A close embrace makes it very romantic—sometimes it’s almost magnetic.”

Although I have no experience with tango, I tell Harold that while in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last year I did go to a tango show. Upon hearing this, he introduces me to Alejandro, who is from Buenos Aires and who has a table at the center every Saturday night, where he pours wine and sells his homemade empanadas, of which he makes both a vegetarian and a meat variety. After Alejandro, who is wearing a blue bandana, asks me a few questions in Spanish about my time in Buenos Aires and I make a feeble attempt to answer him in Spanish, he offers me a complementary empanada, which he has just warmed up.

As I savor the piping hot empanada and wash it down with a glass of red wine, I take a seat at one of the tables on the edge of the dance floor and begin to feel I am ready to practice what I learned in the introductory class.

Before long, a young woman walks over and asks if I’d like to dance, obviously ignoring the eye contact approach. I oblige and as we walk onto the slick wood floor I’m slightly intimidated by the fact that she is much more experienced than I am. She has me lead, which does nothing to settle my nerves, but I manage to hold my own, and as we leave the floor after the customary three songs, I ask her how I did, eager for some positive reinforcement. “Well, you didn’t step on my toes,” she says.  I take that as a compliment.

Shortly after arriving around nine o’clock, Adriana, a young woman with curly light brown hair, sits down at one of the tables, removes her sandals, and replaces them with flashier, sparkly heeled shoes. It is clear she means business. She started taking tango lessons a year-and-a-half ago, and says she “fell in love with the music.” She considers herself an advanced beginner, but I sense she’s being modest, especially considering she averages three to four nights a week at the center.  She then waxes philosophical and says, “It doesn’t matter how good you get, you’re always a beginner.” I let that stand.

The center attracts a wide variety of people, and at any given time it seems there is an eclectic mix of dancers and spectators. While an older woman sits at a corner table, using an old-fashioned fan to cool herself down, the dance floor is filled with people, young and old; many are couples and some are complete strangers. Some are wrapped in a warm embrace, smiling and laughing, while others appear more serious and assume an upright posture, rigid yet fluid.  And in the midst of all this, an older man dances delicately by himself in the center of the dance floor.