TANGO is much more than a male-led ritual in which the woman plays a stridently subservient role… it’s a way of life.

Long before this dance had become an art form gracing the great public halls of Europe and beyond, tango was to Argentina what going down the pub was and - still is - in Britain. It was something you just did.

So let’s take a peep through the shutters and allow our gaze to penetrate the smoke and gloom of the milonga, a club where you can get a drink and maybe get as close to someone of the opposite – or same - sex that’s possible without the police being called or the bartender throwing a bucket of cold water in your direction.

We see a swirling mass of pinstripes, oil-dark hair and seductive black lace, a mating display that makes the tropical birds of paradise appear as mere sparrows by way of comparison.

Yet despite the superficially macho feel of things, choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui skilfully manages to inject a large amount of gender equality that somehow levels this hormonal playing field.

In common with most music that has its roots in a folk tradition, tango follows repeated musical progressions, similar to the blues and flamenco. However, musical director Fernando Marzan cleverly dilutes familiar patterns with jazz phrasing and the occasional burst of sonorous chords, while set and video designer Eugenio Szwarcer’s montage of backdrops embark on gigantic journeys across new galaxies of visual conceptualising.

These touch-screen picture glimpses of downtown Buenos Aires place everything into instant context – we are visiting the birthplace of tango, warts and all, many areas appearing as unlovely as the dance is beautiful.

But the night really belongs to these incredible dancers, all of whom take your breath away. They are stunning to watch, physical prowess oozing from their every pore as countless dramas are played out in this gloriously ever-shifting vocally silent movie of a country that never sleeps.

And all the while, the musicians ply their craft in a darkened corner, just as they would back home in Buenos Aires, effortlessly conveying what it must feel like to be in a backstreet joint where life is for living and the passage of time is a complete irrelevance.

Milonga was a welcome blast of heat on a cold, English night in May, and a truly fitting finale to a dance festival that has brought endless sound and colour to our country’s increasingly vibrant second city.

John Phillpott