Tango Dance

OK, so it's not as hip as those underground clubs that migrate from week to week and draw the waifish and chic, but if you prefer grace over grunge, there's good reason to try Knott's Berry Farm's monthly swing and ballroom dance this Saturday. An expansive dance floor (4,800 square feet) that's less crowded than most recommends the event, held at the park's Cloud 9 Ballroom, an airy, spacious hall with a nostalgic feel.

In a flood of volcanic Spanish, tango master Hector Mayoral is defining for an uncomprehending gringo interviewer the essence of the dance culture expressed in "Tango Argentino," the Tony-nominated compendium of songs and dances that opens May 20 at the Pantages Theatre.

Karlo Abouroumieh's eyes were nearly shut. Anamaria Menendez smiled in bliss. They swayed in each other's arms as if in a trance. Then the song ended. "I release you now so more women won't get mad," Menendez said abruptly to her partner. As she walked away, sweat covered her arms and matted her shoulder-length hair at her scalp. She had been dancing nonstop for nearly two hours. Minutes before, a frustrated woman had tapped Menendez's shoulder and asked to dance with Abouroumieh.

Karlo Abouroumieh's eyes were nearly shut. Anamaria Menendez smiled in bliss. They swayed in each other's arms as if in a trance. Then the song ended. "I release you now so more women won't get mad," Menendez said abruptly to her partner. As she walked away, sweat covered her arms and had pasted her dark bangs to her forehead. She had been dancing nonstop for nearly two hours. Minutes before, a frustrated woman had tapped Menendez's shoulder and asked to dance with Abouroumieh.

One by one, Gilberto and Lilia Hernani's six children left their homein Peru for the United States. When their last daughter said goodby, they felt isolated and alone. So in 1980, the couple sold their house and car, packed their belongings and departed their beloved motherland to start anew in what they call the "land of the freeways," otherwise known as Orange County.

A minor revolution in modern theater dance occurs midway through the first act of "Tango Argentino," which opened Tuesday at the Pantages Theatre for a seven-week run.

Vaudeville acts like plate spinners, sleight-of-hand artists, burlesque beauties and sword swallowers hardly seem like they have a place in an entertainment universe dominated by high-flying Cirque du Soleil and high-tech concert tours. The good old variety show is the stuff of a simpler era. But Stefan Haves has stripped back entertainment to the essentials of physical comedy and corporeal dexterity in a bid for an astonishing night out. The former comic act director for Cirque du Soleil has taken up residence in the Coronet Theater (home of Largo)

In the past five years, it has evolved from FILMEX into AFIFEST into its current tongue-thickening designation as the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival (AFI/LA FilmFest, for short). It's traveled from Westwood to Santa Monica to Los Feliz to its present home at the Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza Cinemas at Century City's ABC Entertainment Center. But, as always, it's a cornucopia of movies, a smorgasbord, a glut: a big, rambunctious, eclectic gathering of films (about 123 features and 70 shorts)

By day, theatrical agent Vivian Levy is a "tweedy person." By night, struck by tango fever, she slicks back her hair with a French gel, slips into slit skirts and heads off on spike heels to a modern version of "Hernando's Hideaway." Never one to dig disco, ("It offends my musical sensibilities.") Levy became hooked on the sounds of a different drummer the moment she saw "Tango Argentino" on Broadway.