Uncompromising Sexual Realism in ‘Tango Buenos Aires’

Aristocratic ballet may languish, high-minded modern dance may beg for support, but the congenitally disreputable, born-in-the-brothels tango continues to flourish on our stages, speaking to us with wit, style and uncompromising frankness about our sexual follies, obsessions and patterns of exploitation--including the kind now monopolizing the agenda of the U.S. Senate.

At the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, “Tango Buenos Aires,” which opened Wednesday, may be the rawest and grittiest of recent touring tango revues, refusing to Frenchify, balleticize or glamorize the tango idiom. Where “Forever Tango,” for instance, grew ever more sleek and eventually relied on flashy lifts as choreographic exclamation points, “Tango Buenos Aires” stays gloriously lurid and pulls its finale fireworks from South American folk culture--specifically the boleadoras, a wild and obviously dangerous rope-whirling display that showcases the fearless Nestor Ruben Gude.

Although Osvaldo Requena’s six-piece band produces supremely delicate playing for Carlos Lenzi and Edgardo Donato’s “A Media Luz” (with Requena’s pianism and the lyric violin of Sergio Gustavo Poli especially artful), there is usually an edge to the musicianship, a deliberately rough eloquence that keeps reminding you where tango came from. Singer Karina Rivera handles wistful melancholy better than tango despair, but her voice is strong and her willingness to appear in some of the evening’s most outlandish gowns is increasingly endearing.

Among the six couples, Viviana Elizabeth D’attoma and Gergorio Felix Bordon bring great spirit and dexterity to the playful “Orillera,” reveling in its constant, intricate twists and abundance of surprises: outbursts of tapping steps and unexpected moments of deep intimacy, for example. Tango hedonism reaches its zenith in “Felicia,” which finds Jesus Hernando Velazquez and Silvana Carolina Allievi all over each other--with her sudden plunge downward, one leg shooting straight out between his knees, especially startling.

Nearly as incendiary, though less athletically flamboyant: the locked, rotating pelvises of Dante Roberto Montero and Haydee Carmen Gonzalez in “La Trampera.” You can get away with anything if you keep dancing.

Choreographers for the duets and many ensemble dances include Antonio Soares Jr., Silvia Toscano, Montero and Gonzalez, with Margarita Morego listed as assistant and the credit for the malambo sequence going to Gude and Lucia Miriam Alonso.

* “Tango Buenos Aires,” today, 2 and 8 p.m., Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. $27-$42. (562) 916-8500. Also Sunday, 2 p.m., Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd. $15-$35. (805) 583-8700.