New York Times: In Portland, the Warm Embrace of Tango
One look with sustained eye contact (“cabeceo”) was a mutual agreement to dance. Within moments of arrival, dancers were locked in a cheek-to-cheek embrace, gliding to the music.
“Baking was just a cover for tango,” Tissa Stein, the owner of Tabor Bread, said with a smile about the conception of her bakery in 2012. Even before it opened, tango was very much a part of the design.
Instead of concrete floors, Ms. Stein chose honey-colored hickory, a smooth surface ideal for tango’s gliding steps. The countertops where bread is made by day are on wheels to open up space for dancing by night. “Tango and baking are both deeply nourishing,” Ms. Stein said. “To me, tango is another type of nutrition for the body.”
After hours, Tabor Bread hosts sultry tango soirées, attracting up to 50 dancers a night. Tables are cleared away and dancers spin around the floor, often to live music, against the backdrop of the bakery’s wood-burning oven. Ms. Stein, 67, who began dancing about nine years ago, is planning a sunset, or happy-hour, milonga for dancers whose schedules don’t allow them to dance into the wee hours (or as a warm-up for those who do).