EXPLORING ARGENTINE SOUL : `FOREVER' TAKES STEPS TO CAPTURE TANGO'S PASSIONS.

Byline: Donna Perlmutter Special to the Daily News

Everyone remembers ``Tango Argentino'' - the original hit show that made cheek-to-cheek dancing as exciting as an action thriller. Now get ready for its double, ``Forever Tango,'' opening at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium Wednesday for eight performances.

The tango - which is believed to take its name from the Latin tangere, to touch - emerged in Buenos Aires during the 1880s, when emigrants from Europe and Africa streamed into that port city and were lured to its many taverns-cum-brothels. A particular street culture developed, replete with pimps and prostitutes, and ripe for a polyglot music that spoke of lonely exile, unrequited love, broken dreams and brooding fatalism.

The actual dance came about spontaneously when men and women met at cafes, staked their territory and alliances, and fell into inevitable rivalrous conflict. The tango was an ``acting out'' of these relationships and even included male duets.

What ``Forever'' attempts is an impression of the Buenos Aires tango ambience, calling into play its timeless emblems of dress, music and manner.

The style is called milongueros, a fast, rough, rhythmic way of dancing that stirs a sense of competition between couples. But there's at least one number that conforms somewhat more to the European ballroom tango, a version that is deliberate and formal and keeps body contact to a minimum.

One of the disadvantages of ``Forever Tango,'' says executive producer Hugo Bandi, is that it isn't ``Tango Argentino.''

``It's hard when you don't bear the brand name,'' he explains. ``But then none of us would be here at all if not for a revival that happened 10 years ago.''

After 1955, he adds, the various governments that came and went kept banning the profane lyrics, draining authenticity from the songs.

``As a result, the taste was lost, tango took a dive and the youth went elsewhere,'' he says. ``But as 35-year-olds, they're coming back.''

Indeed, the whole history of tango is checkered. In 1900, it was outlawed, then taken to Paris. Because of its acceptance there and endorsement by such a respected society, Buenos Aires made the dance welcome again. But that did little to stabilize the Argentine male identity, confused by the clashing of its gaucho population with European immigrants streaming into the country. Partly as a result, women were cast as scapegoats, ``second-class citizens,'' according to Bandi, with divorce becoming legal only in the last decade.

Close scrutiny isn't necessary to see signs of this lingering attitude in the tango. For all the contact and intensity that make it so compelling to watch, what can one say of choreography that, at several key moments, depicts women being abused or subjugated? Perhaps only that it mirrors a reality - one, it is hoped, of the past.

Bandi is philosophical about it all. He says that ``the sorrowful music is also a reflection of the troubled Argentine soul, but that things are changing fast,'' and the choreographic images will be but a theatrical conceit and nothing else.

Meanwhile, people continue to ask him what he thinks of Al Pacino's tango in the movie ``Scent of a Woman.'' And he keeps saying the same thing: ``I thought it was terrific. He definitely caught something. But no one can dance the tango like Argentinians.''

THE FACTS The show: ``Forever Tango.''

Where: Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St., Pasadena.

When: Wednesday through Sunday.

Tickets: $19 through $45. Call Ticketmaster 213-480-3232.

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Photo

Photo: It takes two to tango - ``Forever Tango,'' that is.