Uruguay Field Trip: A Night at the Cena Show
3/26/2008 at 4:00 PM
Tags: Uruguay Field Trip, Uruguay Travel, Uruguay-Travel-Map, Jaunted Field Trips (all tags)
If you've ever been to Buenos Aires, you know about "Cena Shows." Basically, you pony up some US dollars for an all-inclusive dinner and tango show and they throw your taxi ride in for free. Touristy but cool, especially when they're pouring the wine like water.
Montevideo likes to brag that it too has tango. And at El Milongon you get more than just sexy dancing. They also bust out the candombe to put a bit of African drumming into your dinner.
At the show we saw, things started out with a cuerda of drummers pumping up the crowd. Then in marched some other characters: the mama vieja, the gramillero and the escobillero. After a rousing number, they all gave the stage over to the tango crew.
There was a small band, but some of the tunes were set to recorded music, which we thought was lame. Still the dancers did a decent job, and the singer for the evening was muy guapo.
Next up was a musical tour of the countryside with a quartet of campesinos drumming and dancing around the room. The period garb was cool, the flaming rope twirling was a bit too much.
Before the night wrapped, we got another round of candombe, complete with go-go dancers and another big cuerda.
Was it all a bit rich? For sure. Was the food below average? Definitely. But for $50 a person, it was a still pretty good deal for a full night of fun.
Related Stories:
· El Milongon [Official Site]
· Uruguay Field Trip coverage [Jaunted]
· Uruguay coverage [Jaunted]
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