“If you’re a guy, you’re in trouble,” advised Sofía Sanchez de Betak, Wednesday night from the basement of the dance studio Dance With Me in Manhattan’s SoHo. The influencer, done up in a mirror image of the red dress-wearing emoji, was at the center of her tango party thrown in honor of her handbag collaboration with Roger Vivier, and was divulging her tango dos and don’ts. Rule number one? Being a woman helps.
“If you’re a woman, just go and pretend that you’re a pro,” said Sanchez de Betak, who was hosting alongside Ines de la Fressange. “As long as you let go, it’s really easy. You can look like a pro after a 10-minute class. It’s very easy for a woman. So, yeah, the hard part of tango is being a man.”
Guests like Danielle Snyder and Lindsay Ellingson were directed to a pair of Vivier pumps and a red lip bar before they were gifted a fake red rose and swept onto the dance floor for a lesson by burly men in suits.
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“I did a few classes a few years ago, when I was getting married, because we did one day inspired by tango, for the wedding,” Sanchez de Betak said of her first encounter with tango. “So we had to dance. But we danced the day after our wedding, after the party, so we were completely hung over and I’d also sprained my ankle. So it was a really bad decision. The tango was so bad. You really need your ankle.”
Sanchez de Betak will later this year release a travel book with Assouline. “It’s about off-the-beaten-path destinations, about private hotels — where you get an extra layer of culture when you go to these places,” she said.
Her suggestions for Buenos Aires? “I love seeing the public universities, for some reason,” she said. “I love the unrestricted feeling of students…you go to the universities and you see the graffiti and signs and art displays, and I think it’s a really interesting way to see the city, through the young people’s vision. I took my husband last time and he really felt Buenos Aires is as authentic as it gets.”
And, naturally, “tango shows, tango classes.”
The night was conjured up in homage to the collaborator’s Argentine heritage, likely under the assumption tango was a time-honored tradition for Sanchez de Betak. So just how long has she been a serious student of tango?
“I started taking tango classes about a week ago,” she said.
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