TRAVEL TALES

Young Chang

Looking for the Blakeneys? Follow the tango trail.

The Newport Beach couple vacationed in Finland, Sweden and Denmark

last month, hitting a tango festival at every stop.

But let’s first settle the difference between ballroom tango, as most

of us know it, and Argentine tango. The ballroom tango is just a dance

with set techniques that everyone uses and ends up looking the same,

Patricia Blakeney said.

Argentine tango is sultry, complex, jazzy and emotional, she said.

“You dance the way you feel it, not the way somebody else thinks you

should,” Blakeney, 58, said. “Everything has feeling in Argentine tango.

You don’t want to look like someone else. You want to look like

yourself.”

While in Seinajoki, Finland, the couple stopped by the Tango Festival

-- a major annual event where everyone dances in the streets while bands

play the tango as well as other genres, while food booths and carnival

attractions stand nearby.

“Everyone goes in there and dances tango, they wear whatever they feel

like. Some dress fancy. Some are in shorts. There are thousands and

thousands of people,” said Blakeney, who manages a horse hospital in

Cypress.

The tango is the national dance of Finland, which explains why the

natives devote a day to celebrating. But Blakeney’s husband Bill, 64,

still finds the tradition surprising.

“It’s unusual that in a country that’s dark three months out of the

year, one of the activities they’re involved in is tango,” he said.

A news segment on 60 Minutes, seen years ago by the Blakeneys, showed

that the Finnish people are more reserved in general and even speak less

openly to one another.

“But when they tango, it brings people together,” said Bill Blakeney,

who works in the engineering department at Hoag Hospital. “Where normally

the men wouldn’t be so open and communicate with the ladies that well,

tango allows them to do that. We wanted to see what it was all about.”

Since first developing an interest in tango -- it started when the

couple saw the play “Tango Argentine” 15 years ago and fell in love with

the dance -- the Blakeneys have visited Argentina regularly to

participate in tango festivals. They have taken lessons there, danced at

festivals everywhere from Stanford to Spain. They have become regulars on

the international tango circuit.

“Every time we travel it has something to do with Argentine tango,”

Patricia Blakeney said.

* Have you, or someone you know, gone on an interesting vacation

recently? Tell us your adventures. Drop us a line to Travel Tales, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627; e-mail young.chang@latimes.com; or fax to

(949) 646-4170.