Avenue Magazine

Barb Higgins: Future Mayor of Calgary or Professional Dancer?

Today Calgary is abuzz with news that Barb Higgins, who just last week announced that she was leaving her post as an anchor woman with CTV Calgary, will be making a big announcement about her future plans. 

And while most Calgary media outlets are speculating that Higgins will become the latest, and first female, candidate vying to become Calgary's next mayor we'd like to go out on a limb with our tongues firmly in our cheeks and predict that Higgins will announce that she is becoming a professional dancer. A Tango dancer to be more specific. 

In the spring of 2008 Avenue took a look at the growing popularity of Tango in Calgary and Higgins described her new found love for the sensual Argentine dance. Here is excerpt from the piece.

And once a month, a milonga, a tango dance party thrown at Sunalta Hall, with up to 100 tangueros dressed in their tango best.

CTV News anchor Barb Higgins is a regular at the milongas. The United Way ambassador added another ambassadorship to her name when at the July 2007 milonga when Calgary MLA Wayne Cao presented her with a certificate honouring her as one of Calgary’s tango ambassadors on behalf of Club Tango Argentino. Higgins laughs when I ask her how many pairs of tango shoes she has in her closet.

“Let’s see. Two? Four? Six? Then there’s the silver ones and the red pair.” She laughs again. “Oh, about eight, I guess.” And cowboy boots? “Three.”

Higgins started dancing tango just over a year ago and got hooked. As a former ballet dancer, learning the steps wasn’t hard for her. More difficult was allowing herself to get into tango’s close embrace with a man. The dance is uncomfortable for many women in North America who are used to having more personal space.

“The most fascinating thing about tango is the closeness,” Higgins reflects. “It’s so rare in our culture to stop and enjoy an intimate moment with someone. In tango, there’s sensuality for the sake of sensuality. It doesn’t lead to sex. There’s a certain sophistication in that.”

To us the choice is obvious. Deal with the constant bickering, posturing and infighting of City Council or Tango. But I guess we will all see tomorrow.

Read the full Welcome to Tango Town story.