BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

So admittedly I am no expert on tango, but I sure had a swell time watching the seething dancers and listening to the smoky music of “Forever Tango.” Opening on Sunday for a summertime sojourn at the Walter Kerr Theater, this production marks the third time that creator-director Luis Bravo’s dance revue has hit Broadway.

Did you enjoy the show in 1997 and/or 2004? If memory serves, this version is not essentially different in format. It simply presents a two-act series of contrasting tango episodes – mostly two-hander turns – accompanied musically by a splendid 11-member onstage orchestra that features four bandoneon players and Bravo himself on cello.

Expect no scenery here other than a twinkling star-drop and, thankfully, no concept other than a desire to tango up storms of applause.  

The current edition offers the veteran Puerto Rican crooner Gilberto Santa Rosa, who wanders in every so often to intone classics like “El Dia Que Me Quieras.” Certainly the flashier headliners here (through Aug. 11, anyway) are Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Karina Smirnoff, a tall, dark and excessively attractive pair known to TV-viewers for their appearances on “Dancing With the Stars.”

Chmerkovskiy and Smirnoff are wonderfully shameless show-boaters whose sexy, athletic maneuvers contrast against the stark quality of the more old-school tango displays contributed by the ensemble’s 16 dancers.  Variously aggressive, stolid, aristocratic, sensual, sullen or comical in their choreographed attitudes, the ever-stylish couples demonstrate plenty of fast, intricate footwork and an expert rapport in their teaming. The several ensemble numbers that unite the dancers are very smoothly performed.

Costume designer Argemira Affonso handsomely dresses the men mostly in dark, tightly-tailored suits and the women in filmy, floating frocks that move beautifully with their dancing.

The elaborately choreographed bows that the dancers take at the end provide an enjoyable coda for a pleasing summertime diversion.

“Forever Tango” continues through Sept. 15 at the Walter Kerr Theater, 419 W. 48th St., New York. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.forevertango.com.