At 9.30pm the dimly lit courtyard of Ciudad Cultural Konex is filled with expectant silence. At 9.35, it is subsumed by an explosion of carnivalesque colour, wacky instruments, exuberantly Eastern sounds and theatrical costumes. This is Babel Orkesta, and they’ve just erupted onto the stage.

Been in Buenos Aires for a few months now, reasonably confident of your Spanish and tired of nights out that don’t end until the sun comes up? Seen a few tango shows, maybe even a couple of plays and looking to be entertained in a slightly different manner? Simply curious about what the hell it is porteños find funny?

Sunday afternoons are a lively time in Buenos Aires. With the San Telmo antiques fair and several city festivals there is rarely a shortage of activities to involve yourself in, but if you find yourself in search of a more relaxed Sunday event, look no further than the Rose Garden. This spring the Rose Garden is hosting ‘Sonidos en el Rosedal’, a free open-air concert series held every Sunday until 20th December.

Tango in Buenos Aires conjures up a vast range of cultural stereotypes. Perhaps the favoured among tourists is smoky brothel bars in less than salubrious barrios where beautiful girls dance with dangerous men, or sophisticated milongas filled with a belle epoque charm imported direct from Paris.

There is no shortage of ‘bohemia’ in Buenos Aires. Or rather, you cannot escape claims of ‘bohemian vibes’ as restaurant owners, landlords or entire neighbourhoods attempt to convince you of the authenticity and quirkiness of their offerings. Such claims are commonplace and, in most cases, perhaps best ignored.

The clean lines, white walls and wide spaces of Gallery bar and club are an unusual setting for Andean folklore. The suspicion is confirmed when Ignacio Garcia Balcarce, in Converse shoes and a grubby white t-shirt, takes to the stage with a guitar slung round his neck and glass of wine in hand. Before the band even begins to play, all my preconceptions of the cliché-ridden Amerindian muzak overlaid with panpipes flogged by men in ponchos on high streets around the world are cast aside.

The first Saturday of Spring (26th September) in Parque Centenario, Villa Crespo was welcomed by a day-long festival of music, arts and circus skills and culminating in an open air cinema screening, courtesy of arts collectives Comando Furgoneta and Cine Libre Parque Abierto.

It’s 1990 in the Middle East, and the first intifada (Palestinian uprising) against Israel rages on for a third year. In a small village in the West Bank, three Palestinian brothers meet in the back of the butcher’s shop where the youngest works. Suspicion and mistrust hang heavy in ‘Masked’, written by Israeli Ilan Hatsor almost 20 years ago, when he was just 18 and a first-year theatre student at Tel Aviv University.

A huge block of cement and iron sheets containing two hundred artless beds in rows, hosting Buenos Aires’ destitute people, keeping them from sleeping on the cold asphalt. There is talk of Parador Retiro, a nightly refuge for people with no other place to stay and, in difference to most other homes, without any conditions other than soberness, no violence and a free bed.

Tales from the Trivenchi circus reach far and wide; I had heard about them from an activist friend of mine in England, and their show had reached Amsterdam. But the centre is currently withstanding another eviction attempt by the government.