To change the world in 10 years

Where was I? Right, tango teachers being able to dance both roles because it made them more atractive and talented teachers (read my previous blog: 100 milongas in 100 days).

Learning both roles was a question of learning a technique, being a better teacher and being able to teach both men and woman. 

So when and how did the change of roles as a social and public phenomenon begin?

  

If you know some tango history you also know, that the Tango was born in the lower class of the argentine society. You know it was hidden away and a place where men from the higher class would lie to their wifes to go and dance with their young lowers in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. Love and passion made history and created a dance that survived and turned into a living legend. 

The history repeats itself 100 years later. Tango between same sex was born hidden away from the public in the subculture of Buenos Aires where you would lie to your family to go and dance with your love.

Its all very simple actually. A person falls in love with a tango dancer of same sex and starts to think: How to dance tango with the one you love when love between same sex is forbidden? You create your own hidden place where everybody can dance with whoever they want. And so it began - changing the tango into the gender free dance that it was actually born as, but 100 years of moral educations made so difficult to return to. 

The first hidden queer tango places in Argentina was born more or less 10 years ago. The name queer was first related to the phenomenon years later, and still people discuss whether queer is the right name for this type of Tango danced without predetermined gender roles. 

But Queer tango has to do with a lot more than love between people of same sex, it has to do with persons with an indifferent view at gender roles. People who are blind to gender and to the moral public education. People making weird normal and everything natural. 

It has to do with a generation longing for a place to express themself, it has to do with international influence it has to do with a society changing faster than you can ever imaging. Some say its about loosing values other say it´s the creation of ultimate freedom. 

The people who 10 years ago started a journey in search of new gender identities, freedom of expression, and an end to a lot of prejudices, who put their face in the public spotlight to change a public moral education in Argentina, have now let go of what they started and left it in the hands of the public to take to whereever it will go.

"You would never be able to dance at a traditional milonga like that!"

When I arrived to Buenos Aires some months ago now, I was taught that traditional Milongas had all these rules. Rules of where to sit, of how to dress, how to ask woman to dance - because mind your steps woman, you will never ask a man to dance! Books are written about the rules, the hidden rules, the obvious rules, the rules everybody follows. Or do they?

Who is actually telling us what to do and what not to do in a milonga? The people who actually goes up to you telling you that you did something wrong? Mostly that would be the owners of the milongas. I had my ears full of stories where people of same sex dancing together at a milonga was asked to leave. Or actually, it was the same few stories I heard again and again. When it came down to it, not many had tried to be asked to leave a milonga for dancing queer.
So who are the real people telling us not to dance same sex in all the traditional milongas? The answer must be: The eyes... The eyes of the suroundings watching you. Making you nervous because you know, when you take your dance partner up there, in the spotlight so everybody can see you, watch you and put a note in your forhead saying: GAY. This is what makes you stay away from the traditional milongas.  It´s what makes you think that if you actually do it, you have to be more than a fine dancer.

So I went. I went to find out how the eyes would look at me if I danced with a girl at a traditional milonga. I´m not a good dancer, I must be what you would call a Newbee having danced less than half a year. So I knew I would not get the respect of the Milongueros because of my dance style :)
First I went to Peru 571 on a Sunday. A normal night with a mixed crowd. I was shaking, I actually didn´t want to do it and luckely some friend, also dancing queer tango, broke the ice for us and went out first.
I didn´t want to look at peoples faces so I closed my eyes and thought myself into another place. But after a while I kinda forgot that we where different from the other couples and I forgot to look at the other people around me.
Second time I went to Plaza Belgrano. Famous for being one of the oldest places in Bs As (I heard). A lot of men! Pretty difficult to avoid being asked to dance which is both nice and a little heavy - don´t start a serious talk with your friends there, you will be interrupted :)
This time I didn´t forget to look at the faces. I was prepared! Prepared to look them in their eyes, smile and give them all of my positive energy.
What happened? I got a little disappointed actually.... Because nobody looked especially at me and my female dance partner. Whenever I thought: Now, now they notice us, it was because another couple dancing close to us was making some fancy steps. After a while dancing at this Milonga some people did actually notice us. Some smiled, I remember a old couple looking very weird at us, more surprised than anything really. And then the guy in controle of the music, he saw us and his face changed to a huge smile while giving me the tumbs up.      

So what´s the rules here? Who is telling me to do what?

I went on with my little rule adventure. Next stop was "Ideal". A place where one of the stories about one queertango dancer who was thrown out 5 years ago. Now this place, this certain day, should be accepting queer dancers.
We were the only little group this day dancing same sex together at this place. Again my hands where shaking even though I knew the owner was accepting, and more than happy to have us there it seemed. Why was I still nervous? Because the suroundings wasn´t use to see queer tango. This time I noticed it at the first dance. People watching us, taking fotos. But then again, there were a lot of foreingers this night taking pictures of everybody. And as the night went pass I was again not a good enough dancer to keep peoples attention and they changed their attention to the old man dancing breath taking in the other end of the room. - 5 min. of fame I guess! That´s what you can get for comming up with something new. But if you are not a good dancer, you can´t keep their attencion - not even with a note in your forhead saying: GAY.