[Tango-L] Early dancing in Argentina

[burak ozkosem]

Masculinization of women in Tango

While i was looking for something else i noticed this paragraph from the
book called "Tango and the Political Economy of Passion" by M. Savigliano
(pages 60-61).
" No interpretations entertain the idea that women took pleasure in dancing
with one another. Instead, male authors have reasoned that woman-with-woman
tangoing must be either a preparation or a poor substitute for tangoing with
men. There are also records of few early episodes of women dancing tango
with each other in public. These performance have been constructed as acts
presented for the pleasure of male spectators. Again, the assumption has
been that a woman's erotic interest was not in her female tango partner but
in the men who gazed at the spectacle.Thus, women's eroticism is constituted
as restricted to a heterosexual money economy [...]. The milongueras
eroticism circulated in a strictly limited way, confined to illegitimate
encounters marked by heterosexism and class."

Another interesting note from E.H. Puccia's book " El Buenos Aires de An.
Villoldo 1860-1919", page 155) newspaper ["El Nacional" 27.01.1881] note
about female leaders in the early years of Argentine Tango  talks about a
woman called Carlota Gonzalez who lives in La Boca at Suarez No 81, she was
well known and respected dancer with masculine energy and her knife...

In Historia del tango, Leon Benaros notes that Diccionario historico
argentino defines  the academies (a.k.a peringundines" as the venues dancing
was between men only.

Uruguayan Historian J.C Puppo in his book, Ese mundo del bajo, pages 29-30,
informs us about "Cafe Zunino" in Montevideo, all regulars were men, also
well known tango venue with many popular tango musicians and dancers visits
(i.e.Orquesta de Arolas played at Cafe Zunino in 1919). Cafe Zunino was a
gay-cafe of the time where homosexuals call it "Conventillo Rosado". Some of
the popular dancers were nicknamed with feminine meanings "El Yesero", "La
Lora", "La Loca" Garcia, "La Vieja".


Tango was a perfect match for "vida mala" those days, Lidia Ferrari claims
that tango is innocent and it shouldn't be labeled, she says whoever wants
to integrate their fantasies into tango, they are the responsible ones of
the negative labeling.
Body-Gender issues in Argentine Tango is a very interesting subject which
remains left behind by "official"  tango history.

Burak
Chicago
www.tangoeclectique.com