[Tango-L] Help to find masculinity in tango!

[Sergio Vandekier]

Igor asks : "But I am looking for advice how to make tango attractive for men who are looking for masculinity in Tango. As for ladies, I am deeply interested how to teach them be more feminine, find that feminine power in themselves dancing tango."

He adds " .. I only got 3 dumb answers of those who did not even bother to think whatI asked."


In my many years of growing up in Argentina and abroad and dancing tango this is the first time I heard that "men abandoned dancing tango because they thought tango was feminine". I must confess: this possibility had never crossed my mind.

This has to be the most unusual and absurd problem in the world of tango.

Quite the opposite in Argentina "Tango is Macho".  It is virile, poised, proud and somewhat arrogant like an Argentine man.  Tango reflects his personality and his culture.

So... one has to think hard to imagine that anyone in any place could be in the predicament that Igor is in.

So... for starters I pointed to him that contrary to what he asserted in the past, in Tango there are two gender roles Masculine and feminine, and proceeded to  give a couple of examples of each role characteristics.

I was not going to give a tango workshop in the internet explaining how each one moves when dancing tango.
There is a masculine and a feminine way of doing each movement or embellishment in tango.

A few years ago I had a couple that took private lessons from me for a while.  I will call them "Mary" and "Joe".

They were in their late 20s.  . Joe was very feminine when dancing, so after a while I asked them what their sexual orientation was. Mary answered that she was bisexual and Joe gay.  I then told Joe that he looked very feminine when dancing tango, and asked him if he wanted to look that way or he rather wished to look masculine.  He answered that he wanted to look like a man.

  I worked with them for several months and slowly corrected all the feminine mannerisms that Joe had.  At the end I was very happy to see that they looked really well dancing tango.  

Joe eventually moved out of town and the lessons stopped.

At Christmas time I received a present by mail from Joe with a nice note where he thanked me for "changing his life" he said that being able to look masculine when he wanted to do so, had changed his whole life, now like in tango he was more assertive in claiming his just position in life and even asking for salary raises once in a while , thing that he had never done before.

Summary: In order to being able to teach tango masculinity you need to know what being a man is, how he moves, what his position and perspective of life is and then perhaps you might be able to transmit those elements to someone else.

I am not passing any judgments or presuming to know how Igor teaches tango, I am merely given a general opinion.

In Argentina when we have a milonga we call it by its name so that everyone knows what style of tango is danced there.  The ones where men dance with men or women with women are called "Tango Queer" milongas.

There is no problem if some couples of those milongas come to the regular ones as they frequently do. Once in a while one sees a young person wearing a long skirt with an opening from a hairy leg appears. They are well received and respected. 

I do not call anyone dumb either ... but... dumb questions sometimes deserve dumb answers. :)
Seriously now, I find the subject interesting.

Have a good weekend, Sergio

 






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