Queer Tango: how dance is being used in Argentina to break barriers, tackle isolation and fight for a better world
Kaya Purchase / Aug 9 / Memory & Trauma
In one of her most renowned poems, ‘Those who do not dance’ Gabriela Mistral writes that the hearts of those who do not dance are turned to dust. She writes of a dance that transcends physical movement, one from which, she assures the reader, nobody is excluded. Those who cannot physically dance can still participate with their heart. To Gabriela the spirit of dance is universal. She presents dance as being, before anything, a form of expression and as therefore inextricably conjoined to the heart and soul. It is a life force that rejuvenates and sustains in times of trial and sorrow. She understood that dance is a vehicle to freedom, hope but most importantly human connection, uniting ‘all the valley together... under the sun.’ She was the same poet who wrote ‘I Am Not Alone,’ a piece that explores how in a world of overwhelming exclusion he who touches or cares for another will never be lonely. Throughout his life, teacher and activist Edgardo Fernandez Sesma has brought both these philosophies of dance and connection into physical reality.
Edgardo teaches Queer Tango, a form of the popular dance that disregards traditional hetero-normative roles. It instead opens up the floor to dynamic possibilities where all genders are granted the freedom to lead or follow as and when they desire. The fluidity that this affords clears space not only for fun and diverse experimentation but also for new opportunities for vulnerability and connection.
Edgardo has been actively campaigning for LGBTQI+ rights for almost forty years. In 1984, at the end of the dictatorship, he joined the country’s first ever LGBT+ NGO, ‘Argentine Homosexual Community.’ Eight years later, he helped form SIGLA (The Argentine Gay and Lesbian Integration Society) in which he still actively participates. For Edgardo, dance is political. He views Queer Tango not just as a way of deconstructing gender roles, but also as a tool for challenging machismo and patriarchy. The issues that patriarchal gender roles cause within dance, such as confining women to a less empowered role and discrimination against LGBT+ people, are microcosms of the same issues played out on a grander scale within wider society. This is what makes tango the perfect medium for teaching people about LGBT+ and gender rights. But Edgardo has gone above and beyond, using dance to raise awareness of a myriad of different causes that often go under-exposed.
‘I always try to transmit messages that make visible situations of injustice,’ he says, ‘particularly with the elderly, LGBT+ people and people of non-stereotypical bodies for dance... I would like more people to know about these messages, because what is not visible will not be modified.’
One issue that Edgardo has particularly attempted to illuminate is transphobia.
“When the first trans people came to our tango classes, we became aware that there was little integration in Tango for them. We work to always try to open doors to everyone. Together with our trans dancers we devised the solidarity campaign, ‘Tango Against Transphobia" with which we make visible the trans-femicides that have been occurring in Argentina for the last 15 years.’”
According to Transgender Europe, Latin America accounted for 78% of transgender murders reported worldwide between January 2008 and December 2014. Argentina had the fourth highest number of cases of trans-femicide in Latin America in 2019 with twelve reported murders of trans and gender diverse individuals. The real figures are believed to be much higher, as many trans murders go unreported or are documented inaccurately. Edgardo hopes to challenge the stigma that still prevails against the trans community. Societal acceptance of the trans population is the first step towards ensuring that they are protected.
Another of Edgardo’s campaigns is ‘Tangos for Identity’ which offers solidarity to the ‘Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo,’ the sister group to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Both groups had relatives abducted during the dictatorship of 1976-83. Human rights groups estimate that as many as 30,000 people disappeared during this dark time, as the military government took away anyone who they believed opposed their ideology, whether that person was actively political or not. The Grandmothers have spent over four decades searching for the children of their daughters and daughter-in laws who were kidnapped whilst pregnant. Most of these women were murdered after giving birth and their children handed over to families who supported the dictatorship. It is thought that some of these children, now adults, will have no idea that the families who raised them are not their blood relatives. Since 1977, when the first fourteen women gathered, terrified in the Plaza de Mayo to march in pairs around the square, there has been a march every week. Each time the women wear white headscarves and clutch photographs of their missing loved ones. These are women who have defied their original labelling as the ‘Mad Mothers’ by finding and identifying 130 missing people. In addition to this, they have had more than 1000 criminals tried and 700 sentenced for torture and murder. The only thing that has ever proved a formidable obstacle in the way of their mission is Covid-19. Because the groups could not gather during lockdown, their marches temporarily ceased. However, determined not to be defeated, the Mothers and Grandmothers have been hanging handkerchiefs from their balconies, a public display, this time static, of their commitment to finding those missing.
Edgardo has created and performed in a number of solidarity performances for the Grandmothers, the story of each performance built around the history of these missing children. To be able to witness and maybe even participate in this confirmation of their trauma appears to defy the ‘dictatorship denial’ that some fear is rising in Argentina at the moment. Some of the Grandmothers fear that when they pass away there will be nobody to counteract the spreading of misinformation. It is extremely important what Edgardo is doing to show the Grandmothers that people hear and believe their truth.
When the Coronavirus pandemic hit, it understandably overshadowed all other news. However, this meant that news about the persecution of minorities, already under-reported, pretty much disappeared. Already a committed campaigner, this absence fuelled Edgardo to do even more, to use everything in his power to fight prejudice and intolerance, even with the new restrictions of quarantine. He ran online classes for his members and continued much of his activist work through virtual means, including his campaigns against trans-femicide and fatphobia. His commitment to offering companionship and support to the elderly community was especially dedicated during this time.
‘During quarantine, two things happened, regarding the elderly: on the one hand, the confinement brought an increase in abuse and abandonment towards the elderly and on the other hand, the almost 150 elderly [members] of our solidarity meetings were isolated. That is why we carried out virtually the ‘Tango against the abuse and neglect of the Elderly’ with people from 30 countries and in 20 different languages, to spread [awareness of] this problem a little more.’
‘Most of the elderly people who attended our Solidarity Meetings came from vulnerable social sectors in some 15 nearby cities. Very few have access to the internet, so I made a chain of communication between landlines and cell phones, speaking regularly with everyone. I spoke daily with about 30 women over 80 who had been left alone in their homes and who had told me they were depressed. That was for 10 months. I am currently in contact with all of them, but only 3 people need care every day, single women between 80 and 90 years old.’
The miracle of Edgardo’s work lies in its simplicity. He focuses on two elements, dance and communication: dance as a means of communication, communication through talking about dance, a network of communication originally formed through a dance group. Yet the range of different social causes he manages to address through using two such fundamental elements is so diverse. Edgardo’s ability to make his dance form accessible to everyone (and therefore his ability to communicate with everyone, whether that is to offer friendship as a balm to loneliness or to spread awareness of a social issue) illustrates how malleable and subject to experimentation dance can really be. It makes one question: why haven’t we viewed it in this way before? Why are we so keen to be conventional (and therefore essentially discriminatory) when it comes to physical activity? If a dance can be so flexible and inclusive then so can society itself. Why are we so keen to honour a ‘normalised’ version of society? The only way to truly unite everyone is to look beyond the margins of what we believe to be possible. This is where creativity really becomes useful as a means of radical change and inclusion. Through being creative and believing in the possibility of difference Edgardo has expanded and subverted something that has always appeared so rigid. Through doing this he has been able to reach out to those who have had to live with the reality of difference every day of their lives.
I asked Edgardo two questions that I always ask everyone because they tell one so much about a person. 1) What is your vision for the future? 2) What brings you joy?
‘[My vision for the future is] optimistic,’ he answered. ‘Seeing what has been changing in much of the world in the last 40 years or so, I believe that if we each continue to fight in whatever way we can then positive changes should continue to spread in the coming years. It would be particularly desirable for the countries that most persecute LGBT+ people to repeal the laws they use to persecute.
‘I am most happy every time I’m in a flash mob.’ Edgardo participates in flash mobs to celebrate every time a country repeals those of its laws that persecute LGBT+ people. The mob concludes their dance by tearing up a giant poster of the country.
‘I am also happy when I receive news that my love, who is very sick, is improving.’
Edgardo’s own personal joy appears to be kindled by a combination of love itself and the fight for love, which is interesting because these two ideas, the passion and the compassion, seem to form the nucleus around which Edgardo’s life orbits. In our emails to each other when discussing this article, Edgardo is always warm, kind and sends messages abundant with love hearts. I feel like a friend after messaging him just a couple of times. I am sure I am not the first person to say that about him. It appears to me that warmth and love are his weapons with which to fight for a better world.
The final stanza of Gabriela Mistral’s ‘Those who cannot dance’ reads: ‘All the valley is dancing/ Together under the sun/ And the heart of him who joins us not/ Is turned to dust.’ Those who refuse to accept the diverse fabric of society, preferring to stick to the old conventional ideals of normalcy are refusing to grow, to adapt. In this way they remain archaic, like ancient ruins. Too much exposure to the light could cause them to crumble, to turn to dust. And kicking up that dust will be those who dance, forever alive, forever circling because of their ability to adapt, evolve and grow.