Relentless Denial: Female Homosexuality in Tango

Abstract

Queer tango is one of the most controversial initiatives which appeared in contemporaneous dancing experiences in the City of Buenos Aires. This activity began in 2002 as a female practice at a lesbian feminist cultural center. Same-sex tango dancing was forbidden at the beginning of the 1900s as part of a wider process to monitor popular culture and moral conduct with the purpose of adopting tango as a symbol of national identity, once all gesture modifications were applied. Heterosexuality, then, was established as the main feature of modern tango, the worldwide known Argentine cultural icon. During the last years, homoeroticism began to rise as an alternative practiced by an audience with heterosexual expectations. At the same time, several audiovisual productions with dancing scenes between women were being published for the interest of a young, middle-class, male heterosexual audience, while self-proclaimed gay men acquired more prominence and standing in the dance. From a perspective of gender subordination, the main analysis of this paper focuses on the growing appearance of homoerotic performances in tango and the rules which once more diluted female protagonism under the preponderance of heterosexual rules and the male gay-straight umbrella opened by, and for, tango.