Repairing the Broken Dance Floor
Partnered Dance Outlooks from Berlin
By Margarita Delcheva
BERLIN — At a social dance gathering in the park at Berlin’s Tor Eins Café, dancers take turns to lead and follow in tango, an Argentine dance tradition now popular especially in big cities.
A woman in kitten heels and a large silver belt buckle leads a man with headphones sticking out of his jeans. Then they switch roles. Nearby, a woman in a pencil skirt glides with another, wearing all-black with white flat shoes. A tall man in a white tank top follows the lead of a much shorter one in a tropical shirt. A grandmother is dancing with a toddler in her arms to “We are Family” during one pause between song sets, or cortina. During the next cortinas, the dancers never sit down but continue with salsa and swing moves, without stopping.
This tango social, known as a milonga, is called “Tango Zum Glück,” which translates to The Tango to Happiness, and tonight is celebrating its one-year anniversary and one community member’s birthday. It also hosts one of the friendliest dance floors in Berlin. Butch women are sporting fans with lace and wearing androgynous shoes. A short-haired dancer in thin baggy jeans with large front pockets leads her partner seamlessly.
Berlin not only offers several tango socials or milongas every night of the week, but is also among the world’s leading cities for revolutionizing power and gender dynamics on the dance floor. The progressive views common in Berlin and the city’s large LGBTQI community are helping re-write tango rules internationally to open the possibilities for partnering and address the issue of “broken milongas,” where objectification of women and social rigidity have often led to loneliness and exclusion.
While the woman’s traditional role as a “follower” may have been exported from Argentina as a submissive role, Rey recounts how older Argentine women say that was not the case when they started dancing before.
Vania Rey, a Bulgarian tango teacher who lives in the US, travels internationally and sometimes dances in Berlin, says many people feel uncomfortable watching women leading and men following in tango. Rey, interviewed in Sofia, cited controversial milongas in St, Petersburg, Russia, where women were not allowed to dance together. So far, nobody had ever forbidden her from leading, but it has happened that teachers ignored her. While the woman’s traditional role as a “follower” may have been exported from Argentina as a submissive role, Rey recounts how older Argentine women say that was not the case when they started dancing before.
Brigitta Winkler, a German tango teacher, based in Berlin and New York, has been dancing for 40 years. She remembers Buenos Aires in the 1980’s when same-sex dancing was not yet allowed. Recently, she says, the tango world has begun to stress great dancers and pays less mind to roles. At the same time, stereotypes about who should be dancing are also dying out. “Diversity brings different texture, brings dimension,” Winkler said. One group in Berlin, which works on inclusion, for example, brings tango to people with Down Syndrome.
At one traditional so-called “hetero-milonga” in Berlin’s Monbijou Park on a hot summer night, a crowd danced under lights and a canopy. On the sidelines, however, a few dancers did not get invited often to the floor, as most participants appeared to dance with those they already knew.
“The milongas are broken,” Brigitta Winkler said, quoting the founder of the progressive Oxygen Tango school in Los Angeles, Mitra Martin. Winkler attributes that to complex rules, known mostly to insiders, and to outdated attitudes. Older men are looking to dance with very young women. “If you are a good dancer but you are not 18 anymore, they are not interested,” she asserts. The young women are sexualized, looked at as a partner not just for human “touch” but for “feeling up.” Winkler believes this form of sexism and ageism has meant older women are, in turn, not invited to dance, despite being more experienced.
An innovative traditionalist, Berlin’s Winkler criticizes attitudes, such as that of world-renowned tango dancer Horacio Godoy. During instruction, Godoy asks the “men” to stand behind him and the “women” to stand behind his female partner, assuming only men do the leader’s part and only women do the follower’s. Winkler, by contrast, is both a “leader” and a “follower.” She prefers the terms “composer” and “actor,” first adopted by famous gay show couple, Maurizio and Martin. Winkler wants to dance “beyond roles” and believes a follower can also lead from the follower embrace.
Winkler recalls when a man in Virginia circled around her several times, staring intently in her direction. When she wouldn’t answer his gaze, he came close and reproached her, “If you don’t look at me, the cabeceo isn’t working.” Winkler retorted, “it works perfectly well,” and walked off.
For Winkler, transcending roles and rules includes how people ask each other to dance. Traditionally, dancers who use the cabeceo, a head nod, have to agree to dance with their eyes instead of asking verbally. Helpful at times, the cabeceo spares unassertive dancers the discomfort of saying “no,” yet is abused by overzealous leaders who insist on aggressive eye contact, in order to secure a dance with their chosen follower. Winkler recalls when a man in Virginia circled around her several times, staring intently in her direction. When she wouldn’t answer his gaze, he came close and reproached her, “If you don’t look at me, the cabeceo isn’t working.” Winkler retorted, “it works perfectly well,” and walked off.
The disk jockey and organizer of “Tango Zum Glück,” is Andrea Wendland, who has also danced for eight years. She created her dance social as a safe space where people can socialize in a relaxed manner, “without aggressive dancing.” Even when people don’t quite follow the line of dance and collisions do occur, they are laughed off with courtesy. The goal is “to dance a little bit like seaweed,” Wendland said, miming the gentle rocking of a mass of ocean flora, an apt image for a crowded dance floor.
One of Berlin’s famous queer milongas takes place at the top of the hill at Viktoria Park in Kreuzberg. At the back of the Prussian National Monument, while the sun was setting, dancers seemed to look out for each other more, looking in the direction of those who were sitting and making sure to invite them. Most leaders were women. The event was smaller, less glamorous, but more welcoming.
The Queer Tango Festival in Berlin, into its 9th year, took place earlier this month and brought dancers from the all-women San Francisco group “Tango Con*fusión.” The festival organizer, Astrid Weiske, is a self-identified “butch lesbian” who has studied with Brigitta Winkler and other famous teachers, such as Cecilia Gonzalez and Pablo Pugliese. Weiske never quite fit the traditional female role in tango. An experienced “leader,” she also enjoys following, but braved heels only five years ago. Many dancers nowadays lead and follow in heels, though for “leading,” most would agree that maximum stability on flat shoes is best.
Weiske is well-connected in Berlin and internationally and notes there are few butch dancers like her on the professional level. There are “two worlds in tango,” she says with some disappointment, differentiating the heteronormative scene from the open-role or queer tango world. She had a vision to bring them together, advertising the Queer Tango Festival widely. Among the 300–400 people who attend, 80% had an LGBTQI background. When she asks dancers why they don’t attend this festival, they respond, “But I am not queer!” Still, she would prefer a truly diverse mix. “You are welcome even if you’d like to stay in the traditional role,” Weiske said.
She hears about the many frustrations of women in the straight community. “The men are doing cabeceo, the women sitting like hens,” she said. In this type of environment, the few men present usually get their choice of partner while many women are rejected. Weiske has discussed this issue with various dance schools in Berlin and says, “open role” dancing is now more widely advertised, though some queer dancers, including herself, prefer the term “queer” to “open role.” Queer milongas, according to Weiske, have been favored by straight women in Buenos Aires, too, because female attendees see gay men as “good male dancer[s] to be safe with.” Still, Weiske has noticed that some straight women would only pick a woman leader as a second choice.
Astrid Weiske is also not interested in the “belief wars” about traditional or newer aesthetics. To her, it is more important to “learn how to use your body as a voice.” She even believes switching roles without changing one’s embrace is possible, with the right attention and responsibility, “like a ping-pong dialogue.” And she wishes more men would attend milongas as followers. She wants the men to relax and feel safe in the arms of women who lead.
At “Femilonga,” in an outdoor passageway, known as “under the colonnade” in Berlin’s Mitte district, dancers can spend an afternoon by the river in an open-role setting with clear rules about conduct and consent. Fewer expectations about beauty or body norms allow dancers to emphasize the moral responsibility of dancing. Several women and one man are leading. Some women effortlessly wear their body hair free and an absence of cortina pauses allows dancers to pick up with a new partner at any point during the tanda, or the three-or four-song sequence. The Feminist Tango Friendship (FTF), which organizes “Femilonga,” is a progressive initiative, is interested in helping more people successfully find partners. Social ostracization and assumptions often impede these efforts.
The group also organizes “Femilonga” and other workshops, focused on feminist tango, understanding privilege, and communicating personal boundaries. One of the group’s main actions is mobilizing the tango community against abuse, a little-discussed but prevalent issue. At one gathering, activists said they witnessed a woman leave the dance floor and enter a bathroom shaking and trying to wash something off her arms. “If there is one woman who dares to talk, there are many who didn’t,” said Maria, one of FTF’s core-members, who chose not to provide her last name. In another case, when a man was touching a woman inappropriately during a dance and she complained, the group spoke with the man, who reacted with surprise and became defensive.
Cases like this one inspired the group’s work to begin, a year ago. While night clubs often have policies about abuse on the dance floor, ballroom and social dance events don’t have a great record of addressing these issues. At Feminist Tango Friendship events, which are donation-based, the group’s manifesto is often taped to a wall and outlines basic rules, which help ensure an equitable environment. Some events are labeled FLTI (female, lesbian, transgender, intersex), but cis-men are also welcome, as long as they abide by the rules.
Ilai Jess, a trans man, is an ally to FTF and an enthusiastic teacher of tango to absolute beginners. Jess is also a trained drama therapist. He believes in including everyone in tango and advocates for do-it-yourself organization for tango events. “Everybody wants to dance with people better than they are,” he says. In a world like that, Jess says, nobody would dance. He does not train students in the famous “tango walk” but advocates for bringing everyday movements into the dance. Currently, Jess gives sliding-scale cost lessons at a neighborhood meeting house, Nachbarschaftshaus, in Berlin, where he rents a space. The house is mostly used by Turkish women, who have at times shown interest in Jess’s activities.
“Everybody wants to dance with people better than they are,” Ilai Jess says. In a world like that, he says, nobody would dance.
Jess has studied memory, which helped him develop pedagogy using cards with signs, representing different moves, he puts on the wall. A picture of a windmill for the molinete move, where a follower walks around a leader, a sandwich for the sandwich move, where a dancer traps one foot of their partner between their two feet, and a cross for the crossmove, where a dancer stops with their legs straight and crossed. Jess’s methods are developed to help dancers gain self-confidence, which he believes is especially urgent for many queer participants. In the milonga context, Jess is concerned about what happens “if you are not the one in the red dress and the high-heeled shoes.”
He says cis gay men don’t usually want to dance with him and others ask how it is possible that he is a tango teacher. Years ago, Ilai Jess started at classes and milongas and by filling water jugs and doing shifts at the door. Now he has his own site, Tangologie: Queer Tango und das Leben, on queer tango and life. In his approach, individuality and community can co-exist, with or without red dresses. One “windmill” and one “sandwich” at a time.
Margarita Delcheva is a UCSB graduate student in Comparative Literature and a founding editor at Paperbag, an online poetry and art journal.
