A Confession to the tango community
And a cautionary tale for all social dance communities
By Nicole M. Hill
This post was written in December 2018 and republished here. It grew out of a Facebook thread about diversity, inclusion, and respect in Argentine tango. I was responding to the concern raised, by a white tango dancer, that tango is a very white space.
Yeah, tango is a very white space. I grew up in these spaces, tech job, Ivy League education, PhD from top university so I’m comfortable there. There are whole sections of my life where I had more white friends or dated more white people than black people simply because I can connect with anyone truly and sometimes there were very few black people. That isn’t true for all minorities, some are uncomfortable in largely white spaces, and we can do more to make them welcome in tango.
One year, when I was still obsessed with tango, it was my birthday and there was a milonga* where I had my birthday dance. It started well with my friends taking turns to dance with me. My friend and teacher ‘Chewy’ Suzuki’s band Cuidado was playing that night. Score! Live music for my birthday dance! I took privates with him to learn to lead, which was fortuitous.
He puts down his horn to take his turn to dance with me, but no one would cut in so that he could finish the song. I think I danced with five men total, there were plenty of other men in the room that I know and am cordial with. Chewy calls out to the crowd, “I have to finish the song.” No one cuts in, we continue to dance for another 10–20 seconds while nobody moves. Finally, a female friend approaches and I finish my dance as a lead. That says it all, I can’t even get a “20-second pity dance” on my birthday out of the community that I have been a member with for years! At this point, I was helping Chewy assist some of his classes when Yulia was unavailable. So much for “tango respects and rewards people that spend time to study.”
So many times before and since, people have told me, “it’s just in your head”, “tango is all about connection”, and “you can’t force it”, “maybe work on your dance more”, “maybe be more friendly.” I tried many things, taking classes with different instructors just to get to know everyone and private lessons for following and leading, to no avail.
When there are people in the room unwilling to dance with anyone for a fraction of a song, on their birthday, even if it means that the band leader can’t wrap the song up, that is not a community. Its a private club with at least some degree of bias, and in my case, racist tendencies.
I’ve always been polite and friendly. I’m not one of those pariahs that no one wanted to dance with because they were rude and insulted everyone. And I contributed to my community, I was responsible for convincing a local business to give us free space for a weekly milonga, a milonga, I spent a lot of tandas sitting out.
And despite the insult and embarrassment on my birthday I continued to show up and support that community and others religiously for years. I took out student loans with interest to pay for classes, workshops, private lessons, and milongas, to support teachers that didn’t give me the time of day during a milonga. Teachers that complained about students not taking the dance seriously, students who stopped going to classes, teachers struggling to make financial ends meet, I felt unappreciated. And I am still paying off that debt over 8 years later.
So yes, it was upsetting, which is why I had to move on. Now, after dancing throughout the US — Pittsburgh, Philly, NYC, SF, DC and never feeling truly welcomed, I moved to Chicago and said, “tango will no longer be my life.” I dance 3–4 times a year, every time before I leave asking myself one question, “if no one invites you to dance or accepts your invitation, will it ruin your night or your week?”
We have to be truly inclusive to retain people in the community, doubly so for black people and other minorities who face this in every aspect of their life.
Once I started leading it was eye opening. I didn’t care about whether the women I danced with were sexy or young, but I got to “feel” who could dance well or not so well. The older ladies at the milonga deserve to dance too! We short change them, especially if they haven’t maintained a certain body type. Many of them are phenomenal and even those that aren’t, deserve to dance.
So let’s be honest about what is really happening. People need to step up because tango has a long way to go before they can use the word “community” in any sincere and unironic sense.
If you think your tango community is above this but you can’t name the things that you are explicitly doing to ensure inclusiveness and respect, you are just fooling yourself. There is a dancer or many dancers, somewhere, feeling left out.
The blues community actively talks about good behavior. In my opinion, blues is one of the most friendly and inclusive social dances. But the people of color in blues, not just Black people, but LatinX and Asian people, feel slighted and discriminated against too. This year I was invited to join a private Facebook group for minorities to talk about their mistreatment in social dance. Their experiences have been so traumatic that white people aren’t allowed to join this group to ensure that it is a “safe space.”
Please consider the gravity of this statement for a moment and do not dismiss it as a rant. Because I’m one of the few people of color who will tell you this, hoping for change; the rest are talking about their pain in private, closed Facebook groups.
Do you want more black dancers in the room? Work to bring them there and keep them there with specific actions!
I just went to a professional conference recently that started by talking about their code of ethics, diversity and inclusion, behavior, and explicitly defining their policy on bad behavior. There are companies tying business metrics to behaviors that promote inclusion and diversity. There are models out there from you to draw from.
It’s not enough to be “nice people,” to be “non-racist,” you have to live it and breathe it, you have to be anti-racist, and move from talk to action. You have to create and enforce codes of ethics, which includes sexual harassment.
I’m not here to tell anyone they are bad people, you are good people. I’m here to tell you why people leave and why they never come in the first place. Do you care enough to change?
One final story, respect the strangers at the milonga. Honor people from Argentina for blessing you with their culture. I learned that value from the samba community, from my teachers Dill Costa and Aninha Laidley.
The last time I danced in Chicago I came alone. Two older ladies from Argentina arrived and asked me if the milonga was friendly and would they dance. I lied because although this milonga is friendly for tango, I knew there was no guarantee of two older ladies dancing. But I wanted to make them feel welcome, they are after all Argentine. I invite them to sit with me. They bought a cheap horrible bottle of wine, and we laugh about it. I offer them my Malbec, we all agree it’s good. We speak a combination of broken English, Spanish, and Portuguese. I introduce them to the few people I know.
People greet them in Spanish and are so excited to see them here. No one asks them to dance. I asked Melanie Klaric to help me. You see my first milonga in Chicago was hers and it was my mother’s birthday. It was actually a good night for me, but no one asked my mom to dance. I knew no one, I was new. I asked Melanie for help. She discreetly lined the men up to dance with my mother, who to this day, until now, had no idea why her luck changed that night. I never forgot it.
Melanie asked people to dance again, in fact she was already working on it. The one lady was wearing a very sexy dress and she danced many tandas. The other lady was lovely in her understated dress. I took off my heels and put on my leaders shoes and invited the other lady to a milonga** “to show her off.” We laughed and had a good time. I’m not the lead I used to be, dancing four times a year, no matter, what I lacked in technique I made up in musicality and passion! She received one more invitation, that’s it. I’m sitting out too but I’m f*cking pissed that we disrespected two Argentine women this way. “Excuse me.” I went around begging men I barely knew to dance with her. I pretended to do nothing but she thanked me for it. “It’s nothing,” I said, “you are guests.”
Then Fabrizio Sonny LeNoir comes over to talk and he asked her to dance. One more man dances with her, no more. It was an embarrassment. They left, we kissed goodbye, I stayed for another hour, no dances.
And so I dance tango 4 times a year …
Start the conversation where you dance! Please be respectful in the comments. Clap and share if this resonated with you.
Please note, I respectfully decline to respond to comments.
Love is at the root at everything, all learning, all relationships, love or the lack of it. — Mr. Rogers
Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.
— Mr. Rogers’ mother
*A milonga is the name of a tango dance party.
**In this case, milonga is the name of a dance/music style that is a precursor to tango.
