473  Gender Roles in Tango

Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 13:57:53 EST
From: Leonardo De Leon <TangoLeon@AOL.COM>
Subject: Gender Roles in Tango

My wife and I recently gave a lecture and set of demos on tango in a
university ethnomusicology class. One of the students, who decided thereafter
to write her term paper on gender roles in tango, asked us to elaborate on
this. In the lecture I stated, after an explanation of the elements (i.e.,
steps) of the tango dance, which provide considerable opportunity for
improvisation, that the woman needs to not assume a predictable sequence of
steps, and thus needs to be alert and waiting for the lead. This gives the
man a lot of decision-making power over the flow of the dance, more than
exists, for example, in ballroom dances where a sequence of 2 or 3 steps in a
particular order can provide reasonable prediction of a number of subsequent
steps. However, in contrast to ballroom dances, in tango there is an
interchange of active roles, and there are times where the man stops and
allows the woman opportunities to express herself through adornments before
he once again assumes immediate control of the flow of the dance. The woman
can also add her own expression of style and emotion through adornments at
numerous places in the dance while the couple is moving. In my opinion, as
someone who also does ballroom dances, there is also more opportunity for
emotional expression in tango through the variation in the tempo (controlled
by the man) and in the speed and forcefulness of step excecution (e.g., as
may occur in ganchos and boleos). This latter aspect allows women additional
freedom of expression. Perhaps it would be correct to say that the man guides
the overall flow of the dance (step pattern and tempo), but that the woman
adds expressive elements (adornos), usually more than the man. I have even
heard several tango instructors (of salon style tango) say that the man forms
the structure of the dance, but it is also his purpose is to make the woman
appear pretty. In the tango classes I teach, I use the analogy that the man
is the sculptor and the woman is the sculpture.

This is a 21st century interpretation which describes salon style tango (and
it may have applied for some time). It applies less in other tango styles and
in milonga and vals. I would like to provide this student with some
additional information, based in part on a cultural and historical
perspective. This is where I admit considerably less knowledge. My
understanding is that in the earliest days of tango, where it was danced
primarily in brothels, the dance had conspicuous elements of dominance and
submission. For example, I've even heard that the lustrada and the gancho
were first performed only by men, and that these were symbols of male
dominance.

I would be interested in list members' understanding of gender roles in
tango. If you have historical information and can provide your source (book,
article, word of mouth an expert on tango history and culture), I would
appreciate it.

Leonardo

Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 13:16:44 -0500
From: Marianne Hansen <mhansen@BRYNMAWR.EDU>
Subject: Re: Gender Roles in Tango

Leonardo De Leon wrote:

>>My wife and I recently gave a lecture and set of demos on tango in a
>>university ethnomusicology class. One of the students, who decided
>>thereafter to write her term paper on gender roles in tango ......

>>I would be interested in list members' understanding of gender roles in
>>tango. If you have historical information and can provide your source
>>(book, article, word of mouth an expert on tango history and culture), I
>>would appreciate it.

Dear Leonardo,

It must be a fun class, to have demos and all. I think it's great that you
are going to go on and help the student out, also. A couple of ideas come
to me (as a person who assists students to do research as part of my job)
which I thought I would share. As some of them are references to
interesting papers and books on tango, I have ventured to post to the list,
rather than just write you personally.

The first thing I thought when I saw your message was that the student is
gong to have to be careful to think about where and when 'tango' happens if
she wants to write on gender issues. I think that the postings just on
this list are sufficient evidence (and she might enjoy reading the
archives) that gender relations within the dance are different at different
times in history and that they are different right now at different places
in the world. Even strictly within a male-leader, female-follower pattern,
we see there are differences in the dynamic of the relationship between
modern Buenos Aires, America, Holland, and Japan. And, of course, there
are differences between individuals and couples within any given locale
also. I dance in Philadelphia and in recent milongas I have seen lots of
men leading and women following, women leading other women fairly
frequently, two men dancing together (unusual but more than once), powerful
and active female community leaders, a man who asked another man for
permission to dance with his wife, and a man who told his wife when to step
out to join a birthday dance. This is not a community which I would feel
comfortable having represented to your student by someone who wanted to lay
down the law by pontificating about how 'tango' is. She needs to consider
clearly whether she will talk about the past, the present, or the image
presented in literature or film, about location, and about what she will
accept as sources.

The second thing is that I would advise you to be careful about
interpreting too much for the student. I don't know whether she wants to
do fieldwork (in which case you might usefully introduce her to your
community) or academic research. If the latter, she will find that there
actually is some interesting work already being done which she can find
through ordinary research channels. (If she will go to her library for
help, great! If not, you might whisper the names of a couple of these
resources to her: her library catalog, Historical Abstracts, Women's
Resources International, Hispanic American Periodicals Index, Arts and
Humanities Search). And here is a brief list of publications that I have
just pulled out of these tools which might interest her:

Books:
Tango and the political economy of passion / Marta E. Savigliano
Paper tangos / Julie Taylor
Antropología del tango: los protagonistas / María Susana Azzi

Papers:
3 papers from The Passion of Music and Dance: Body, Gender and Sexuality --
Oxford, New York: Berg, 1998:
From Wallflowers to Femmes Fatales: Tango and the Performance of
Passionate Femininity / Marta E. Savigliano.
Tobin, Jeffrey. Tango and the scandal of homosocial desire /
Jeffrey Tobin.
Castro, Donald. Carlos Gardel and the Argentine tango: the lyric
of social irresponsibility and male inadequacy
/ Donald Castro.

Tango / by Julie Taylor. In: Cultural anthropology -- Washington, D.C. v.
2, no. 4, 1987, p.481-493, ISSN 0886-7356.

Tango and the Postmodern Uses of Passion / Marta E. Savigliano, In:
Cruising the performative : interventions into the representation of
ethnicity, nationality, and sexuality / edited by Sue-Ellen Case, Philip
Brett, and Susan Leigh Foster. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
c1995, p.130-.

A dissertation:
Tobin, Jeffrey P.Manly Acts: Buenos Aires, 24 March 1996
(Argentina, Masculinity, Asado, Soccer, Tango, National Identity).

And give her my best wishes!
Marianne Hansen