It’s 2am on a Monday night. The long rectangular dance space at El Yeite is beginning to fill. Dancers are trickling into the room in two streams, disgorging from the two staircases at opposite corners, from their source in the big, bright, empty, neon-lit salsa space below, with its glittering bar and shiny spotlit bottles of flavoured vodka.
I notice an interesting phenomenon among the talented young dancers here. The Argentine men stride in confidently, mostly alone. The foreign men, however, arrive surrounded by clumps of beautiful young women: like solitary magnesium ions in the centre of a chlorophyll molecule. Crucial elements in the conversion of tango longing into lovely tandas; tangosynthesis. The foreign boys are handsome: though — with some honourable exceptions — they tend to be just a little more pungently odoriferous in this muggy heat than their Argentine equivalents (many Argentine men are obsessively meticulous about preventing bodily smells). But above all these foreign men are often a very scarce commodity in their home tango scenes: a specimen of that rare species, the excellent male tango dancer.
But the women accompanying them, too, are not just young and lovely: all long, slender legs, shiny tango heels, glossy hair and sweet, young, plump-skinned pale faces. These women can dance. They can really dance. I am a woman and I know: you don’t get a smooth back ocho like that without many, many sessions of furrowed-brow solo technique practice. Those judiciously placed decorations suggest a familiarity with the music which is the result of many listening hours. And having led some of these women, I can tell you, dear readers, that the best of them feel as light as pedalling a bicycle downhill; as soft as my old velveteen teddy bear with one missing eye; as responsive as a thoroughbred horse; and yet as tranquil as an aged labrador.
And yet I’ve seen them, sitting through one tantalisingly beautiful tanda after another, looking out at the dance floor with increasingly glazed eyes, fanning themselves desultorily, occasionally making small talk with half their attention on the floor. And I’ve seen the brave little smiles and shrugs of concealed disappointment after another night of few dances. And even, occasionally, witnessed the mascara-smearing tears of frustration under the harsh white lights of the ladies’ toilets. And, yes, I have — though thankfully not recently — cried one or two myself.
The gender imbalance among the visiting foreign dancers (which is far less pronounced among Buenos Aires residents and Argentines) means that tango can be hard on women. And Buenos Aires can be hard on the foreign women. Particularly a milonga like El Yeite: the late-night playground of the hot young things, the new generation of salón dancers, twisty of torso, and catlike of step. And it’s hard even for these women, and they are the elite: young, beautiful and highly skilled.
I live here and know many of the guys here. And many of them will therefore ask me to dance. But a lot of the Argentine men are reluctant to ask a woman to dance if they haven’t seen her out on the floor with a fellow good leader: an impossible catch-22 situation if you are new to this scene. Many are risk averse and prefer to dance only with women whose dancing is familiar. Or there may be a hundred other considerations at work. I don’t believe xenophobia is usually a factor. I just think that these men already have plenty of lovely followers to choose from.
And here people — rightly, I personally feel — like to separate dancing with someone from socialising with them. Dancing remains a purely pleasurable activity, untinged with feelings of duty and obligation. See the final paragraph of this entry for more thoughts on this. So, just knowing an Argentine, sitting with him, chatting, flirting, will not guarantee you any dances.
The foreign men, however, the ones trailing the oestrogen clouds, will usually dance with all the women at their table. They are likely to be chivalrous and gentlemanly about this, even if they may have some mixed feelings about it at times. I can imagine they must, at least. Hmmm, the Argentine women are nice to dance with too; well, maybe after I have danced a tanda with everyone in my group I will get a chance to eye that stranger with the lovely smooth dissociation.
So, if you are a woman, if you make yourself part of some homogamete-heavy foreign group, add your oestrogen emanations to the cloud surrounding the foreign men, there are certain advantages. You know you will get some nice dances with the men at your table at least. And the alternative may be an evening of frustration. With all passion unspent.
I have read this post several times and I’m an odd mixture of confused, intrigued and saddened.
Saddened because people who clearly love dancing are denied the opportunity.
Confused because it is not immediately apparent why this should be the case.
And I’m intrigued-because I’d like to know why.
My thoughts on the subject range from – surely, even in Argentina, there must be less good leaders looking for new followers prepared to dance with them, through to maybe there are cultural things at play-maybe the cabaceo doesn’t work so well with tourists or those sitting in a group? I know that I personally am reluctant to ask people sitting in a group to dance as I don’t want to interrupt their conversation.
I also suspect that I have missed the real point of this post-but at the moment I’m interpreting it as a question.
I wish I had answers to your questions. I will say that the tango scene in Buenos Aires is extremely fluid and dynamic. This is a snapshot. I went back to the milonga El Yeite on a different evening to find a preponderance of men and to see some foreign women happily dancing with the local guys, to my pleased astonishment. But I think there are a number of factors at work here. There is not necessarily a gender imbalance among tango dancers who live permanently in BA, it seems to me. But — and this is my purely subjective opinion — there do seem to be slightly fewer men among the really good dancers. Also, women tend to like to spend more of their milonga time on the dance floor than men. So, if there are equal numbers of men and women, often the men will be spending lots of time relaxing, resting, drinking beer, chatting, etc. While the women will be just itching to dance. Of course, there are exceptions.
Then there is the fact that the foreigners can often reproduce the gender imbalances of their own local tango scenes when they come to BA. Some of the people I’ve talked to have reported that — back home in their local scenes in Europe, the US or Australia — there is a ratio of one man to every four women among the more advanced dancers. There are many visiting foreigners here. And my impression is that a lot more of them are women than men. Again, these are subjective impressions. I have no statistics to back them up. But I have seen the oestrogen cloud on a number of occasions. So I wanted to describe it.
It is definitely true that cabeceo is more difficult at the more informal milongas. And El Yeite is dark and the venue is an awkward shape for cabeceo, too. The guys I dance with there tend to ask me verbally, not by cabeceo. I don’t think the group thing is much of a factor. And actually people don’t tend to be having many group conversations. But I don’t dance with many men at the informal milongas whom I don’t already know and have already danced with elsewhere. And that can make it very hard for visiting women.
Of course, one other factor is that many of the women in the oestrogen cloud are also good leaders. And I myself lead. Tango homophobia is very rare among these advanced-level women dancers. So the women can — and do — also have fun dancing with each other. But this is only a partial solution. Many of those of us who lead (including me) do not lead well enough to really give these women the following thrills they are looking for, and, frankly, deserve. Also, the floorcraft at some of these places can be challenging. Collisions are rare, but people are dancing fast-paced, flashy stuff. And women tend to be smaller than men and can find floorcraft more of a challenge simply because we’re shorter and it’s harder for us to see. Also our women partners, the followers, are frequently taller than the women leaders. Since the leaders are in flat shoes and the followers, in general, in high heels. This can also restrict visibility.
PS I realise I forgot to answer one part of your question. “Surely, even in Argentina, there must be less good leaders looking for new followers willing to dance with them.” Yes, there are some not very good leaders out there who would happily dance with these women. But those leaders are usually not enjoyable to dance with. Of course, the women will dance with men who are not as good dancers as they are, as long as there are things about their dance which they can enjoy. But with men who are stiff, uncomfortable, hurt them, are totally unmusical or bump them constantly into other people? No.
By homozygote you mean XX? I’m struggling with how the word would describe anything but autosomal loci …
The followers you describe seem to be incredibly docile, like horses, like old dogs, like toys even. Is there any room for followers’ mischief and laughter there? And, you lead them … at the practicas or socially, too?
Docile? No, I didn’t want to give that impression. Maybe I chose misleading metaphors (though thoroughbred horses aren’t docile). The ‘quietness’ I describe is just one aspect of their skill in dancing. It’s nice, for me at least, to feel a follower who is playful, musical and active, but not squirmy, twitchy or wobbly. The follower, shouldn’t, I feel, be *always* in nervous motion. That’s the quality I was trying to convey. I hoped I said something about the playfulness in my reference to judiciously placed and musical decorations. In fact, my impression (admittedly a subjective one that’s hard to back up factually) is that the preference among most of the better young leaders at places like El Yeite and Milonga 10 is for very active following where the leader can really feel the follower’s musical interpretation and enjoyment of the dance and that’s how the better young followers are following, too (for what I mean by that, see the drop-down categories menu for the blog which will take you to entries where I specifically describe this).
In answer to your other questions. ‘Homozygote’ is my playful term for women. This isn’t science writing. However, if you are telling me as a scientist that it’s really inaccurate I’ll happily change it. I don’t want to write nonsense and I’m not a trained biologist. I appreciate feedback from those who are.
And, yes, I lead. At practicas and socially. I’m working on trying to become a good leader.
Thanks for you nice reply! Yes, I was definitely thrown off-course by your choice of metaphors for the good followers in this post, but it only took me a bit more reading to understand your conviction that the best followers are actively participating in the dialog of the dance, and appreciative of the leaders who share this conviction. Like in a very eloquent passage in this older post. I haven’t been to BsAs yet, but one of my fears is that it may be a more traditional tango society, and therefore more geared towards male dictate and female submission. I guess your post touched this chord…
I guess I should have been more specific with my question about women “socially” leading, since it strikes the same chord. How acceptable, with what limits (if at all) it is at the milongas? In a sense it’s also about passive vs. assertive tangueras.
the allusions to biomolecules and genes in this piece made me believe that you are a pro. If you aren’t, hat’s off, these metaphors are quite well pointed. But the correct word for XX is “homogametic” (alas it’s way too obscure to earn a good use in a non-scientific … or even in a scientific text IMVHO)
I guess since I feel I’ve emphasised the active part of good following often lately, I was drawn towards metaphors that expressed its more chameleonic, soft, responsive, harmonious side. It wasn’t meant as a specific characterisation of these women’s dancing.
To answer your question, women leading is definitely totally acceptable at most of the more informal milongas: all the milongas at the Villa Malcolm venue except Cachirulo, at El Yeite, La Milonga en Orsay, Gardel en Medellin, Milonga 10, Codigo de Barra, etc and, of course, at La Viruta and all the practicas except The Sunderland Practica. By totally acceptable I mean no one will give it even a second glance. And you won’t get asked to dance any less as a follower. Men can dance with other men at those places, too. And women can lead men (though I personally tend to dislike leading men, as they are much bigger and heavier than me — I am very petite — and tend to be clunky, resistant, heavy followers, though of course there are exceptions). It’s also fine late at night (after 4am) at the Canning milongas. I’ve never seen same-sex dancing at Sunderland, Cachirulo or El Beso (except, again, very late at night, when things get more relaxed and, of course, at the Friday night gay milonga La Marshall en El Beso). Some women friends have reported leading at more formal milongas. But I haven’t tried it.
I am going to use the word homogametic. And I’d love it if you spotted any mistakes in future sciencey metaphors (which I am drawn to because I love biology and chemistry) and pointed them out to me!
Ah. A perfect post. Honestly. I am presently here in BsAs and I am struggling through both my own emotions as well as learning how to be patient. The milongas in SF have been so kind to me, so much of my time is spent on the floor, I was frustrated and worn out from the time I’ve spent waiting for anyone to take a ‘chance’ on me.
I have been here for more than a month now, it is wearing off. I’ve been fortunate enough to dance with both foreign and local dancers.
I marvel at the followers that are here for a brief time and manage to have a good time. I suppose I am shy, in a world that requires decisive movements to gain access to the dance floor.
In the end, this is post has been my life for the last four weeks.
Thank you for explaining it in such and understanding and truly understanding way.
Tango Siren, I’m really sorry that this has been your experience in BA and glad that it has eventually worn off at least.
I’m not sure being more self-confident, less shy, would help you to be honest. There are really not that many things you as a follower new to the scene can do in this situation. The only thing I’d say is that it can be easier to get dances at the daytime practicas and this may help you to get seen and known by some of the guys, who may then ask you to dance at the milongas, too. Another strategy is, if you see women leaders, come and ask us to lead you for a tanda (we’re usually pretty happy to do this) and then you can well, a) hopefully have fun for that tanda and b) get shown off. Attending a lot of classes can be a good strategy for making dance contacts. And leading yourself (if you are able to) can get you out on the floor and may get you more dances as a follower. Also, the more formal milongas tend to be easier for women to get dances at than the trendy young people’s milongas. But there is no foolproof strategy. And I’m sorry if this advice comes too late for you. (Though, if this is the case, maybe it will be helpful to other readers).
One of my main motivations for working hard on my leading is that I want to lead some of these women. They are definitely fun to lead. And I’d like to be able to show them a good time and mitigate some of the worse effects of the oestrogen cloud.