TRANSCRIPT ~ EPISODE 11

EPISODE 11: Embracing to change the world, with Alex Pacheco Castillo

Producer/Host: Liz Sabatiuk | Music: “Bailemos” written by Cholo Mamona and Reinaldo Yiso and performed by Susanita Peña | Image Credit: Tango Queer Uruguay

[MUSIC]

LIZ ID INTRO:
I'm Liz Sabatiuk, and this is Humans of Tango, where we explore what tango has to teach through
the experiences of those who dance it.

[MUSIC CONTINUES - LYRICS IN SPANISH]
No llores, no muchacha, la gente está mirando
bailemos este tango, el tango del adiós...
así entre mis brazos, mirándote a los ojos
yo quiero despedirme sin llanto y sin dolor...
La vida caprichosa nos puso frente a frente
prendiendo en nuestro pecho la hoguera de un querer

LIZ SCRIPT:
For Alex Pacheco Castillo, from her very first embrace, tango came naturally.

[LYRICS CONTINUE]
mas hoy, la misma vida nos manda separarnos
el sueño de querernos, ya ves, no puede ser...

[MUSIC FADES] 

ALEX: 
I was in high school. There was an Argentinian professor that specifically wanted to teach tango to adolescents. I went to his workshop, and I basically didn't leave for the whole duration of my high school times. I did try some other dances before, and I could not work with my body. I was completely disconnected. I think that it's a common experience in adolescent period, but in that moment, I felt that it had to do with my size, because I was- I'm very tall here in Mexico, and I was very tall since I was young. So I felt like I didn't fit anywhere, and so I was, like, struggling with inhabiting my body. But I now can recognize that it was my size, but also my gender experience and process in my teenage years, and also, like, being a woman, but being a lesbian. Um... Well, tango, when I went to this first lesson with Gonzalo,

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Gonzalo Souto.

ALEX: ...was the first time that I felt a connection. So he basically did some exercise with me and then started dancing me, like, he was in the leading role, and I knew that my body understood something. I wasn't sure, like, in my mind what was happening, but I think it was the first time that it was my mind that wasn't aware of what was happening, but my body was. There was no stress or confusion or disconnection in my body.

The way that tango moves in a subtle and profound way in the encounter of the bodies makes it easier to resolve. I don't- como que- the body knows how to react into the movement, like an experience of wisdom, I think, of bodily wisdom that, yeah, I was in love with that sensation. I wonder sometimes if I ever would have entered tango, if I met some other person, teacher, methodology. I'm more inclined to say I would not be here if I encountered some other space that was more heteronormative or more, um... square is a word, like structure?

LIZ: Oh yeah, square. It's slang. It’s perfect slang.

ALEX: Yes, with Gonzalo, he's older, obviously, than me, he was, I don't know, I think he was like in his late 30s when I met him, but he was, like, younger, like a big-brother kind of vibe. And yeah, I think his personality is community inclined. So we were friends in this group, we were building bonds that in that moment of life, it's also very important. And I know that he has this relationship with every one of his students from that space, from others also. He used to teach in a different part of town, like at the same time we were in the south part, and he was teaching also in the north. And my first psuedo-milonga experience was he, uh, bringing these two groups together, not only in a way of practicing and dancing, but there were an intention of building a community that remains in a way until today.

And, yeah, for me it was especially important in this process of constructing my identity that the space with Gonzalo was open for me to explore who I was and to be able to keep on dancing, even if I don't wear a skirt anymore, or I don't want to use high heels anymore, or to be able to dance in a different way. Like both sides, like keep on doing what I do in tango, even if my life is changing in other ways, but also to be able to change my tango because of the way my life is changing.

I do know a lot of people that have this time apart. And sometimes it's because we don't have energy or we need to focus on some other parts of our lives. But I know a lot of cases that had to do with, um, changing processes that are not ready for disclosure, that it not always has to do with gender or with- sometimes it had to do with age or disability processes or even socio-economical status. Yeah, it's a question about belonging also, like, who is the person that belongs to this community? Do I belong in a static way or I belong in a movement kind of milonga-round way, like we are in the milonga and we are moving and still belonging. I think that it's a challenge for communities and for individuals to be able to belong in a dynamic way.

LIZ: Hm. That was a “dancefloor of life” metaphor, right? Just to make sure.

[LAUGHTER]

ALEX: Yeah.

LIZ SCRIPT:
This potential for dynamic belonging is a big part of what drives Alex as a tango dancer, teacher, and organizer. 

ALEX: 
I think tango can build bonds in a world that it's completely severed. So for me, yeah, like being able to dance with someone that I don't know is, like, magical - it is - but being able to sustain connections with people over time, thanks to tango, it's even more magical.

LIZ SCRIPT: 
Alex came onto my radar when we both wrote essays for a 2021 e-book called Queer Tango Futures, which you can download for free through a link in the show notes if you're so inclined. While my essay imagined making tango more inclusive by including more of our authentic selves in the dance, Alex's took the concept of inclusivity in a completely different direction, contrasting it with belonging. 

ALEX: 
Belonging is a way in which organically you are who you are, and because of who you are, you are in a whole. You are belonging to a bigger set. On the other side, inclusion, it's the experience of being inside of a whole that has some characteristics that can match you, but some characteristics of the whole doesn't relate to your characteristics. So you are, like, inside of this set in a not complete way, and you are inside of this set even though - not because of - but even though you are who you are. I'm included in this community in spite of me being queer, me being a lesbian, me being both-role dancer. And I feel that belonging for me in queer tango spaces is effortless, and being included in traditional tango spaces, it's always desgastante, it's like a lot of energy put into explaining who I am... Draining, yeah it's draining, in every moment, like entering and not being set in a gender role. It's not about bad people, it's not about bad communities, for people that are not queer, it's really difficult to understand how we experience day to day. 

I think that empathic, good people can feel for the violent, up-to-your-face, to-your-face ways of discrimination or exclusion. Most people can empathize with that experience and be against discrimination, against marginalization, against violence, but there are a lot of subtle ways of not belonging that are not noticeable for people that do not share that life experience. So for me the idea of inclusion comes from that empathic energy that understands a superficial part of the experience of being in the margins. So good people see these forms of violence against queer community and think from that, um, experience of empathizing that what they should do is open their spaces and welcome us to their spaces, and it's really difficult because this action of including, it brings us a form of satisfaction, like, we see the violence against queer people or Black people or indigenous people, like, other forms of marginalization, and if we are not part of that community, we see that experience of dehumanization, and we feel that, and we hurt from seeing that. So inclusion is a way for healing our own hurt, feeling that we are acting on that damaging experience in the world, and somehow excusing ourselves from the social dynamics that generate that marginalization. So it's really hard in the community of tango for not-queer people that are working towards inclusion because there's an appearance of consciousness, there's an appearance of good manners that in a way prevents seeing the deep ways that the inclusion is still marginalizing us.

LIZ SCRIPT:
I want to take a moment to add some context to the incredibly important point Alex is making. Oxford Languages defines the verb "to other" as to "view or treat a person or group of people as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself." What Alex described in our interview and in her essay for Queer Tango Futures is a subtle form of this othering dynamic. As we've touched on in previous episodes, mainstream tango culture has come a long way toward accepting dancers who want to dance the quote-unquote other role or dance with partners of the same gender. But heterosexual pairings and the gendered roles of leading man and following woman are still a strong norm in most tango communities, which means that if you don't default to those norms, you're likely to experience at least some degree of otherness.

Alex writes in her essay, "while we continue to be others in relation to those who simply are, our experience of life will continue to be one of struggling to swim against the current."

Of course, this isn't just about tango. Gender-based violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people are problems on a global scale. In Mexico, where Alex lives, the National Statistics Office estimates that more than 70% of women and girls over 15 have experienced some kind of violence. More than 70% of women in Mexico say they feel unsafe in their daily lives. In 2021, over a thousand women in Mexico were murdered for gender-based reasons, an increase of 137% since 2015. And between 2017 and 2021, at least 461 people from Mexico's LGBT plus community died from violence presumed to be related to their gender identity or sexual orientation. Many others have disappeared.

Against that backdrop of insecurity and fear, even low levels of othering can be a barrier to entry, especially to an activity you're choosing to do in your free time.

ALEX:
In this moment in Mexico, you are going outside to the streets to protest against the increased violence against women. You are talking about the extreme but always-present experience of not belonging. Like, this world is not for us. The rules of the game that is socially played are not made for us as women or as BIPOC people...

[LIZ ASIDE] BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

ALEX: ....for us genderqueer people, all the time. But in the edge of this experience, it's always violence and death. Like, an essential part of the experience of not belonging is the experience of your life always being in doubt. Your existence, like symbolically, is always put in doubt. But it's not only symbolically, it's also materially. And when you put in front of the struggle, of the protest, that extreme experience, there's no other way of resolving the issue that is not thinking of systems in which we belong. Like, violence against women is not being resolved in a patriarchal system. And it's the same for queer people, like-

LIZ: I mean, it has to do with a hierarchy, right? So anytime that there's a group that has more power, basically, they wield that power over someone else. And there's like a latent violence in that. There's violence inherent in that.

ALEX: Yes. And there's a link that cannot be broken between the experience of those who have privilege and the experience of those who have been marginalized. And even though there's ways of that privilege that is not, uh, overt violence, it's always sustained on all of this experience, including overt violence and dead and assassination. And I think that for any group in which we are members that we have privilege, it's a big challenge to get to awareness. Like, it's a lot to bear the awareness that our privilege is based on the destruction of others. And I do believe that awareness is possible and necessary. It needs to have a deep and resourced ability to bear the incomodidad. The [LIZ SUGGESTS "discomfort"] -discomfort. The discomfort of knowing that this is the way life is organized socially. That it's not enough for me to say I am not using my White privilege or my straight privilege to have benefits for myself. It's not enough because the world has benefits for me institutionalized. So in order for us as agent-members of privilege to work towards anti-oppressive ways of being in the world, we need to start by recognizing that we do not know the experience of the marginalized group. And we need to bear witness of the experience when they want to share it with us.

[MUSIC STARTS - LYRICS IN SPANISH]
Bailemos
como antes, cariñito,
abrazados, bien juntitos,
sólo un alma entre los dos...
Bailemos
que no vea en tus pupilas
una lágrima furtiva,
ni una sombra, ni un dolor...
Bailemos
que después ya sin tus ojos
he de arrancar un sollozo
por mi amor y por tu amor...
Siempre
estarás en mi desvelo
¡como una estrella en el cielo
prendida en mi corazón!

LIZ SCRIPT:
As a teacher and organizer, Alex has been part of both feminist and queer tango movements in her hometown of Mexico City and beyond.

[LYRICS CONTINUE]
No intentes rebelarte, lo nuestro es imposible,
un sueño irrealizable que nunca floreció,
qué importa que nos una un mismo sentimiento
y encienda nuestras almas la antorcha del amor...

LIZ SCRIPT: More and more, she's focusing on creating tango spaces where queer people can feel they belong.

[LYRICS CONTINUE]
Que tengas mucha suerte, que Dios no te abandone,
yo sé que a mí me espera la eterna soledad,
no tiembles en mis brazos, te ruego me perdones,
el tango ya termina... salgamos a llorar...

[MUSIC FADES]

ALEX:
In the daily life of working and surviving and doing whatever you do, there's not always resource for building a network. And when we go to tango, we take time off of work, we take time off rest, we take time off of the day-to-day life in the system, and we say this is going to be for me to be in tango, no, to BE. And so the decision to make time is vital for the possibility to construct what we want because it's our time. And that for me opens a window for communities to be formed around decision. Because we have family communities that can be good or bad, but we're not deciding that this is our family. Or we can have some communities in our work spaces or in our day-to-day socializing spaces. But tango, it's a decision that we make. And if we can decide to be a part of a community, we can decide how we want to be in this community, how we want to treat each other in this community. And for me, this decision and ability for new ways of being and relating to each other, it's what changing the world means.

So what I'm doing now has to do with opening space for queer people to experience tango, to start learning how to dance. So I have lessons and I have workshops, but they are explicitly not only tango spaces, because they are spaces in which we share our life experience. We try to create an environment of trust and for me, that has to do with knowing one another in a deeper way and learning how to care for one another and how to find more and more connections. Like, we are connected because we're queer. We are connected because we like tango, we want to dance tango together. But what else can connect us and what else can build strength in our community? And for that, we have to know each other. And for that, we have to spend time together. And for that, we have to be willing to choose the other person.

And I think for me, it's important to find ways to enjoy dancing with your community. And that has to do with this three-dimensional self of myself and the others, like, you're not just a body which I dance with, you're a person that has experience, that has history, that has feelings, that has struggles in life. And when we are more connected to the three-dimensionality, I do believe that we can, for example, enjoy dancing with everyone, regardless the dancing level, regardless of even bodily awkwardness like we have sometimes in the embrace or something that doesn't feel quite comfortable. I do believe that we can find comfort in every embrace if we are embracing our friends and we are embracing our community peers.

That would be tango paradise for me, for everyone to have a place of connection in the community. Maybe we're not all friends, but everyone has friends and we are all connected in these multiple ways that can allow tango not only to be an individual pleasure experience, but a collective one.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Here's to building and sustaining communities that embrace us for everything that we are. 

Mil gracias, Alex. And thanks to the Internet Archive where I found the recording that accompanies this episode, “Bailemos,” written by Cholo Mamona and Reinaldo Yiso and performed by Susanita Peña.

[MUSIC]