TRANSCRIPT ~ EPISODE 18

EPISODE 18: Small movements toward tango for all, with Arno Plass

Producer/Host: Liz Sabatiuk | Music: “Flor de Montserrat,” composed by Juan Santini with lyrics by Vicente Planells del Campo and arranged and recorded by Sexteto Cristal with Guillermo Rozenthuler | Image Credit: Martín Pérez

ARNO:
My name is Arno. I'm based in Vienna, Austria, and I'm passionately dancing tango.

[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.

ARNO:
I had a cafe. Then I was teaching yoga. I was freelance writing for health journals. I did a kinesiology training and worked with kinesiology. For me, of course, there is a thread through all those things. Then I also worked in mental health and over the years there emerged many, many questions, and I needed different answers, so I decided to study again. First I did a BA in philosophy, and then a Master's degree in Gender Studies. And right at the end of my Master's degree, I started to take tango classes.

The interest for tango had aroused already 20 years before, because after college I started to study Spanish in Salzburg. There was an alternative, um, cinema, and each year they had a Latin American film festival. And then, back in the '90s, Argentine films always had a tango scene, even though the film wasn't about tango, you know. I always liked dancing very much and I thought this looks interesting, and one day I want to learn tango dancing.

I started as a boy to do ballet, and I did some jazz dance and contemporary dance. In the beginning of the 2000s, I moved from Salzburg to Vienna, and there I lost track a little bit with my dancing passion, um, because other things got more important. So it took a while to really start tango dancing, and very quickly I knew I want to stick with it.

There was something fascinating from the beginning and I started to search for queer tango. I was searching for, uh, to travel to my first festival, and I discovered that there is queer tango- a queer tango festival in Rome, in Italy. I thought, well, I just go there, and if I don't like it, it doesn't matter, because then I'm in Rome, so I will do some sightseeing and enjoy Rome. But it was the other way around. It was less strict, there was much more direct contact between people, and still the dancing was taken very seriously. People wanted to dance really good tango. So it was a good mix, fun and seriousness. And, yeah, during that time, I was already also searching for a PhD topic and in the end I decided to do something with queer / tango dancing. This allowed me staying for a year in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, starting in autumn '21, October '21.

LIZ SCRIPT:
I discovered the work of Arno Plass online - and you can find it linked in the show notes - around the time when he started releasing videos from his series of interviews, "Una Tanda Queer Con..." The series is part of Arno's PhD project and features conversations with dancers in Europe and South America sharing their perspectives on queer tango. Arno says the project was inspired in large part by conversations hosted through Chamuyo Queer, an international tango meeting that's been held annually in Valencia, Spain, since 2019.

ARNO:
I liked very much the pandemic version on Zoom, because having, for example, Ale in Mexico-

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Alex Pacheco Castillo, a queer tango teacher and organizer who you can hear from in episode 11 of this podcast.

ARNO: -who lives in a complete[ly] different country with different conditions than I do here in Austria. For me, it is very important to have different perspectives on the same level, standing one next to the other, because it's giving, like, a bigger image that reflects much more what life is about, or what tango is, than always only hearing one person. Listening from other people how they see the things, I'm able to question the way I look at things. The different circumstances of the lives people lead always had something completely new to me.

So all the videos, the voice track is what we were talking. It's not cut, nothing, because it was the idea to have a conversation like tango dancing. When I do the wrong step, I can't say, "please cut the wrong step out." So the original idea was that apart from the conversation, people have also the space for expressing in a different way how they approach queer tango. So I thought maybe some would just like me to film a tree without appearing any person in it. Or I thought maybe some people would like to do a handstand or whatever, you know? It was much more thought like this. And it very quickly was clear that people talking about queer tango want to dance queer tango. So, ummm, we danced queer tango.

LIZ: [LAUGHING] So that came out of the verbal format that you had originally conceived of. The dancing just grew out of that organically.

ARNO: Yeah. It became, which was also something that I got aware of after a lot of filming and a lot of conversations, it actually happens an intervention. Because I think there is one or two people I dance with in a private room. And with all the other people, it's in a public space. There is also this layer in queer tango, it's um, "we are there, we want to show ourselves. The way we are dancing is one of the ways you are able to dance tango."

There is also a slight criticism, I'd say, regarding aesthetics in tango. I'm really bored about most performances I see. I can differentiate and I can appreciate the technique I see, because people are doing fancy stuff that needs precision, that needs technique. But a performance, especially in tango, with all people talking about the connection, I want to see something different and I want to see the two persons dancing. Because I very often have the feeling that people are replaceable. Just put another dancer there.

So this became also during the project part of the thing that there are different aesthetic expressions. And that's also something I like to see. I like sitting at the milonga on the side and watch people dancing. Just for, ummm... see how they do. How they perform. How they offer themselves to their partners. How they move. Even though it's sometimes maybe not so aesthetically perfect. But to see they are in the flow with their partner, that's something I really like.

[MUSIC]

ARNO:
From the moment on I started tango dancing, many, many things suddenly turned out fine. Things that I struggled [with] before just dissolved themselves. I describe myself as a shy person when there are many people. And, um, with tango I gained a certain, uh, security within myself. And I think of course it has to do with the thing that you have to center yourself when you are tango dancing. It follows for me the same logic as meditation does. You center yourself in your body. And this allows you to perceive differently and act differently in many circumstances. I also observed that it was easier for me to confront people, in the tango scene for example. Not very much in a direct verbal thing, but simply with being myself in a space that's rather rigid.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Arno's affinity with tango was immediate and profound. But he noticed certain dynamics in the culture of what he calls conventional tango that he couldn't embrace.

ARNO:
I have the impression that people wait for something to happen. So I want to have fun, I go out, but I expect that the others bring me the fun instead of participating in something that constructs a community fun, you know. The other thing is that in tango in general I sometimes have the impression that serious tango dancing is mixed up with seriousness in general. So with a weird logics that when you have fun you can't properly dance tango. So if you don't, uh, perform the serious milonguero or milonguera, it's not the thing. And here we come to the next topic that inhibits fun. It's the gender roles, when it's getting too stereotypical, this limits the space for fun.

The experience of doing something else than you should do and thereby discovering something is something I'd like to advise for many people.

LIZ: And you said doing something you shouldn't do, so doing something that you don't feel is socially acceptable? Or something that makes you feel a little uncomfortable, out of your comfort zone?

ARNO: I can tell a small story. I was not an aficionado of high heels because for me it was a thing that belongs to drag and I don't feel like I'm a drag person. So there was no interest in it. And then I went to my first queer tango festival and there was this bunch of guys from Paris and they just disappeared and came back in their high heels. You know, it was like a move of when people change their t-shirt. They quit the dance floor, went to the changing rooms and came back differently dressed - uh, but not in drag, they just had their high heels on and danced. And I thought, "wow, they just use those heels as different shoes. What they are, different shoes."

With this observation, I started to crave for an experience in high heels. And now I like dancing in high heels. Not too long because it's hard and feet hurt, mine at least. But still, to move, to stand in these shoes is a very interesting experience because your body arranges differently. You have to kind of crack your own compostural shell to move comfortably in those shoes, for example. And then also exposing yourself in those shoes is also something where you make different interesting experiences. One of the participants coined, you know, a huge library in one sentence. Gonze said, "culture is what you can do with your body."

[LIZ ASIDE] You can find Gonze's full interview through the show notes.

ARNO: And that's very impressing - because so many people in this world, within their own cultural frames, are not able to do everything with their body they could do. And that's a pity. I think that something conventional tango is reinforcing, to limit movement, limit expression. And I think it should be the other way 'round.

LIZ: That tango should free you rather than limiting you?

ARNO: Yeah.

LIZ: Amen.

ARNO: You know, it's labeled as social dance.

LIZ: Yeah.

ARNO: When the social form limits expressions...how much social is it then, you know?

LIZ: If you're not authentically socializing, if you don't feel like you can be yourself.

ARNO: And it's not the question or the layer of if we want to have a social gathering that we have to have our rules. I'm talking much more about the gender limitations existing are not necessary. Especially in tango, which is a very intimate way of encountering another person. Intimate is not sexual, erotic. It's intimate. It's a different thing. Where everyone is talking about connection and stuff - how can I connect if I limit myself? It's a contradiction.

Over the years, being in contact with many different people and going to different festivals, I... I see there are different approaches to what could be queer tango. Many people, of course, just want to have a queer space to go out. Which then is not necessarily having on their mind that a queer space is, in my understanding, also a political space. And there I have the impression that sometimes the same dynamics happen as in the conventional scene, but with rainbow colors - which is nothing that I would like to reproach.

On the other hand side, there are those spaces where many people have on their minds that a queer way of life is not limited to your gender identity and your preferred sexual partner, but that it's also about asking why queerness in general is a problem. And these people contribute to construct different spaces. And those spaces are much more relaxed, because it - what's the word - it lowers the tension and the competitiveness. And it's those spaces where I also witness in observing that people, over- during a festival, for example, they lose their... What's the word in English? Their- the turtle has the...

LIZ: [LAUGHS] Shell? They come out of their shell?

ARNO: They come out of their shell. And that's a very beautiful thing to see when you, over the festival weekend, you observe that people get freer each moment and express themselves and don't follow whatever stereotype, you know? Yeah.

[MUSIC FADING IN - LYRICS IN SPANISH]
Por sus ojos color cielo y sus dones de bondad,
la llamaban Virgencita en el barrio Monserrat.
Todos, todos la querían y no hubo payador,
que no cantara por ella, en el barrio del Tambor.

Disputaban su cariño
todos querían su honor,
Pero la Virgen del barrio
soñaba con otro amor...
[MUSIC FADES]

LIZ SCRIPT:
Arno's queer tango research has him working across continents and across languages, interviewing, writing, and presenting in English, Spanish, and his native German. Almost two months after our interview, I am still finding food for thought in the insights he shared about how we communicate.

ARNO:
Maybe that's a very personal view, I have no idea, but I think being perfect in one language, uh, very often leads to understand literally what others say. And very often other people just have another form of expressing and using different words tha[n] you use. And when you encounter yourself in an international context - where some people speak in their native languages, some people in their second language - there is not so much focus on the words you use. But much more of this, "what do you mean?" Like tango dancing. We all know how a step goes, stepping forward. But everyone does it differently. And we have to listen in order to dance together.

LIZ: And if we get too caught up in the vocabulary, then we don't really communicate or connect with each other.

ARNO: That's it. You have to understand how I do the steps. I have to understand how you do the steps.

ARNO: For me the term "queer" is very interesting, because as far as I know about the history of the term, it was not necessarily used for homosexual or sexually, um, deviating people, but much more also for those who don't come up with the standards of a society, who are weird in whatever sense. And it has become a rainbow-flag word, which is on the one hand side giving me an umbrella term and turning something that has been negative into a positive thing. And that's what I really like - so I'm not so very much interested in substituting words to find new versions that are less discriminative. I'm much more interested in turning negative-connoted words into positive ones. But now the term forgets that also heterosexuals could be queer, for example. I like to have language in a movement, you know? Because I think that's what language is for. Don't fix it. Keep it moving.

LIZ: [LAUGHS] Don't fix it. Keep it moving. I love that.

LIZ SCRIPT:
And while we were nerding out about language. Arno also explained what queerness means to him.

ARNO:
Queerness has for me very much to do with an openness to think about community and what we need as a community to create a space of freedom for all those within the community. And to also see through building our community network, do we exclude, and thereby doing the same as we are fighting against? Or are we still open to look outside, if there is somebody who wants to join but is for whatever reason not able to?

Identity politics very often is very necessary to establish rights, human rights for people. So there, queerness is much more a term as a tool. But in general I see that there are many queer people - or under the umbrella of queer people - who apparently- maybe it's just a human condition that when a certain level of freedom is established, we forget about the past. Of course I would label queerness also with the lenses of gender and sexuality. So, you know, it's all of this. But queerness in a central meaning has to do with inclusiveness. Not necessarily personally, because that's sometimes difficult, but as a community to be able to be open to different forms of existence and to look for ways to establish contact. To build solidarities. To... um... make participation possible.

LIZ: It sounds like you're talking about a sort of ideal world in which we are all very intentional about the way that we engage with every individual. And then create a community where people can be authentic, basically. And feel, like, a sense of belonging in that community.

ARNO: I think that's what we should strive for. I think that's the world- word for it. I'm not thinking it in a very idealistic way, because I think we are humans. But I think as a community you can construct spaces that make it easier. And that's a continuing process. I think this will never have an end, you know, it's like having a democratic constitution for a country. There is always negotiation going on. Always, um... the world is changing. There are new topics that have not been so important 20 years ago. That are important now. Bringing it back to tango for example, you know, we all know these milongas where there are a lot of people sitting without dancing, and you can see that over the time they get frustrated. And I think there could be an easy thing to solve this problem as a community, if everyone dances one tanda or two tandas with, uh, someone they don't know and maybe, uh, one tanda with someone who sits. It's two tandas for the whole night. It's not a very big, um, activist engagement I'm doing. It's only two tandas. I think if everyone does this, milongas would look differently.

Tango in itself has so very much that can be seen analogous to how we as societies work. One of the big questions was if I as a single person do something differently, resisting the hegemonical forces, this was for me a question whether this makes sense or it doesn't help anything. And now I see it's whatever you can do, even though it's a small movement, do it. Because it's contributing to shift something at least a little bit. And maybe this shift falls back because the other forces are too very much, um, established. But then it's my little thing, then it's your little thing, and the little thing of a third person, and this stable building begins to shake. Because I don't consider myself so very much as the revolutionary person who's in the front line to do activism, and I see everything is part of a shifting.

I also really understood that when you have the opportunity to, but you don't resist, you are contributing to fix what you are against. It's a very-

LIZ: You're reinforcing it.

ARNO: Yeah, yeah. Of course, if I want to participate, I have to adapt to the circumstances, to the rules, to everything. But I don't have to... uh, please don't adapt a hundred percent.

The conversations we have, trans-oceanic, the little things that happen in different cities, the discussions that go on between the communities, different things that are published in text form or in a video form or for listening, that's, that's a very important thing that's happening. I still think that many people are very alone because they are not able to fit in. And the more we as a worldwide community, with all the differences we have, it's giving a sign that there are ways of belonging, that there are spaces where you can feel at home, where you are able to feel welcome. And for example, I see it here in Vienna. We had, one month ago, um, Rocío and Bruno.

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Rocío Lequio and Bruno Tombari.

ARNO: There is a tango teacher couple who always invite them and they did a huge milonga, which was a wonderful milonga here in Vienna. And with one of my queer tango friends, we were at the table, and we were kind of overwhelmed, because we did not notice what we had done over the last years. Because so many meanwhile heterosexual men are dancing with us. In the beginning, we had to go and, like, do na-na-na-na-na-nah... but now they are coming and asking for a dance. So something shifted only through our presence, only through what we are doing, and how- the ways we are contacting. So... yeah.

LIZ: That's beautiful.

ARNO: Yeah, yeah. Still a lot of work.

LIZ: Yeah.

ARNO: Long way to go.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Here's to the small actions we can take to make our world a little more free and a little more fun for everyone.

Thank you, Arno. And thanks to Sexteto Cristal and singer Guillermo Rozenthuler for the recording that accompanies this episode, "Flor de Montserrat" by Juan Santini with lyrics by Vicente Planells del Campo.

[MUSIC FADING IN - LYRICS IN SPANISH]
Disputaban su cariño
todos querían su honor,
Pero la Virgen del barrio
soñaba con otro amor...
[MUSIC FADES]