TRANSCRIPT ~ EPISODE 19

EPISODE 19: Tango (r)evolution, with Sol Orozco

Producer/Host: Liz Sabatiuk | Music: “Ilusión de Mi Vida” by Feliciano Brunelli, arranged and recorded by Asato-Pais Duo | Image Credit: Oscar Chang Photography

[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.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Sol Orozco has gone through some big changes since her tango journey began. Fortunately, Sol's not afraid of change, especially when she sees the culture, community, and music of her beloved tango evolving with her.

SOL:
I do not come from a tango family. I grew up in Italy until I was eight, and then we moved to Argentina, but tango was
never in my life. Not my grandpas, not my parents. I started dancing ballet when I was a girl. I stopped doing it when I was a teenager. I finished high school, and it's the '90s here. It's a very bad moment in Argentina, and I couldn't start college. I needed to work, so I started working in a bank. And I was doing very well, so I got my first car. I bought an apartment. I was engaged. And I got super, super depressed. I couldn't explain why. I had a great job. I had a great boyfriend. But I was very, very sad. And, you know, when you're sad, you start just doing stupid stuff. And I started just breaking everything around me. And my mom was very concerned. So she said she wanted me to start dancing again. At the time, I was 19. And I was like, I'm too old to come back to ballet. And I'm too old to start now contemporary." And she's like, "No, no, no, let's do tango." And I was like, "Pfft, tango, I hate it. Old, why?" She's like, "No! It's wonderful. It's a new movement. I have this wonderful teacher. He's young. He's fun. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Let me introduce him."

LIZ: Wait, was your mom taking tango classes?

SOL: Yes, my mom was a tango dancer. My mom is a tango dancer. She got into it like two years before me, but that's mom - she, everything that she does is like 200%, so now tango is THE thing. So she organized a dinner. And in the dinner, I met Juano Cantone.

[LIZ ASIDE] You can hear from Juan in episode six of this podcast.

SOL: We didn't start super well. I was very young and I was very proud. By the end, I promised my mom I would go to a, a tango class because I couldn't stop her. And I said, "Okay, I'm going to go with a friend. I'm going to stay 15 minutes and I'm leaving because I hate this stupid idea." So I went. I remember, I remember it was downstairs. It was like in a basement. And when I saw the dance floor, I stood there for, like, maybe 10 minutes and I was fascinated. Everybody was kind of doing the same thing, but in a different way, and I thought, how complex is this? How come they can remember this huge choreography for so long, so different and so similar? And Juano came to me to talk about the class, I asked him, "How, how do they know the, the choreography?" And he's like, "It's not a choreography. It's improvisation." And I was like, "Get the hell out of here. That is not an improvisation." He's like "I'm telling you," I was like, "This is not possible. I don't believe you." And he's like, "Look," so he grabbed me and he started moving with me. You know Juan, he's great teacher and he was doing very basic stuff. And I thought "I'm dancing." It was beautiful. Let me tell you that that dancing that I had was the first and the last one for the first six months, because at the time tango was very traditional, so the first six months you were just walking around the dance floor, learning walking. So it was a long process, but all this tango world caught me right away.

So I started taking more lessons and then I started to take private lessons and then I decided to fall in love with my teacher. [LAUGHS] And thank God, it was a beautiful connection, and we started dating with Juan. I start dancing more and more. So I'm working and I'm dancing and I'm, I'm sleeping very little, honestly. So I start failing in the bank. In my family, we are the fourth generation in the bank. So everybody knew my family and everybody knew my dad, so somebody went and talked to my dad about my poor attitude. So I had this very serious talk to my father. He was like, "What's going on?" And I'm like, "Well, you know, I'm dancing tango and I love it. And I'm very, very sad because I know I cannot stop working. I know I need to quit tango because I cannot do both." And my dad at the time said, "Okay, let's try different. You can quit the bank for six months. If it doesn't work, you come back." So, of course, I did it for six months and it didn't work out financially. It took a little longer than that. So he was like, "Okay, let's try another six months." And that and another six and another six were in total three years.

So we start from the very bottom with Juan. We start teaching everywhere. We start dancing everywhere. We danced a little bit on the street. We danced in private parties. We opened a cultural center, El Esquinazo, the big corner - and it's a very well-known tango. At that time, 2002, in Argentina was a very difficult moment. The economy was a mess, so finding a place where people could do some art, teachers could actually have a place, affordable, to teach or even only have a place to express ourselves was wonderful. So we worked super hard in this place for almost 10 years. We formed so many international artists nowadays - in tango, in contemporary... We produced exhibitions. It was for us the platform to understand better - and now I'm thinking it was a platform for me to understand better how to produce something, how to be behind the scenes as an artist, producing the form before it shows.

The reality in Argentina is always tricky. So eventually the government of the city of Buenos Aires, they decided to create a very complex law in order to keep a place open. So we have this huge argument with the police one time. And they say that if we don't pay them - or don't bribe them, actually - they will close up. And I was very young and very naive and very temperamental, and I said, "Fine, close it. I don't care." And they did! Bah!

LIZ: Do you feel now like you should have just bribed them?

SOL: No. I think we did the right call. I think that saved our dream. Because if we were starting just going in that loop, they will keep coming and we will keep having more and more, you know, little agreements. And part of the spirit of the cultural center, it was a place for us artists, not for them. And also, when we closed the cultural center, the need of traveling got bigger. So also, that situation gave us the possibility of becoming a better international tango teacher. We needed to improve our English, our Italian. We needed to improve our organization in the travel. So even though still it's a little ache in my heart to close that place, somehow that made us grow as tango artists.

We met our first organizer - now it's our friend from Switzerland. We take a leap of faith, did our luggage, and we went to Switzerland for three months and tried. And from there to a couple of years ago, we were traveling together. Eventually, with Juan, my partner, we got divorced and took different approaches to tango artistically. But still in my heart it's like the person who gave me everything, so I feel him like a great, great friend.

If I would see this in my 20s, that I can say something like, "I'm a solo tango teacher and I'm a woman." When I was 20, this was NOT possible. Even if you think in the most traditional people, if it was a woman, they were always traveling with some guy. Maybe a milonguero, maybe not the-

LIZ: So she might be the headliner, but she would always have to have her partner.

SOL: Exactly. And this idea that tango is always a couple thing. Nowadays, no, not necessarily. I love this idea of collaborations instead of fixed partnerships. And, and this is my journey. And I totally love the other journey, the one that the couple prepares a product, works hard on it, they have this beautiful thing, and they present it. But in this moment, to me, the adventure is to create collaboration with people, people that I like, and let's create something right here and right now and share it. Because it's also about sharing to your community what you are doing.

I feel so grateful and so taken care from my community. I have friends all around the world, but REAL friends. And they have been so loving and kind by giving me the opportunity of being me without somebody else, and think that they can learn from me without somebody else that I can only feel responsibility and willing of working hard to keep giving them the best of me.

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SOL: When you travel so much and for so long, you need to adjust to other realities. So, one of the first things that improves, it's your ability to break your prejudgment. You know, you have ideas about how the world is. Let's say, for instance, I grew up in a lefty family, so in my family, um, the U.S. was always the big, bad monster - the empire. But then I was there in the big, bad monster, and what I found was people just like me, with the same issues, with the same dreams. And, you know, those people were sharing their food, their homes, also their frustrations with me, because as a tango teacher I'm always working with people's needs and with people's, um, failures. They are showing me what is not working in their tango and this is what we do - we improve, we get better, but first they have to show me their ugliness and that's very humbling for me as a receiver and it's an honor and I love to respect that but also it shows me the person. And it's amazing how much we all look alike. You know, we think we are so different, that we have nothing in common and I, I keep seeing little things in houses far from- from home that are exactly like my grandma used to do it.

To me, tango is not a dance or a music genre - it's a social movement. If you think about it, I've been dancing tango for almost 25 years - actually for 25 years - and I still think that tango, it's a great way to change the world. I know it sounds pretentious, but what I see when I see people dancing tango - uh, social dancing tango - gives me sometimes some hope. The whole idea if you think in the milonga how do you need to move... You keep your individuality and then you have this huge teamwork with your partner while you're dancing, but at the same time you need to make this work in a dance floor full of people doing more or less something like you but not exactly what you're doing, and still we don't need to bump each other. We will respect the other people's space... To me you can relate tango so much with the idea of humanity collaborating together and living together in peace even if we are different.

I, I know you can relate with this because you are also a milonguera and you know that feeling you bump into somebody and the first thing is "Are you okay? Did I hurt you?" And if it happens to you and somebody bump into you you say immediately "I'm fine, don't worry," so that kindness that can happen on the dance floor to me it's a great exercise-

LIZ: Unlike the stereotypes where people pull knives on each other, right? It's not actually like that. [LAUGHING]

[LIZ ASIDE] Seriously though, knives have an interesting history in tango, which you can learn more about through a link in the show notes.

SOL: No, men don't kill each other because you bump into each other. This is a happy, peaceful dance.

LIZ: We pat each other on the back, we high five-

SOL: Yeah, we're like "no problem." [LAUGHING] And then we bad mouth the other person from behind, but this is humanity, this is not tango.

LIZ: There's got to be a dark side.

SOL: Exactly. That's the interesting thing, right?

So yeah, I can relate tango to revolution in a beautiful peaceful, good way. And poor my students know - they need to hear this every time - it's like, we are the world, we make the difference here, because if you learn kindness here, then that reproduces outside.

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LIZ SCRIPT:
After 25 years and counting, Sol still believes in the power of tango to change the world. She also believes in the power of the global tango community to change tango itself.

SOL:
This terrible phrase, "It's always the man's fault; it's always the leader's fault," you know, when something goes wrong in tango. And it's like, "No it's not!" It's always the leader's fault - so if you go through the same logic it means that if it's-

LIZ: It was sort of like a gentlemanly thing, right? Like, it's like, "Ooh, the follower can do no wrong."

SOL: Exactly. Well, you know, these, these, um, gentleman things that should help, to me it's just a disguise of patriarchy. You know, it's like, the fact that you open the door for me doesn't change if you are violent to me. It doesn't get better if you open the door or not. And it doesn't get better if you say it's always your fault when I have nothing to say about it, because if it's always your fault it means that it's always your success - and it's the two of us dancing.

When I started dancing, it was common to hear that you cannot learn both things at the same time-

[LIZ ASIDE] meaning both roles

SOL: -because it would be too confusing and eventually you will not be able to do either one or the other. And I got the honor to know great dancers who start dancing simultaneously leaders and followers. I think it's possible now and I think it would be great if you're learning a language - as we always said that tango is a language and it's communication - it would be wonderful to know both sides of the communication and not only one side-

LIZ: the whole language

SOL: Right? It's like, "You just do verbs and I'll do, you know, nouns... I have no idea what's going on, but this is a phrase." [LAUGHING] Let's just all know how this works and let's build together this phrase. People tend to say, like, "Well, you know, tango is patriarchal or tango is machism[o]" and I always say society is patriarchal and society has machism[o]. Tango is always a reflection of society depending on the moment. So the, the, the queer movement that we're seeing now in tango, it is happening because it's a reflection of society. And what happened in my case is when I got divorced and I was by myself, you know, you are out in the woods and everything is new again, and I start to get to know other kind of, uh, couples and I find myself not choosing necessarily heterosexual relationships, so I changed. And when you start connecting in different social groups, also you start to know new people. You know when you open your eyes and then you start to see [it] everywhere? When you're out of the group you don't see it, but then when you start to talk to people and you just look around you start to see it. It's there, it was in tango. So I realized that I was in this changing world and I was the one who was not seeing anything because I was in my, my... let's say, heterosexual bubble-

LIZ: hetero- heteronormative bubble?

SOL: -heteronormative. Thank you. But yeah, being in this bubble, stepping out of it, gave me a new world of possibilities
dancing and relating to people. So as I evolve with tango, I think my idea of tango as a dance free of genders connected to roles, it's, it's evolved with me. And I don't think it's gonna change, or better say it's gonna keep changing in a beautiful way. But I don't feel that I want to come back to the bubble.

You know, the big problems when minorities raise up is that the reaction is stronger-

LIZ: there's a backlash.

SOL: -yes, this feeling that time are changing in a long-term for good, but the backlash is here and I do feel that I have a responsibility to take sides. I'm not neutral at all. In general I'm not neutral, you know this, but in this case I think it's super important, because the interesting part of this queer tango community stepping up and getting stronger in the tango community is we have to learn so much. I have to learn so much about my own limitations and my own prejudgments. You know, just the whole idea of the gender and of the identity of the gender, something that, it's so comfortable in me and I don't even have to think - [but] I want to make the exercise of thinking and be careful about how do I address to somebody in the way that that person feels comfortable. That exercise, that acknowledge- acknowledging of a situation makes me a better
person, makes me a more careful person, and I'm gonna say also as a teacher, this is part of my teaching. I need to be caring and thoughtful about my students. I think it's important for us teachers to embrace that too. It's not that difficult and it does an immediate good to the community.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Sol has also found in the queer tango movement an opportunity to explore her own identity.

SOL:
It was like, "Okay, I know how to dance being a woman and doing my woman part, you know, so you're cute, you're sexy,  you're dancing and you're connecting to the guy, because this is a guy-woman thing and it's not sexual but it's sensual - blah, blah, blah, blah, blah - and then life changes. And then you want to dance with a woman, and the question is, so what now? What's my game now? Can I be whatever is going to be in this moment, in this connection, in this couple? I'm thinking about this all the time because as a leader also, what am I doing? I'm being masculine when I'm dancing? And my head is like "I don't think so." And then I'm dancing and I'm like, "Well maybe, a little." And so I, I allow myself over to going back and forth. I guess what I'm trying to say is the world movement that it's happening gave us the opportunity to rethink ourself as more flexible kind of beings. You can be whoever you want and people need to respect that. And you are allowed to change - to change your mind, to change your desire, to change your way of communicate. I think it would be wise for us to take this opportunity to explore who we are and not to try to fix steady who we are to be able to show always, this is me.

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LIZ SCRIPT:
There's another major area where Sol has been appreciating tango's evolution. In 2023, she found an opportunity to shine a light on the thriving renaissance of tango music in Buenos Aires. It began with a heated discussion between bandoneonist Heyni Solera, who you can hear from in episode eight of this podcast, and Juan Mallo, another close friend of Sol's, who thought it would be a good time to start a festival.

SOL:
He's saying things like "We need to do this festival because nowadays tango has no, uh, new things going on" - and you
know Heyni. Suddenly I'm in between this big argument, between not having enough musicians to "you know nothing about musician in Buenos Aires." And so I'm saying something like "Well, so maybe what we need to do, it's a festival with the musicians. Instead of thinking in the festival as just for dancers and dancing, let's just aim the other side. And at the time Heyni was like, "eh, you cannot do that." And you know the worst thing that you can say to me is you cannot do it. Something just triggers in me and it's like, "Oh, you'll see." So it was very, very ambitious - very - and it was wonderful. I don't know how we did it, but we pulled off with this idea, two days, six hours. We had more than a hundred artists from different generations, styles...

It was this discovering about who am I when I'm not in the stage but in the backstage. And to me, being in the stage is very stressful. To me, being in the backstage is just fun. It has the same level of adrenaline, but in a happy mood. The other one is a little "Ahhh, I don't know if i can do this." It, it's so more related, to me, to my ego. My, my dancer's ego, it's way more fragile than my producer's ego. My producer's ego thinks I can do anything and I'll be fine. So I feel strong and I feel capable. I talk to people about things that I have no idea, like sound systems and light systems and all this process of learning. So I feel somehow that this is also another branch of my creativity.

The structure was interesting, because it was outside and we have a dance floor, but it wasn't super big. And a little bit the approach was "this is a festival for music, so if you don't dance it doesn't matter. If you like music, you're gonna like this, and if you like tango, you're gonna like this. And if you don't know tango, you're gonna fall in love in tango today." So part of the marketing was that - it's like "this is not for tangueros; this is what Buenos Aires is." Because of that, and the dance floor wasn't that big, many, many people came with, you know, little tablecloths and they just sat with the mate and hear the music, because they were not dancers. They were just enjoying a festival outside.

The whole idea was to show what was going on in Buenos Aires contemporary, what was going on now, so also I invite different dancers-

[LIZ ASIDE] among them, Sol's former partner, Juan Cantone, and his current partner, Virginia Cutillo

SOL: -with what I think is going on now in Buenos Aires. Maybe not the most known, but yes, the emergent. So that idea started to happen in my head. I want to show what's emerging right now. And it worked out so well that we have decided to do it again in August, 2024.

One of the main things in this festival was how to treat the artists. I really want to have the best treatments possible - fee wise, commute wise, food wise, drink wise. You know, those things that- I've been invited to festivals and you think, "Okay, [I'm] accepting this because of the money, but it would be nice to have a glass of water here." Or, you know, "it would be nice to start on time." And the revelation was when we did that, everybody was so happy and thankful that they were giving everything from them.

You know when people really want to make something work, so, you say something like we're going to make a potluck and then you have this wonderful buffet because everybody was doing the best? Well, here was the same. I was talking to the sound system and the light system and we have like a little small budget for that, but I really, really want to have the best sound possible. So the guy is like, "Okay, I can try... Maybe it's not going to be the best but I can give you, like, four- of the equipment - I can give you, like, the half..." And I was like "sure." And the day that the guy arrives, I'm counting the boxes, you know, the, the speakers and I know I paid for four, and I keep counting and I'm seeing seven, eight - so I'm going "Momo, look, I'm counting the, the, the speakers and I think there are more." And he's like "Yeah, I brought everything." I was like, "but why?" And he was like, "You know what? This is gonna be the best festival of the year!" And so they have this beautiful- I was not aiming for lights because it was too expensive for us - they brought the whole system for lights. It was wonderful. My whole point is, like, we can make a wonderful festival where everybody wins.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Sol was clear about what made it possible for everybody to win in this first edition of Garufa TangoFest: the local organizers and artists who went above and beyond in their contributions to the event, and an international group of generous crowdfunders.

SOL:
This festival was a crowdfunding that we organized in the U.S. and this was as spectacular as it was because with that I got to book and pay all the artists, so the rest of the money I just could focus on the sound system, the space, the food... This was a collaboration. It's something that we tango people offer to the people.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Of course this offering reflects decades of hard work and innovation among dancers, musicians, and organizers, whose efforts are ushering in what Sol and a growing number of others are calling a new Golden Age of tango.

SOL:
I'm not inventing anything. I'm the mirror that shows that this is happening. Part of being an artist is keep redoing these things. Things that don't change die, eventually die, so either you are in the wave with us surfing this wonderful thing, or you stay back, sure. It's- we choose. This is the the beauty of free will. Do whatever you want - I know what I want. I want to keep changing.

LIZ: Wait a minute - so are we, we're choosing between surfing the wave or drowning? [LAUGHING]

SOL: Okay, I told you that this could happen. Well, not changing is also a choice. We respect choices, whatever the results are.

Maybe the closure of this interview is feeling grateful to be part of this wonderful movement in tango and being extra grateful because I'm in this moment where thing changes and I am part of that and I can change with them. And I encourage everybody to just dive in. Instead of being an observer, be a doer. Tango is now and the the doors are open, so let's do it.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Let's grab our surfboards, dear ones.

Mil gracias, Sol. And thanks to Asato Pais Duo for their interpretation of "Ilusión de Mi Vida," by Feliciano Brunelli, which accompanies this episode.

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