TRANSCRIPT~ EPISODE 2

EPISODE 2: Image, authenticity, and building bridges, with Phi Lee Lam

Producer/Host: Liz Sabatiuk | Music: "Chapado a la antigua" by Pablo Estigarribia | Image Credit: Monica Ramirez

LIZ SCRIPT:
Phi Lee Lam didn't think she'd be the kind of person to dance tango.

PHI LEE:
I was in Argentina- so, I was there twice. First time in 2010 - I left New York to pursue a life in farming. So I started out in France, and through all the different communities that I stayed with, I started to learn about sustainability and permaculture, and I started to look for specific places where I can live and learn. I found this homestead in Misiones, which is the south- sorry, northeastern province of Argentina. And I was there for about three months when I met someone who really loved tango. She very briefly mentioned that, "I think you would really love tango," and I think- somehow, she felt like I would be good at it. And at the time I was, I mean, the mention of tango, you know, it brings up this image of a hyper-masculine male-

[LIZ ASIDE] a hyper-masculine male

PHI LEE: -with a fedora and a hyper-feminine female in a red dress in that very classic pose. So of course I was like, "Oh, no way." [LAUGHTER]

LIZ SCRIPT:
If by some strange miracle you aren't familiar with tango stereotypes, a quick Google image search should clear up any confusion. You'll see row after row of men in dark suits embracing women in slinky dresses and heels. Sometimes the men wear fedoras. The women's dresses are always tantalizing and usually red. The men are always in the leading role. That stereotype didn't hold much attraction for Phi Lee, but when she was back in Argentina a few years later, she came across a different image of tango, one that would draw her in and shape the course of her future.

PHI LEE:
Someone mentioned tango queer.

[LIZ ASIDE] Tango queer is one of the original queer milongas of Buenos Aires. Milongas are tango dance parties, and many traditional ones were structured explicitly with the expectation of men leading and women following, even having the seating arranged by gender in some spaces. At a queer milonga, every dancer can lead, follow, or switch roles with any partner they choose, regardless of gender identity.

I searched and I found the event and I went to the milonga. We did the beginners class, and that's where I met Soledad Nani and Mariana Docampo. So that was the first time I saw two women dancing, and two women who were not in the stereotypical, like, tango dress and heels. It was very beautiful to witness these two female bodies just interchanging between the roles, and they were in this intimate embrace and this intimate movement. And I was just so drawn to it. There was something also about the fluidity of, of the masculinity and the femininity that I thought I witnessed, maybe I projected. And that was when I planted the seed of, when I move to a city, I want to learn how to do that.

[MUSIC]

LIZ ID INTRO:
I'm Liz Sabatiuk and this is Humans of Tango, where the people who make the global tango community thrive, share how it's shaped their lives.

LIZ SCRIPT:
I first heard about Phi Lee months before I had a chance to meet her. I'd started teaching queer tango in D.C., and people kept telling me to connect with the woman behind Queer Tango Collective in New York. I never got around to reaching out until one sweltering summer night in Baltimore when we both happened to be at the Charm City Tango Marathon. Picture a swanky, slightly old-fashioned hotel ballroom. High ceilings, columns, cathedral windows, chandeliers, and dancers meandering counterclockwise around a portable wooden floor. It was about 2.30 a.m. and I was getting ready to head back to D.C. when a friend said there was someone I needed to meet. I'd noticed Phi Lee on the dance floor, but I hadn't realized she was the organizer I'd heard so much about. She stood out to me both for her deft, playful dancing and because in a sea of men in button-down shirts with dress pants, and women in dresses and heels, Phi Lee rocked an undercut hairstyle, slim-cut jeans, fitted jacket, and black-and-white leather leader's boots.

[LIZ ASIDE] If you didn't know leader's boots can be a thing, now you know. You're welcome.

My friend made the introduction, and after exchanging warm smiles and a few words, Phi Lee and I danced a tanda - that's a set of three to four songs - with her leading and me following. Her embrace was confident and gentle, and I remember feeling a curious combination of safe and exhilarated. That tanda made my night, and when I spoke with Phi Lee over Zoom for this podcast almost two years later, I got a window into the process of exploration, inquiry, and connection that made it possible. So, let's follow Phi Lee back to New York, where that process began.

[MUSIC]

PHI LEE:
I looked for, uh, queer tango in New York, and I found Rainbow Tango. So I went to take one of their beginner package class, and I realized it wasn't specifically queer tango, they just marketed it in all these different, uh, online - I don't know what you call them, like, social groups - and just drew all these people from different areas, but then it was just a regular tango class. It was, it was strange, I got there and I was like, "Well, you know, I recognize some of these teachers as being gay," but then, you know, the very first thing they taught was, "Let's stand in a circle, and this is what happens at a milonga, at a dance floor, this is how a man invites a woman to dance." And they reenacted the whole scene of the woman, you know, he literally was like, it was like a scripted event, he was like, she's going to do this, she gives the mirada, so she gives the permission to invite, and then he does this sort of like chest forward, chest up, confident male cabeceo, and it was flirtatious, it was just complete, I was like, "Wow! interesting." [LAUGHTER]

LIZ SCRIPT:
The mirada and cabeceo are the wordless agreement two dancers make before dancing together at a milonga. As Phi Lee described, traditionally the mirada refers to the woman's gaze and the cabeceo to the man's invitation. Far from an outdated ritual, when used correctly, it can be a super-effective system for minimizing awkward rejections, including in a queer tango context. Basically how it works is that when you see someone you'd like to dance with, you try to catch their eye. And if you can't, there's a pretty strong chance that you have your answer.

Here's the thing. The pantomime Phi Lee described reminds me of that Google image search with the dark suits and red dresses. It may well be intended to respect tango's cultural heritage and attract new dancers, but its prevalence makes it as likely to alienate as to engage. It's not about the suits or the dresses. It's about the fact that tango can provide all kinds of meaningful connections between all kinds of people, but it's not usually portrayed that way.

PHI LEE:
I went along with it, I took the class for the whole month because it was one of those Groupon package classes that was affordable for me at the time. And I took it as a follower. I don't think I did it consciously. I think it was just, they just separated us by, "Okay, all the guys stand here, all the women stand there." And I kind of just fell into that, "Okay, all the women, you know, go to that side." And it was very clear to me actually, after that first class that I was never ever going be asked to dance if I had to dress up in the way that he described and I had to behave in the way that he had described. So I took the class again, but as a leader.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Phi Lee's preference for the leading role wasn't just about being asked to dance though.

PHI LEE:
I think after that first month of learning to follow, I was quite averse to how a follower was treated. And this is not necessarily anything explicit that the teachers had said. You know, it wasn't like they were undermining or belittling the role. It was just partly 'cause like beginners are learning to- you know, you're not familiar with your body, you're not necessarily aware with what you're doing, but I felt like I was just being manipulated. I felt like I was just following a script of movement of- you know, the leader is telling you this is where you need to go, this is where you need to go. And by nature, you know, I rebelled against that since I was very, very young. So that's why I developed an aversion [LAUGHS] towards that approach.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Despite the aversion, Phi Lee kept working on both roles. And she was actually in the following role when she had an experience that would completely transform how she approached tango.

PHI LEE:
When I was dancing with this stranger, the strange guy, I don't know, and we're in this intimate embrace. I felt safe. I felt... It was like I felt his- this person, I felt the humanity within this person. I felt the emotions within his body. And when I started experiencing that, I started to like pay attention to it. So every time when I was dancing with, um, didn't matter if it was a man or women, I started paying attention to that part of the other person. And the more I did that, the more all these barriers that I had built started to, to break down. It was like a brick wall, a very thick brick wall that literally just started to crumble. And the feeling of, like, connecting with this human being - it didn't matter what their gender was, it didn't matter what their identity was - I was able to penetrate beyond all that and just relate from that place. And that experience, I think, has been the most profound experience I've had in tango, and that has informed what is really precious about this dance.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Phi Lee's discovery of the connective, emotional power of tango came early in her tango journey. She still had a lot to explore when it came to leading, following, and her own identity as a dancer.

PHI LEE:
When I first witnessed Mariana and Soledad - and that's why I used the word project, because I don't think it's necessarily the truth of what was happening - it was sort of that the role itself, one I felt was masculine, the other was feminine, and it was in flowed when they switched roles. But then also within each dancer, the role brought out a certain energy within them. So the way- what I witnessed Soledad as a follower was different from what I witnessed within Soledad as a leader. It was subtle, but I, I was very drawn to how the dance can actually bring it out.

But I've come- I think I have detached myself from that, very naturally, through the investigation of dancing both as a leader and a follower. And I think that has also informed how I embody the roles and how they're being expressed outwardly. That has also informed the technique that I utilize and the dynamic of the roles. I think I see it as the yin and the yang. There is a masculine energy and there is a feminine energy, but I don't think that one is necessarily passive and the other one is active or one is strong and the other is weak. There is that giving and there's that receiving. There is that cycle of energy and it has qualities, but...it's not as specific, if that makes sense.

LIZ: I think so.

PHI LEE: To, like, a gender.

LIZ: Right. So you don't want to give it simplified labels. There's a dynamic there, but words might not be that useful to describe this particular binary.

PHI LEE: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it has been a very long journey of, of, yeah, of coming to where I am right now and wanting to be more genuine with the way that I move because I have, I have gone through that phase of looking for the right way to dance, the right way to be a leader, um, wanting to be recognized as "I'm dancing the tango." I went through looking at the milonguero style, looking at the tanguero style-

[LIZ ASIDE] Tanguero in the sense of tango salon.

PHI LEE: -and emulating how they were moving, emulating how they dressed. It was like seeing what was being represented, taking that and putting it on myself and trying it out. And at the same time, just asking questions like, what is not working for me? What is working for me? What is it that I'm looking for? And moving from one question to another.

And this was sort of happening concurrently with really wanting to understand the dance as this art form and finding the teacher, which I think has the biggest influence on the trajectory. So finding Carla, Carla Marano, as my teacher and realizing this is, this is feeling right in my body, this is fulfilling something, leaping into it, knowing that this is just, this is the right thing. And so when I did that, things just appear, the experience[s] were coming to me rather than I was going for a specific experience. I started feeling like I was relating more to a more, a freer way of dancing. Like for example, Chicho. For the first few years when I was watching him, I just, I was like, "Oh, why would anyone dance... Is that tango?" Like...

LIZ: [LAUGHING] Oh my God. That's amazing...

PHI LEE: It doesn't look like tango to me at all. [LAUGHTER]

[LIZ ASIDE] That's Mariano Chicho Fromboli, one of the most famous tango dancers of all time, known for his groundbreaking improvisation and jaw-dropping musicality. My words. He also happens to be my favorite tango dancer ever, and you can find videos of him in the show notes.

PHI LEE: But you know, it was, I was like, I couldn't feel it in my body. I wasn't moved by it. But then later on, when I started watching it, I felt this, I felt the movement in my body. It was like, visually I was like, "No, I don't think I like it," but then the sensation in my body was telling me otherwise. And I was also realizing that I was moving in that way, not because I was consciously choosing to dance stylistically in that freer way. It was just happening. And then once I accepted that, okay, this is the way I dance and this is the way I enjoy the movement, it just felt so comfortable and genuine.

[MUSIC]

LIZ SCRIPT:
So it turns out that Phi Lee is, in fact, the kind of person who dances tango, including performing in both roles. She takes seriously the chance to present a different possibility for gender expression in tango. She also works hard to keep herself in perspective and to honor every dancer's unique identity and expressive choices.

PHI LEE:
Because there is a lack of representation of female leaders, every time we put ourselves out there in that kind of performative role, it becomes a statement. And so I start to consider how do I want to dress? How do I want to relate to my partner? How do I want to relate within that space? You know, it's sort of like everything that I do, everything- becomes slightly amplified. But I don't want to overthink it. I don't want to overexpress or be too intentional with it because I need to still stay from like, "This is who I am." It's not, I'm not trying to make a statement of how women should be, dancing the roles. So it's like, it's balancing those two, going back and forth of like, okay, I'm aware that this is happening in the public space, I need to also be always in touch with what's within myself and what feels right.

And I think when I watch two women, two very feminine women dancing together, and they're wearing heels, they're wearing a dress, a red, maybe a red dress, I'm watching that with that same thing in mind. Because I have heard people who really criticize like, why are they choosing to wear heels? Why are they still reenacting that role, that gender role? And I think- I want to believe that they're coming from that place as well, where this is who I am and that is also how I can embody the role. So there is nothing wrong with being ultra-feminine or being stereotypically female, and just embrace that as a possibility.

And I think that that is the beauty of now, of how we can actually just define it the way that we want to define it. The lack of representation presents an opportunity for us to engage in that discovery of how we can define and redefine and transform ourselves and the role and what we're presenting.

[MUSIC]

LIZ SCRIPT:
Like that abstract cycle of energy she described in reference to the dynamics of lead and follow, Phi Lee's tango journey has balanced exploration and inquiry with intuition and acceptance. You see, the technique of the roles themselves has evolved over the decades. And while it may not have always been the case, just about every tango teacher I've ever encountered, including those who advocate traditional gender roles, acknowledges in some way or another the importance of following to lead and leading to follow. Like the black and white dots in a yin-yang symbol, both roles have a touch of their counterpart within them. This balance has influenced Phi Lee's approach to tango organizing as much as it's influenced her dancing. She's passionate about bringing people together. She also respects her own limits and the autonomy of others.

PHI LEE:
And I think when I started Queer Tango-

[LIZ ASIDE] Queer Tango as in Queer Tango Collective in New York

PHI LEE: -it was coming from the place of creating a safe incubator for people who may have gone through different kinds of experiences, where they may feel traumatized and have fears around being in the larger spaces, and to allow that sense of safety and confidence to build. But eventually I wanted them to then have that confidence to go into that public space and to experience the, that same experience I had. To, like, feel each other's humanity, because then- at the time I was like, "That's the bridge! That's the bridge, you know, between differences." And it's just so, it was so profound, I wanted, like, everybody to be able to experience it.

LIZ: And do you still believe it's the bridge?

PHI LEE: I mean, I do. I do believe, I do believe it, but I think, you know, before, I was like, I was trying to create it. I was trying to control it. I was trying to preach and-

LIZ: Lead it? Were you trying to lead it?

PHI LEE: And having gone through the years of wanting to control something that is not within myself, I've learned a hard lesson. And, you know, I can facilitate things, but I cannot control what happens and I cannot- you know, everybody has their own process, and that's a very big lesson for me. You know, I have my own process as well. And that person has their own process, and they need to go through what they need to go through. And, you know, we're all in different places and spaces and I'm learning to not be judgmental of where people are, of how people are. And I think that's also part of, like, not judging myself for whatever faults that I perceive that I have.

LIZ: Tango therapy. It lasts a lifetime.

PHI LEE: Yeah, where we are in life, it's, it is where we are in tango. Yeah. [LAUGHTER]

LIZ SCRIPT:
May we all have the strength and wisdom to ask the questions that will keep us true to ourselves - even as we change. And may we keep building those bridges, in life and in tango.

Thanks to Phi Lee for sharing her beautiful and ongoing story, and to Pablo Estigarribia, whose song "Chapado a la Antigua" is featured in this podcast.

[MUSIC]