TRANSCRIPT~EPISODE 1

EPISODE 1: Reflections of a queer tango trailblazer, with Augusto LaMarshall

Producer/Host: Liz Sabatiuk | Music: “Alma de Bohemio” by Roberto Firpo, performed by Francisco Canaro y su Orquesta Típica, via the Internet Archive | Image Credit: Carlos Villamayor/Arte

AUGUSTO:
That's what tango is about. It's not about the gender or the sexual orientation - it's about dancing with different people. I don't care who you sleep with. Dancing with you is different than dancing with you, dancing with you, with you, with you, with you, with you, with you. So it's different. That's why during the workshop I said to some of you, we all have our favorites. Of course we have our favorites. And some of my favorites are not gay men.

GROUP: [Shocked sound] How dare you!

AUGUSTO: Jump out the window! [LAUGHTER]

[MUSIC]

LIZ SCRIPT:
That was Augusto La Marshall, also sometimes known as the godfather of queer tango.

I'm Liz Sabatiuk and as Manager of Tango Mercurio's Queer Tango Program, I had the great honor of inviting Augusto to Washington, D.C. way back in 2019 as a guest artist. As a teacher, Augusto was humble and thoughtful, with a wicked sense of humor. Toward the end of his visit, Mercurio teamed up with the D.C. Queer Tango Collective for a brunch with Augusto, where locals could pick his brain about what he's learned over 20 years of dancing, teaching, and organizing for the queer community.

The conversation touched on everything from the origins of tango to social codes to our dreams for queer tango's future. I won't try to cover it all here, but there were some particular gems that I thought worth surfacing. In the background, you'll hear babies fussing, tango music playing, laughter and questions, and even the occasional secondary conversation. I hope Augusto's humor and wisdom will shine through.

[MUSIC]

AUGUSTO:
Actually, the first queer tango festival ever in the world was in 2001 in Hamburg, and uh, they... I was invited to participate, and I made, like, the opening show for that, the opening performance for that festival with another friend of mine from Buenos Aires.

GROUP: Is there a reason why it didn't take place in Argentina? [LAUGHTER]

AUGUSTO: I think that one of the reasons was, like, I had like some kind of opinion in those days - I don't know if it is very different nowadays. Tango in Buenos Aires has a background, has a history, and sometimes that history is difficult to change, it's difficult to, to break, as we were speaking about before, and uh...not impossible, but it takes time, yeah. Whereas in different other, in some other parts of the world, you just can take the tango and do whatever you want because you don't have like a background who's going-

GROUP: Yeah, they don't have all that construct.

AUGUSTO: -who will tell you, uh... It's not so holy, yeah?

LIZ SCRIPT:
Back home in Buenos Aires, Augusto started teaching a weekly tango class. Then in 2003, he started a milonga - that's a tango dance party. He called it La Marshall and it was the first gay milonga in Buenos Aires.

AUGUSTO:
When I decided to open my milonga, it was the students who said, "Okay, Augusto, this is very nice, we come together, we have a lesson, and then we go home. We want to have a place for fun, not a place just for the lesson." And uh, so after some time, I got in touch with, with somebody who gave us a space in a private place in, like, his own house, and the first milonga was funny because there was- you had to ring the bell to get in because it was a private house. We didn't have a DJ. In those days, we still had CDs, so we put a CD on and it was all the way through all the CD. When it was over, "Change it!" and people danced.

Okay, I decided to call it Milonga Gay just for people to know that if you go there, you will find gay people, but I knew from the very first time that it had to be open to anybody because I thought- in those days, I thought, "Okay, this has to be like a gay disco, but for tango." In a gay disco, of course, it's full of gay, but if a straight person wants to go, you just pay the ticket and go.

It became very popular at the beginning. We started to have lots of people because in those days, the milonga[s] were in general... Number one, there were not so many milongas as you have nowadays. Nowadays, in Buenos Aires, I think it's crazy. It's impossible to have 25 milongas a day. So in those days, it was not like that. There were a few milongas a day, and most of them were very traditional. Women one side, men the other side, you know. And suddenly, a new place appeared where you don't have to expect, like, the traditional tango codes. For example, a traditional lady came for the first time because she wanted to know what this is about. "Okay!" "We don't have a place." "Yes, sit here," and she started- "But this is the men's side." "No, we don't have men's side. You want to change? Go change. Feel free."

Since I started with la Marshall, I had many, many, many interviews from many different places, and when I say, "Yes, we dance together," everybody goes like, "Well, but that was the origins of tango, right?" And I say, "Yeah, well, it could be, but I don't do it because I want to be more traditional than the traditional." [LAUGHTER] I do it because I wanted to dance tango. I'm gay, and I, I- if I can choose, I'd rather do it with my male partner than with my... I enjoy dancing with both, but why not dancing with a man?

LIZ SCRIPT:
Augusto was referring to a growing consensus among historians that men dancing together was vital to tango's origins - but that doesn't mean tango traditionalists were always supportive. Outside of the free culture of La Marshall, Augusto's experiences social dancing in Buenos Aires weren't always positive.

AUGUSTO:
When I started, I started dating Miguel in 2003 or 4. In those days, honestly, we were almost the only same-sex couples going to milongas, and uh, once we went to a place, to one milonga with another friend of ours, and the organizer came directly to us, and she said, "Hey, listen, the floor here is open, so if you want to dance together, feel free." So we were the only male couple dancing in a social way, and we knew that what- while we danced, we knew there were some dancers, some of the people who disagreed with what we were doing.

It happened to me dancing, dancing with Miguel, I remember, in another milonga - dancing, la-la-ahhh, how nice - I go, like, in the edge, as a good tanguero, and then the man sitting on the first table - very traditional, la bla bla la la - almost yelling that "El tango es para machos," you know, because I was right there in front of him in that moment. So it's funny because to me - and this is very personal - something that I think in that moment is that "You're stupid." For me, it's not, it's not- I don't feel offended. I don't, I don't feel offended. I think he's the stupid one. But for, I - sorry - but I know that for some other dancer, it could be very, uh, difficult.

LIZ SCRIPT:
We also heard about how the Buenos Aires scene started shifting, little by little.

AUGUSTO:
Some other milongas started to appear, like, gay-friendly, open-role - they give, they give these milongas different names. There was a moment in Buenos Aires that actually there was at least one of those every night. Yes. Sooo, some of them were not strictly queer or gay, but we knew that you can dance. Yes. So that also helped to relax a little bit the tango, eh, society. And nowadays there are many milongas who you can go and dance. There are some other who still you cannot. You cannot in the sense that they can say to you, "Hey, no, no, not here, go." Or they don't, they don't, how do you say, kick you out? They don't say that you have to leave the milonga, but you cannot dance with another man.

[MUSIC]

LIZ SCRIPT:
Throughout the conversation, Augusto talked a lot about Mariana Docampo, a fellow queer tango trailblazer and his longtime co-organizer for the Tango Queer International Festival. It's clear that their friendship has had a big influence on how Augusto thinks about queer tango today.

AUGUSTO:
So even though we were doing these tango lessons in- for the gay community, I thought I was the only one.

GROUP: Awww...

AUGUSTO: No, no, no, no, no, no, no - I tell you why... Because after some time, teacher, I found out that there was another girl doing the same thing for the lesbian community. We met. We started to know each other. She had her milonga; I had my milonga, and in 2006, we decided to do the festival in Buenos Aires. And ever since, it's more or less the same relationship. When we agree on something, it's a hundred percent. And when we disagree on something, it's a hundred percent. But when we match, it works perfectly. Yeah. And we learned to deal with each other in a good way.

When I called my milonga a gay milonga, I was not in touch at all with the idea of "queer." I didn't even know that existed. Or yes, I know it existed because of the festival in Hamburg, but in those days I thought it was just a name. Okay. Talking a lot about this with Mariana because I had to learn myself about that, uh, queer was the possibility actually to be more open, not to have like the fixed standard situation. If you're a woman, you have to follow. So, and the queer community was supposed to be open to just anybody. If you're gay or not gay, it doesn't matter. But if you want to only follow, it should be okay for the queer community. If you only want to lead, it should be okay for the gay community. If you're a straight man who only wants to lead, it should be okay for the gay community. It should be, because it's not always is. For some- queer people still feel that if you're queer, you have to do everything. No, no. 

GROUP: That's a lot of pressure...

AUGUSTO: Not, not for me, for Augusto.

It's our job as individuals to know what we want and to know what we expect. And even me myself, being like- it was funny in San Francisco, they introduced me as the godfather of queer tango, or the grandfather or whatever-

LIZ: I'm sure it was godfather. [LAUGHTER]

AUGUSTO: Walter from New York, he says directly grandfather. But my point is, even that I started with this many, many years ago, I am still in this situation and when I face some moments, I have to say, "Okay, Augusto, stop. Think. Open your mind, listen to this person, what this person has to say about- because for me, for me, Augusto nowadays, something new that I have to learn, still learn about is about the people who doesn't want to be treated as him or her, but something in between. For me, something strange to understand and to- not accept, to understand more than accept, because accept is not really a problem. But we all have to go through those [things] every single day, every single day.

And I think that we are always afraid of the things we don't know. We know what gay is about, but many, many, many straight people don't know what gay is about. Many straight people still feel or believe that being gay is just having sex, you know? Because it happened to me, straight men coming to my milonga, going up the stairs, "Ah, but you dance!" "Well, this is a milonga, yes, we dance. What did you think? What did you think we were doing here?"

LIZ: They came for the sex!

GROUP: I find it very weird that they would go there and not expect dancing. Like, it's like, okay, what is your, why did you come here? [LAUGHTER]

AUGUSTO: "Were you expecting sex? Just give me your number, I'll give it to you later." [LAUGHTER] But honestly, you know, so when we don't know what the situation over there behind the counter is about, we start to, "Ah, oh my God."

LIZ SCRIPT:
Augusto may still be learning about non-binary identity, but he had several anecdotes showing how he thinks beyond the gender binary in his own life.

AUGUSTO:
Nowadays, there is a thing going on that, okay, there can be more chances that either a man or a woman, yes? Once somebody asked me, "Okay, and how- when you follow," there was a journalist from I don't know where, "when you follow, you're doing something that usually women do." I said, "yes." "And how do you feel about it? Because you're doing something that women do." And I said, "Well, that's not a question I have to answer. That's a question you have to answer." Gay men don't have a problem doing something, doing things that women do. That's a problem for straight men.

I had this Italian lady - crazy Italian lady - coming to my milonga, and she used to live around the corner from my flat. And once I met her in the street. I was with my husband, and she was with her boyfriend. And uh, "Okay, okay, you are together, but when you are together, who is the woman?" And her boyfriend said to her, "Eh, what are you asking?" But still, that idea is still around, you know? It's like, I said, "Julia, there is no woman. Don't you see? There is no other woman."

LIZ SCRIPT:
A dancer from our local community told a story about a woman he met at a milonga who seemed offended when he asked if she wanted to lead or follow. She said as a woman she would follow. But after a few minutes of conversation, her attitude changed, and she even ended up apologizing for her initial response. Here's what Augusto had to say.

AUGUSTO:
As gay people, sometimes we demand for tolerance. So how tolerant are we against the other- towards the other people?

GROUP: Well, some people wouldn't dance with a woman like that.

AUGUSTO: Exactly, exactly. But it's just- two minutes conversation with that woman was enough. So what I mean is that we know we are in some kind - if you want - in some kind of revolution with this queer thing.

GROUP: -we have to engage.

AUGUSTO: And sometimes we have to [GROUP MURMURS] sometimes we have to teach the people what this is about. Not what this is about like, "Hey, look, I'm going to show you something new." I'm going to show you some other possibilities and then, now you know. And now that you know, if you want to agree with me, it's great. And if you don't, go on with your life. But at least to let them know.

LIZ SCRIPT:
When asked whether he thinks there will always be a need for queer tango, Augusto had a clear position.

AUGUSTO:
I hope it disappears, in terms that we don't need queer tango to be able to go and dance whoever you want to dance with. But that's part of the...evolving, that's part of the process we have to go through. For me, it's part of this social changes. It cannot happen - okay, tomorrow we all wake up and we are all open-minded. It has to change little by little.

LIZ SCRIPT:
Massive thanks to Augusto for sharing his knowledge and experience so candidly. The music featured throughout this podcast is a recording of Roberto Firpo's "Alma de Bohemio," performed by Francisco Canaro y su Orquesta Típica thanks to the Internet Archive. Thanks also to the DC Queer Tango Collective for hosting brunch that day.

And thanks to all the dancers of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, who open their minds and their arms to keep this dance we love evolving.

[MUSIC]