Dual role dancing

I find dual role dancers tend to be better dancers. Sometimes it is called open role dancing.  These days, I notice I dance with very few men unless they are dual role dancers.  I just don’t tend to fancy them for dance.  Now I often seem to be able to guess, even without seeing them dance, which guys are the dual role dancers, or who might be open to it.  It's a bit like how, in Sheffield, I started to be able to guess the kinds of guys that were more likely to prefer me to guide them.   Outside the queer tango community, many dual role dancing men are in their twenties, under 35, but by no means always. I love too to meet older men who dance both roles. It says a lot about how liberal-minded they are.

If you can find a dual role dancer to learn with, so much the better.  Most queer tango dancers I have met dance both roles and most dance much better than most straight dancers. The reason queer tango dancers (who may be straight) dance well is nothing to do with their sexual preferences, which are entirely their own affair. It is because they dance both roles. The Queer Tango Edinburgh subtitle is: Queer can be who you are, what you do or how you dance. I rather like that. It also says Tango for everyone, which I really like. 

The current acronym, if you are interested is LGBTQIA: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, and asexual or allied. I particularly like allied because it welcomes even people not in that community.  That sounds open and welcoming without in any way labouring the point.  A place that welcomes curious people sounds good to me.  That inclusiveness reminds me of the Paris milonga Le Cygne (I haven't been yet), which Olivier runs. I think I asked him if it started as a queer milonga. And I think what he said was that it started as a milonga or perhaps as a practica for everyone in the city centre. And now, he said, wonderfully, and with much understatement, and not least, in his charming accent, it is hetero-friendly. 

During the last couple of years there has been a rise, in Europe, of events for dual role dancers. I will go to my first one in Toulouse in May, with Totally in Tango.  This seems to be the main organisation in Europe that runs events for dual role dancers.  So far the events all seem to have filled up and sold out very quickly. My enquiry in September last year for the Eindhoven event in Feb 2019 was fruitless - it was already full. I had a very polite email from Ludo who told me TiT don’t run waiting lists. I couldn’t have agreed more that they are stressful for all involved. 

I like the line on their website: It can be so amazing when you do not know anymore who is leading and who is following. It all becomes one dance.

The website says Dancers that enjoy both roles are welcome. Even better is that on the events that are not already full it says Is your friend/partner (still) a single role dancer? You are both welcome.  So if you wanted to learn both roles, there's an 'in'. 

At the moment, their events attract more women than men. A participant at an event last year told me the ratio was 70:30 and I heard that confirmed about Eindhoven too. Overall though, I find women better dancers in the ordinary milongas so that is no issue for me. If there were any guys who danced both roles, or wanted to learn, that would be a good thing. Given how many queer tango dancers I met in Sheffield, UK, in December, who were from Germany I was not surprised to hear that the Netherlands and Germany are open-role-tolerant communities. 

The dance events I am most interested in now are the dual role events. They are growing in number. Most recently I saw an announcement in the Open Role Tango facebook group that Amsterdam apparently now has regular queer and open role milongas: 

I missed Niño Bien Maraton in Halle, Germany in February when it was my son’s birthday. I noticed that, wonderfully, as in the Dutch Salon de Oranjerie, you could buy tickets online.  That means there is none of that selectiveness on the quiet by organisers that puts me off many weekend events requiring registration.  There were a few places left in January, but according to the Facebook post most tickets sold out in the first week after registration opened. 

There was TangoCrosswise in the Harz mountains of Germany this weekend just past.  I had heard about it from someone who went last year and said it was nice.  None of the German queer tango dancers I spoke to knew of it but they tend to travel on the queer tango weekend circuit.  It was in Veckenstedt, a small village far from...everywhere.  I struggled to work out how to get there, enquired about that, had no reply and eventually gave up trying. By the time I discovered travel info on the other website it was too late to make arrangements.  If you are travelling from abroad it is probably at least a plane, a train and a bus. Or be braver than I was (despite learning to drive in Germany) and hire a car.

There is not much else that I know of in terms of weekend social dancing for open role dancers or any city that has enough open role + queer tango dancing to make a weekend of it.  Dresden seems to be big on open role classes and runs a social weekend which mentions dual role tango but it is called 'Iron Tango', and it is run very evidently by a dance ‘academy’ and both those things put me off.

The only other event I know of is the open role weekend in Bonn, Tango oRó in mid September. I rather fancy celebrating my birthday there! The floor looks good in the pictures. The music is 80/20 traditional/alternative music which is good to know in advance. It is organised by teachers but there is just one discreet link to their dance school on the About Us page. The main effect is the fun, casual, colourful photo of four smiley people. Registration starts Sunday 2nd June, 5pm. There are 100 places and apparently, it sold out quickly last year. It is €125, for the milongas, food, yoga and footbath sessions.