Project Description

This Dancerie: The Paris Project

A collaboration project by Tony Whitfield, Sebastiano d'Ayala Valva, Klaus Fruchtnis, Thierry Micouin, Nils Nusens, Patricio Sarmiento and Andrew Alden

This Dancerie is a multi-event, multi-site, multi-media work that explores the ways in which gay men have created public expressions of desire despite mainstream prohibitions of manifestations of those aspects of their lives in the context of Paris as a complex historical cultural arena for this exploration.

The pretext of This Dancerie is urbanization as a prerequisite for homosexual subculture and the understanding that despite the absence of “gay ghettos, ” gay men developed and carried on forbidden lives in public it cities around the world. This Dancerie focuses on Paris as a cross-road of queer life in which, although, technically, homosexuality was legal since 1791, decency was legislated and under surveillance.

This Dancerie will create a series of foci on Paris as a site of refuge for queer men and the environments they historically frequented. Particular attention will be placed on developing narratives that include a range of differing intersections of class, race, creeds, ethnicities and gender the collaborators will develop a movement based-work for male groupings drawing upon culturally specific traditions. The role immigration plays in these narratives will also be underscored.

This Dancerie is a multi-event, multimedia collaborative work under the artistic direction of Tony Whitfield. This project will be a collaboration between Whitfield, as Executive Producer and Artistic Director, Thierry Micouin as Director of Choreography, media artist Klaus Fruchtnis as Technical Director, fashion designer Patricio Sarmiento, filmmaker Sebastiano d’Ayala Valva and composer/musician Nils Nussen, all from France and composer/ musician Andrew Alden, and filmmakers Joe Lumbroso and Dyana Winkler, from the United States. Eight to ten sites across the City where same sex desire has created a shifting landscape of criminalized activity, class-complicated entanglements, immigrant freedom, forbidden commerce, transgressive beauty and encoded seduction will be the context for short filmed dance/movement based narratives since 1870. Each three to five minute films will begin with a cruising ritual and be filmed in those spaces. For several evenings the films will be presented in situ as projected images activated by passersby movement. Ideally these installations would be debuted as part of Paris’ La Nuit Blanche in 2017.

These films would then be brought together into a single space to produce an additional evening long performance or “dance party” that would be digitally randomized and improvisationally scored for classical ensemble and world pop musicians. Ideally the space would be situated in a cultural center and include a live performance component that involved local gay residents. Various forms of social media will be employed to augment and reveal aspects of the project's narrative content during the culminating dance party and its scatter site installations.

Several aspects of this project should move it beyond the context of performance based works that explore cultural identity and history. They include: the site specific nature of the public installation that will seek to revive unknown queer histories in ways that immerse the audience in the projected work; the creation of apps that will allow the participant to access deeper know of the history behind the narrative they have stumbled into as well as information about the artwork itself and other components of the work at other sites across Paris as well as multifaceted entries into the "dance party."

It is anticipated that audiences for This Dancerie will include: post modern dance, experimental music, expanded cinema, public art and contemporary performing arts audiences. In addition general public members who are attending events associated with Paris' La Nuit Blanche 2017 and local commmunities adjacent to the various sites in which This Danceries' short constituent works will be situated.This project will seek to engage LGBTQI populations including scholars, artists, performers and youth. Social media, print and electronic media associated with La Nuit Blanche and the venue that will host the culminating event will be drawn upon in addition to apps established specifically for This Dancerie.

The primary goal is to reveal the queer past and present of Paris as an urban geography that has been multifaceted, ethnically, economically, and culturally diverse while also revealing those aspects of queer life that defy normalization, concealment behind closed doors challenge notions of "decency" are tied to desire and find expression despite histories of policing and surveillance. In addition this work will seek to engage collaborative, improvisational and interactive structures and technologies to create social points of entry and discussion among various queer communities across Paris and beyond as a means of expanding current discussions about same sex desire.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Food for Thought: Men Dancing Tangos

MEN DANCING TANGO WITH MEN

The impetus for this article arose from stumbling across one of the most beautiful tango videos I have ever come across - containing two men (brothers no less). The fact that it is tango milonga is already a big plus, as that genre is my favorite... but I digress. Before this topic is discussed, I attach the said video for your viewing pleasure.

Enrique and Guillermo De Fazio dancing to the Reliquia Portenas

The Myth

The myth of how men started dancing tango with men has two variations; both around the theme of bordellos - aka 'prostibulos' - most likely because this theme sounds so damn good. The first variation relies on the boredom factor, a la whilst men were waiting to be 'serviced' they had nothing else to do other than to refine their dancing skills. The second variation (only slightly less fanciful) has bordellos providing the waiting men with tango bands for their casual dancing amusement, while they waited.

The sad truth is that whilst both variations undoubtedly did happen, it does not account for the large numbers of men who danced together, nor for the wide-scale acceptance of same-sex dancing, which is quite rare in other dancing cultures.

The Origin of Him-and-Him

So indeed, what is the principle origin of men dancing tango with each other?

In fact there are three completely separate reasons - which interestingly worked together.

Reason 1: No Access To Women

The first reason derives from where tango was initially danced. It must be remembered that tango, foremost, was the dance of the poor, the underprivileged - the 'lower class'. This group of people had less access to venues where tango was danced, and furthermore had less cultural 'finesses' or boundaries. As a result of these influences there evolved a culture in which it was acceptable for tango to be danced in the streets. Hence even before tango was danced between men, we must imagine in our minds a culture where it was quite common for couples to dance out in the open. In fact a specific style, Tango Orillero, was even evolved out of outdoor suburban tango dancing.

But in the early 1900s, tango was changed forever by the advent of European immigration. One of the outcomes of this cultural shift was that it became unacceptable for women to dance on the streets. The proximity of men and women in public was considered to be a scandal - even touching slightly, let alone embracing. Many women, especially the young, were not allowed to go to practicas or milongas, except if accompanied with their parents. However men being men, they still wanted do what they men wanted to do - dance! A certain percentage of the men went to venues where it was acceptable to dance, but many others - due to limited means or access - had no option other than to continue dancing in the streets. At that point, if a man wanted to dance in the street, there was not much choice; his only option was to dance with other men, which is precisely what occurred.

Reason 2: Courting

The second reason for sam-sex dancing is the fact that dancing was seen as a means to a woman's heart. This was further exacerbated by the fact that men outnumbered women in Buenos Aires in the early 1900s, so competition was fierce, and every edge counted. From this perspective, the fact that men could dance with men away from women was actually anadvantage: young men could tune their skills for a long time by going to men-only prácticas, until they were ready and confident to enter the floor of couples - where inevitably only very good dancers were accepted. This further reinforced the need for male-only dancing. It should be noted that the process for a man to learn tango would first start with the man going to a practica, and watching. Eventually one of the older men would teach him how to follow. Then when he was proficient, he would be promoted to leading another young man. Normally it would take about a year until a man was promoted to start leading. Then, when the man was ready - and this took often 3 years! - he would finally be escorted with another more experienced man to a milonga for an arranged dance with a woman.

Reason 3: Suppression of Tango

The third reason for men dancing tango with men is that tango was considered immoral by the upper class and the authorities. So much so that there was a formal initiative to close all cafes and ban tango music from being played on the streets. For example, in 1916 a law was passed in Buenos Aires that banned dancing between men in dance establishments. An attempt was made to slowly eradicate it from Argentina, and we find an account in 1919 by Joaquin Belda, who in his visit to Buenos Aires for 6 months wrote that most of the cafes were either closed or empty.

This of course resulted in even further reduced access to couples dancing tango, so to dance tango, men had to to dance with each other.