backwards and in high heels

Queer dance: queer dancers, women dancing with women, lgbtq social dancing, men dancing with men, queer tango, humans dancing with humans, performances, all sorts of movement that questions the heteronormative matrix. Also joy.

[dancequeer]

[rolequeer]

Since the concept of rolequeerness has some of it’s roots in conversations about dance. And since some of you might not be farmiliar with the concept of Queer Tango and might love it. (Sadly, a lot of people interpret Queer Tango as simply same-sex tango and this wikipedia article does some of that, but there is a lot more behind Queer Tango if you look further, it’s also about changing leaders and followers at any time in the dance, blurring the lines between leading and following.)

[maymay]

This. Is. Awesome. :)

[unquietpirate-blog]

Neat!

[rolequeer]

Here’s the Wikipedia artikel for Queer Tango

ok, personal squee moment: 

WAIT, NEITHER OF YOU KNEW ABOUT QUEER TANGO?

OMG ALL THE SEXY YOU HAVE BEEN MISSING OUT ON. 

[unquietpirate-blog]

:D

I don’t really know how to dance, at least not the kind with steps, but I have always wanted to learn. I’d especially like to learn something like this!

(My one experience with tango was when I was working in Antarctica, somebody decided to teach a beginners tango class in off-hours, so a bunch of us piled into the Laundry Room (because it’s one of the biggest open spaces on station that’s heated) and everybody there had partners except me and this guy Quincy who’s, like 6’6”. I’m 5’1”. We got paired together and it was an hour of awkward, clumsy, mismatched stumbling over each other. But it was fun. :) )

[rolequeer]

I’m a clumsy dancer who never took proper lessons and all my experiences with queer tango are experiences where I was watching. But those in itself were experiences that made a profound impact on me because the people dancing understood what a queer relationship to power looks like and put that into dance what they ended up with was a remarkable tenderness. Regular tango plays with power and can be said to be a rather ‘kinky’ dance. Their tango seemed a lot more tender and caring (and it was), but was no less kinky, just less obviously so. I didn’t realise all that at the time and I may me projecting a bit now that I look back on those moments (but I don’t think I am) but yeah, that stayed with me.

That said, I’m also watched quite a bit of ‘queer tango’ that can just be described as two dancers of the same gender revisiting all the old power-relations of traditional tango without queering them. Just like I’ve seen quite a few people who called themselves queer but where just liberal LGBT activists.  

[unquietpirate-blog]

Hmm…it’s really interesting to think of dance this way, as a microcosm of  sex, gender, and power dynamics — and possible diversity among those things. Which, of course, it is. I’ve just never really thought about people queering that before and now I’m excited about it. *hits up YouTube*

[dancequeer]

Dance communities are absolutely microcosms, and fascinating ones at that! And actually, the notion of community is key if you want to understand queer tango, as it is a social dance. That means people meet to dance and through the dance, travel sometimes very far to keep doing it, to have a good time and create something in the moment. 

Almost every queer tango dancer you ask will have a different answer to what the "queer" in queer tango means. For some, it is continuous role switching and fluidity, a conceptual queering of the roles/the dance itself. For others, it means queer people dancing tango with each other, full stop. And there's really nothing inherently lesser about that approach, about saying that we're here, we're queer, we like this dance and we're going to take it and make it ours.

[ambidancetrous-blog]

Women dancing together! Why has no one ever thought of this be—oh, wait.

[dancequeer]

Alain Wong & Aleix Prats Ferrer perform a choreography showcase.

[danzacontemporanea]

SHARON VAZANNA

Transparent bordes

13 e 14 september, Fienile fluò - Bologna - Italy

Dancer: Sharon Vazanna, Tamar Sonn

[subliminaltwist]

Yanis Marshall street choreography to a Spice Girls medley.

[lindyloowho]

This contest is awesome! Jill and Jack, with women leading and men following.

That’s a really fast song!

[lindyloowho]

That sound? That sound was the sound of my jaw hitting the floor. Two dudes, an invitational Jack and Jill, and some DAMN FINE ambidancetrous dancing.

[Plus it’s playful and fun and funny and not just played for laughs that two dudes are dancing together and it’s a real conversation and I just really like it a lot]

[dancersover40]

Dance by Markus Zielke

[ambidancetrous-blog]

A guest post from Shane – blues instructor at Oberlin College

I had been blues dancing as a follow for about a year and teaching beginning blues classes for almost as long before I heard the word “Ambidancetrous.” Curious, I reached out to Mary Christensen, an NYC-based ambidance...

[dlampzz]

BOOM-KAT.

[dancequeer]

Peninsula Cho and Beau Chispita Kim dancing at the milonga Tango Queer, February 4th 2014 in Buenos Aires.

[dancequeer]

Finally finding the perfect leading shoes for tiny feet is a joy and triumph! How I have longed for flat dance shoes that are not sneakers or ballerinas. I highly recommend La Vikinga shoes for all your queer dance shoe needs - flats and high heels in ALL styles and sizes.

[a-rhinestone-cowboy]

JbDubs - I Hate My Job (x)

[dancequeer]

Time to bring this fabulous video back.

[queering]

Drag ball in Magic City,1932 by Brassai

via adski_kafeteri

[fyeahqueervintage]

[dancequeer]

From the Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1895). 

[adanvc]

Girls dancing in the streets of Paris, 1950s.

by Robert Doisneau