Informal Tango Interviews #64, Paula Barceló (+Enrique Gianetti) [Tango without gender restrictions]

Informal Tango Interviews is a video/podcast series on YouTube involving all kinds of tango people like you and me, who tell a bit about the story of their tango life and if applicable, also about a particular aspect they are especially known for or knowledgeable about.

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INTRODUCTION:

Today's interview is the best possible double role interview I could have ever presented on this channel: it ticks all the boxes in explaining why only dancing 50% of the dance makes so little sense, as well as asking the most important question, as these interview guests put it: "Why should the way you dance be defined by what you have between your legs?"

Paula Barceló and Enrique Gianetti run a tango school in Málaga (Spain), and they teach double role there, so that people can actually make an informed choice about how they want to dance. It's OK if you decide that you only want to dance one role, but most people never had the chance of even making a choice, because they started dancing in a very traditional environment. As a beginner in Germany, Paula actually asked herself questions about that traditional environment right away, about being restricted as a woman in what she could do, whereas outside of tango she was a free, modern woman. One day, she met Enrique, a tango teacher from Buenos Aires who had been dancing double role since the early 2000s, and with his mentorship and alternative ideas, everything just ''clicked" for her.

That was the beginning of a relationship that led to Paula and Enrique moving to Málaga together (Paula's native city) and doing things differently with their own school. In this interview, you'll learn about how traditional gender norms in tango are restricting people in negative ways - originally trained as a linguist, Paula sees tango dancing as a language, a dialogue between two people, and she doesn't understand why we have to limit ourselves in this based on something as arbitrary as gender. Also, to her, some of the códigos in tango do not make any sense and we should have more of a choice in how we interact with other dancers. In the final 20-30 minutes of the interview, Enrique also joins in (despite his anxiety about speaking English) to bring some of these concepts full circle. It was a really interesting and inspiring conversation indeed!
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VIDEO CHAPTERS:

Paula's part:

0:00 Intro
1:28 How Paula became a double role dancer
12:01 Looking for better tango
23:29 Male followers. And the tango situation in Spain
30:40 Setting up a tango school in Málaga
38:56 How códigos may be restricting us too much
46:06 "Women in the driver's seat", but male classes lag behind...
51:35 Role freedom and events

Enrique's part:

59:52 Enrique talking about the ronda
1:03:35 A double role philosophy already in the early 2000s
1:06:47 Why is everything decided by "what you have between your legs"?
1:12:00 The limits of the old ways
1:18:43 Totally in Tango and the embrace as a gift