2011 Queer Tango Festival of Buenos Aires

Queer Tango Dancers From 2010 Festival

By Roy Heale

The Fifth Annual International Queer Tango Festival of Buenos Aires will take place from November 14 – 20, 2011. Without a doubt this is one of the best events on the gay and lesbian calendar in South America. The Festival will take place in the city’s principal tango venues and studios. There will be milongas and practices every day of the week, plus shows, orchestras, performances, and classes with renowned Argentine tango experts. Copenhagen is this year’s Honorary Sister City.

During the Festival there will be a salute to Copenhagen, Europe’s pioneer city in the fight for human rights, as the Festival’s 2011 Honorary Sister City. Gunner Svendsen and Tina Solveig Koch, organizers of the International Queer Tango Festival of Copenhagen, will be among the honored participants in Buenos Aires.

The Festival goal is to build a truly open tango community, encouraging new forms of expression within a living tradition of music and dance. Because of her longstanding, unconditional support and counsel, renowned dancer and tango teacher Aurora Lúbiz has been recognized since 2010 as godmother of the Festival.

On Tuesday, November 15, the celebrated Lidia Borda will open the International Queer Tango Festival for the second consecutive year at Milonga Tango Queer (Perú 571). On this occasion Borda will perform with the talented Ariel Argañaraz on guitar and Daniel Godfrid on piano. Borda will sing from her beautiful repertoire of recorded works and unreleased tracks, including Manzi, caminos de barro y Pampa, from her latest album. She is famous for her emotional and profound interpretations of the greatest writers. Rolling Stone Magazine described Lidia Borda as “the best tango singer of the present”. Borda is highly regarded as the foremost female voice in the last few decades, and she has been widely acclaimed. Although inspired by the pioneer interpreters of tango, at the same time Borda is a modern and original interpreter with a classic and unconventional repertoire which rediscovers beautiful pages of the genre, inexplicably forgotten.

Lidia Borda

For the second time, the Buenos Aires Queer Tango Festival will present the Orquesta Típica Los Reyes del Tango on Thursday, November 17, 2011 at Milonga Confitería Ideal (Tango Ideal – Suipacha 380).

The Quinteto Negro de La Boca was born as a band in the neighbourhood of La Boca in 2008. It is their members' intention to rejuvenate the cultural heritage of the community through the music of tango, featuring authors such Pedro Laurenz and Juan de Dios Filiberto. Not in vain was La Boca, one of the most important sites in the creation and development of tango throughout the ages. They will perform on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at Milonga La Marshall (Independencia 572).

Renowned Tango Artists Alejandro Andrián, Augusto Balizano and Claudio González will dance together for the first time in an unforgettable exhibition on Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at the Festival’s opening milonga at Milonga Tango Queer (Perú 571).

On Wednesday, November 16, 2011 there will be a presentation of experimental dance theater at the Centro Cultural de la Cooperación Floreal Gorini (Av. Corrientes 1543, CABA). Works to be performed are: Appears, directed by Miguel Elías; Dual, directed by Gustavo Soto; SinFilm A staged composition in dance-theater, directed by Maestra Arena Belén and Maestra Celeste Gadea.

Los Reyes del Tango

Whether you are a dancer, a student of tango, or just an observer who is fascinated by this artistic dance form, the place to be is Buenos Aires for the 2011 Queer Tango Festival.