A three-minute journey

Liliana Chenlo discovered very soon that there is a way to travel without leaving the room:  dancing . She began her romance with tango in elementary school and today she is a  professional dancerand teacher  .  And not only that: he specializes in both traditional tango and  queer tango  .

“At a school event, the teacher took an 8-or 9-year-old couple who were already dancing to do a show. I was sitting as a spectator watching them dance and how they were looking. At that very moment,  I felt that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life , so I continued classes outside the school with the teacher and I went adding to them those of other great teachers, who were training me and getting into the life of tango. It is today, with  26 years of career , that I continue to professionalize and make my tango grow more every day, both for me and for my students!”, Liliana tells us.

In her own words, Lily is dedicated to “ bringing our tango every corner of the world she can , transmitting it through teaching and entertainment in every show.” However, like everyone else,  quarantine  forced her to adapt to other methods to accomplish this task: “At first it was a little weird, it wasn't so easy — both for the student and me — to give  a Tango class by Zoom , as it is a dance where physical contact is essential. But over time we were adapting, like everything. Today I continue with classes by Zoom, but I already started with the face-to-face private lessons, with the corresponding protocols. Luckily, there are many pupils who are cheering up, so happy we're already dancing !”.

If you are asked what she likes most about dancing, for her the answer is very simple: “Coincidentally that: dancing!  Tango invites you to a three-minute trip per theme , where the most sense is to embrace, feel the music and move around the room.”

 Tango without tags 

Lily's foray into  queer tango  took place almost naturally, as she began to dance both roles at the same time. “  Traditional tango  is just as we all know it: you dance man/woman, woman/man, and man is the one who wears, marks or invites women to certain movements. If we talk about queer tango, there is an  important freedom of expression  when choosing which role to dance, how or with whom to do it, whether they are people of the same sex or not. Today queer tango breaks with the provisions of traditional tango, it is simply called as 'driving role' and 'led rol'. In other words,  no labels !”, Lily tells us about the differences between the two styles.

However, there are those who still have some prejudices about this tango that breaks the rules of the traditional: “It is a very broad subject, since we are in 2020 and queer tango is already more present, not only here in Argentina, but around the  world . But there are still people who can't break with what is stipulated in traditional tango, and I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I just see it from the side of having a  mental openness . One is free to dance as you wish, in the role you want and with whoever you want it.  After all, it is tango: music and feeling is the same.”