Photo/foto: Julio Pantoja

Only In Tango

Bernardo, a married man, cross-dresses, confessing to the mirror that he can only dance tango as Marisú. Elena, a young lesbian woman, who from childhood had been learning the gestures, gazes, and masculine subtleties that enchanted the girls she desired. If the masculine and the feminine are languages that the world understands, these characters have learned them well. "El Tano", the owner of the city's most popular milonga, appears. In this territory of his masculine transgenderism, "El Tano" can dance tango with women that frecuent the milonga and only in that way can he feel alive.

Biographies

The Sociedad de Tango Transfromista Tr@nsTango is an artistic collective from Ecuador, committed to the subversion of the patriarchal, hetero-sexist order, while advocating for the rights of sexually diverse identities to participate in the public sphere and in the cultural life of the community.

Cayetana Salao is an Ecuadoran creator and actor. She is currently completing her last semester of Engineering in Human Geography, and has participated in the development of the Casa Feminista de Rosa and the Residencia Política Transfeminista del Proyecto Transgénero, in conjunction with other creative and activist collectives. She studies and works at the Dionisios Drag Teatro, and has conceptualized and performed several performatic monologues.

Alba Pons Rabasa is a Spanish anthropologist and social worker, and a member of Tr@nsTango. She has focused her research on the social and political aspects of the transgendered community. She has developed several intensive workshops on social theater, geared towards the application of theater and performance methodology to the articulation of a critical and political questioning of socially-legitimized gender structures.

Cosme Córdova is an Ecuadoran artist who joined Tr@nsTango in 2007, not only as an actor but also as a driving force in the articulation of the collective's philosophy and discourse. In 2005, he participated in Dionisios Café Teatro, performing as a drag queen. In 2007, he joined the Proyecto Transgénero Cuerpos Distintos Derechos Iguales; in 2008, he became the collective's Director of Political and Institutional Advocacy.