TAURA is a training and research device that uses tango to explore the frictions between the somatic and the erotic, between the sensorial and the performative, between fragility and self-confidence. It is born from the need to sublimate the mistreatment that we suffer daily in milongas (events where tango is danced) simply for being women and wanting to dance. It is about breaking down stereotypical barriers and redefining concepts and ways of doing things imposed by tradition, re-inhabiting tango and influencing its cultural and relational value. We build our tango Drag Kings to (re)appropriate this linked couple dance from the Río de La Plata and allow ourselves the luxury of dancing among ourselves. Taura is the stage instance of “Disforia tango”, a dance-philosophical project that rescues the queer tradition of tango to (re)think, reveal and disrupt certain recurring polarities and hierarchies around the body, gender and the stage experience.
The structure of the piece consists of a stage device in the form of a gym for sensitive tango dancers that investigates alternative ways of doing tango through physical preparation and drag king. An intermittent tango trio that trains, explores, analyzes, practices, embraces, perfects, reads, touches, rejects, studies, betrays, questions, memorizes, cries, corrects, insists, drags, forgets, tests, disillusiones and dances tango. It is a very long, delayed, deformed preparation that culminates with a tango between women in silence where the embrace is illuminated and the steps are heard.
