In Buenos Aires, Queer Tango Gatherings Are More Important Than Ever

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In the bohemian district of Almagro in Buenos Aires, the wistful notes of the tango classic “Vida Mía” drift out a window of a small cultural center. Inside, on a makeshift dance floor, couples move carefully, studying their steps as they dance in the arms of another. All the pairs are same-sex or nongender-identifying: from slickly dressed silver-haired pensioners to artistic university students clothed entirely in black. Some dance with friends, others with lovers. Each individual in a couple takes turns leading the dance as music floats over the scene, its lyrics telling a story about love and loneliness, breathing and embracing.

This is Milonga Tango Queer La Marsháll, a biweekly tango event where an hour-long class open to dancers of all levels is followed by a milonga, an informal tango gathering. It is one of the dozens of queer tango gatherings that take place across the Argentine capital, which proudly boasts at least one queer tango event per day. Milonga Queer La Marsháll is a mixture of two long-standing queer tango events: La Marsháll is one of the oldest, which began in 2001 as a milonga specifically for gay men, led by Augusto Balizano; La Milonga Queer, meanwhile, was founded by Mariana Docampo, who began tango classes for lesbians around the same time before establishing her ongoing event in 2005.

Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Docampo learned the tango in her 20s at heteronormative milongas, then started casually teaching friends at La Casa del Encuentro—officially a feminist community center for women and children, unofficially a lesbian hangout. She first met Balizano when they joined forces to establish the annual International Queer Tango Festival, currently in its 13th edition. Eventually, the two combined their separate milongas to create the inclusive Milonga Tango Queer La Marsháll in 2023. Until Docampo and Balizano began their queer tango gatherings, “there was nothing for us, no way to learn,” Docampo tells me as she wraps up a class at the Macedonia Cultural Center. “We had to create it ourselves.”

Tango originated in the late 19th century in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. The dance form was birthed at the ports, which were natural melting pots for culture: European contradanza mingled with candombe, a dance belonging to enslaved Africans in Uruguay, as well as the folk traditions of the rural Argentine pampas, the low-lying agricultural region that accounts for around 25% of the country’s land area. At first, the tango was danced by working class people across bars and brothels. Then, in the 1930s, it gained wider popularity—including with the Argentine upper classes—as more and more big band orchestras and famous singers, like Ada Falcón and Carlos Gardel (also a prolific tango dancer), began to perform tango music in concert halls and on movie screens.

Yet the tango was—and in certain ways, still is—shaped by misogyny and patriarchal tropes. The lyrics of iconic tango songs frequently glorify domestic violence. For example, Edmund Rivero’s 1960s tango hit “Amablemente” romantically gushes about “kindly” stabbing his cheating lover 34 times. A 1942 song made popular by Raúl Berón called “Un crímen” (literally “a crime”) tells the story of murdering a woman by strangulation: “She fell kissing my hands / and could barely cry out / her voice drowned without reproach.” Furthermore, as tango moved onto the competitive floors of ballroom dancing, strict rules were applied to dress codes and opposite-sex dancing: Women were required to wear heels and a skirt, while men had to wear trousers.

Growing up, queer Argentines like Liliana Furió felt alienated by tango and first saw the dance as a “macho stronghold.”She joins Milonga Tango Queer La Marsháll along with other experienced dancers who have come to let loose. She’s a longtime regular who started learning tango in the early 2000s when Docampo taught at La Casa del Encuentro; she met her now-wife at one of Docampo’s classes in 2012. Furió calls the queer milonga her “habitat,” saying, “I loved [Docampo’s] proposal to explore the possibility of same-sex dancing.”

Younger generations are flocking to queer tango spaces in Buenos Aires. Santiago Demarco, a 25-year-old musician plays the bandonionn, an accordion-like instrument with button-operated reeds as opposed to a keyboard, is new to Milonga Tango Queer La Marsháll—but he’s taken queer-oriented dance classes before, where he appreciates the fluidity of the partnering dynamic. “One person can take any of the two roles,” Demarco says. “I like to lead, but I also like to follow.”

Despite the fact that Demarco came of age in an era that is ostensibly more accepting of queerness, he says he has also felt shunned in spaces like nonqueer bars and dance studios. “Not just in terms of sexuality, but also in a class sense. You need to wear the right clothes and shoes,” Demarco says. “You get marginalized.”

The crowd at Milonga Tango Queer La Marsháll is more welcoming. After the class ends, some of the tango newcomers stay for the milonga, watching seasoned dancers take to the floor, effortlessly moving to Nathy Peluso’s 2021 upbeat salsa song “Mafiosa.” Both novices and learners stay until the early morning hours, drinking cheap beers and dancing to the sound of each other’s laughter.

Just a few streets away from Milonga Tango Queer La Marsháll is another type of pioneering queer tango venue: Situated in a quaint old house in Almargo is Tango Cuir Studio, first established by pro tango dancer Anahí Carballo in 2023. With its expansive space, smooth wood floors, and a wall of mirrors, the place has a decidedly professional feel. Whereas Milonga Tango Queer La Marsháll uses a shared space in a multipurpose community center, Tango Cuir is a permanent dance school dedicated to tango. In her studio, Carballo looks only for skill in her students, no matter who they are or where they come from.

Anahi Carballo

As the daughter of professional dancers, Carballo at first viewed tango as a strictly heteronormative tradition during her upbringing in the conservative outskirts of rural Córdoba, Argentina. When she first fell in love with another woman and came out as a lesbian in 2007, she was shunned by her friends and bullied at school; people in her insular neighborhood sent her death threats. In the late 2000s, she moved to Buenos Aires seeking, as she describes it, a safer life: “I was 19 and arrived with a bag of clothes, a bombo [drum], and nothing else,” Carballo says. “From there I built myself up, bit by bit, to where I am today—a qualified folk and tango instructor with her own studio.”

In the comparatively open-minded Argentine capital, Carballo trained as a dance teacher but initially shunned partner dances where, she says, “I had to put on a miniskirt and heels, to have a man in a dominant role spin me around.” She pursued modern and contemporary dance but eventually came back to tango through instructors like Soledad Nani, who openly practiced same-sex dancing. “I found there were other ways of dancing tango, and that tango is what the dancer makes it.”

At Tango Cuir, Carballo and her team of queer dance instructors offer classes for those looking to hone their skills in a more formal environment, including locals and tourists in group classes and one-on-ones. Carballo and I chat as she finishes a class with a dozen students, some of whom are her friends. The atmosphere is warm and intimate; she’s meeting a few of them after our interview to catch up over a drink.

Despite their differences, Tango Cuir Studio and Milonga Tango Queer La Marsháll have similarly friendly atmospheres; the former offers a more disciplined class, while the latter can feel more like a social event, perfect for those who have never tried tango and want to for the first time. On any given night at Milonga Tango Queer La Marsháll, as many as a third of the students are international. As she teaches, Docampo offers translations in English to visitors Elise and Sophie, an Australian couple traveling through South America.

“I’ve never danced tango before. It was nerve-racking, but here I feel comfortable,” says Elise. “These are our people,” adds Sophie, who stresses the importance of seeking out queer experiences while away from home.

Today, queer tango can be experienced any day of the week in venues across Buenos Aires, from LugarGay on a Monday in San Telmo, to Casa Feliza on a Thursday in Palermo. Carballo’s Tango Cuir is open six days a week, and Milonga Queer La Marsháll happens every other Friday. Such spaces capture the vibrancy of Buenos Aires’s queer community, where people of all ages, skill levels, and genders dance together to form a powerful sense of belonging and inclusivity.

This queer tango scene is tight-knit and holds an important role in a country that is swinging to the far-right wing under Javier Milei, who assumed the presidency in 2023. One of Milei’s first political moves was eradicating the Women, Gender and Diversity Ministry and banning gender-inclusive language in all public institutions, causing alarm among queer communities. Such policies signal a drastic U-turn in Argentina, which many considered at one point to be South America’s most progressive country: In 2010, it became the first in the region to legalize same-sex marriage, and the Gender Identity Bill followed in 2012, which allows legal recognition of trans identities without medical or judicial opinion. But earlier this year, the murder of three lesbians in Buenos Aires rattled the country’s queer people, and many saw the violence as a result of Milei’s increasing negation of gay rights and undermining of gender equality.

For Docampo, providing a safe space for queer locals and visitors alike continues to be as important now as when she first started. “We were the only queer milonga for so many years, and it’s beautiful now to see so many places with younger people,” Docampo says. She also acknowledges that the current political climate is difficult and harmful. For that very reason, she says, "it’s important to strengthen networks and LGBT spaces.”

Echoing Docampo’s sentiment, Furió underscores queer tango’s “political dimension” as a tool of resistance against violence and conservatism in Argentina. “There is a lot of fear,” she says, “but we will resist in the milongas.”

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler

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