Category: News and Events (Page 3 of 4)

Alvin Rangel

In a well attended presentation on Friday April 12 in Rubendall Recital Hall, Alvin Rangel of  Tango Vesre, introduced his project and gave a brief overview of modern Argentina’s history, and the evolution of Tango over the last 100 years.

Alvin Rangel, who is currently an associate Professor of Dance at California State University, began working on Tango Vesre, which means “Inverted Tango”, in 2010. From his website, Alvin Rangel describes his project:

“Tango Vesre [Inverted Tango] is a dance performance that through live performance spotlights a 100-year  evolution of all-male tango dance in the Buenos Aires of 1910 and 2010.  Tango Vesre includes two duets, Parallel Tango by Alejandro Cervera and Bound Tango by Alvin Rangel. Although the work is framed within the Argentinean Tango aesthetics, the performance puts into motion issues of power negotiation, equality, marginalization, gender roles, sexual identity, acceptance, rejection and male dancing bodies.”

Rangel explained how Tango has become one of the most popular forms of dance, known for its “beauty, passion, drama and sexually-charged energy.” The tradition has established a heteronormative culture, where Tango has been branded as strictly a heterosexual dance. Tango has a clear leader and follower, emphasizing the macho Argentine culture, where the man is in control and the woman follows. Rangel wanted to break out of this strict tradition and explore the origins of tango in the slums and lower classes of Buenos Aires, and specifically when men danced with other men.

Rangel discussed his research into the history of tango and  reviewed the historiography. He found that there is gaping hole in information on male-male tango practices, even though it began during the formative period in the early twentieth century.

Rangel explains, “the lack of evidence concerning the male partnerships in tango’s literature raised many questions for me as a dance scholar, dancer and choreographer.  Therefore, I became interested in analyzing these male partnerships from historic, performative and choreographic perspectives, examining issues of homosexual bonding and sexual identity through tango dance practice.” In context of the discrimination of homosexuals in Argentine society in this early period, Rangel came up with the central question for his project, “Did the all-male tango dance practice enable closeted homosexuals to embody their sexual identity?” He clarifies, “This question I raise does not assume that the male/male partnerships were exclusively a homosexual performance, but rather considers how a homo-social milieu facilitated homosexual bonding.”

Dancing in the River

In his presentation he explained the origins for the term Tango Vesre – Vesre, means revés or “inverted” in lunfardo, a slang that developed among criminals as code language in prisons and slums. An example of lunfardo would be turning Café, meaning coffee, into feca, tango would become gotán, and hotel –> telo. Vesre was useful in describing how the roles are reversed in queer tango and breaks out of the strict heteronormative structure.

Rangel adopted multiple roles at once in the development of his project. He played the role of choreographer, dancer and scholar, which is quite the feat to pull off. In his presentation, he demonstrated how he developed another form of Tango called “Bounce Tango” which adopts more fluid movements and is not determined by a clear leader or follower.

Demonstrating the “hook ” move

In the above picture, Alvin works with his partner, Yebel Gallegos and demonstrates how he reinterpreted a classic move used in tango, usually a hooking movement using the legs and he changed it to hooking the arms instead.

For more information, see:

http://alvinrangel.net/Tango_Vesre/HOME.html

The second trip that Dickinson has taken to Cuba within a year is part of another mosaic this time led by Professor Asuncion Arnedo-Aldrich. The class is Spanish 231, focusing on sustainability.

Please use this link to access their blog (en Español)

Habana 2013 blog

One of Latin America’s most influential and controversial leaders died today, Tuesday March 5th. Hugo Chavéz the President of Venezuela since 1998, has been the leading figure in the leftist movement in Latin America.

See below for a report from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/world/americas/hugo-chavez-of-venezuela-dies.html?hp&_r=0

Friday, April 12, noon

Saturday, April 13, 7 p.m.

Tango Vesre: Queering the All-Male Tango Practice

Rubendall Recital Hall,
Weiss Center for the Arts

Dickinson College presents a two-part series spotlighting the 100-year evolution of all-male tango in Buenos Aires (1910-2010), viewed from a queer perspective.

Part one (April 12) is a presentation of spoken word and dance by Alvin Rangel of Tango Vesre and members of Dickinson’s Dance Theatre Group (DTG).

Part two (April 13) is a concert oftango music and dance featuring performances by guest artists Héctor Del Curto (bandoneón), Ariadna Buonviri (violin),  Donovan Stokes (bass) and faculty members Jennifer Blyth (piano) and Blanka Bednarz (violin).

For more information please check out the link to Dickinson College’s website:

http://dickinson.edu/news-and-events/events/arts/2013-Spring-Tango-Verse/

Trailier

Mbya, Tierra en Rojo, is a film that shows the ongoing struggle of the indigenous Mbya Guaraní community in northeast Argentina to gain rights for their land, receive basic social services and to be recognized by the Argentine state. The directors lived in the community for many months and got to know the community and their daily fight for survival. The film shows how the indigenous populations of Argentina are still on the margen of national consciousness and reflects the persisting colonial ideology and erasure of the indigenous identity. Through the portrayal of daily activities, relationships and universal sentiments as satisfying hunger or caring for loved ones, the film relates a personal quality to the audience that stirs compassion in the viewers and makes us relate to their situation.

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The second event of the week was a presentation by Hernán Ávila Montaño on the forested richly biodiverse region of the Isiboro Securé Indigenous Territory or TIPINIS in central lowland Bolivia. Hernán gave an overview of the history of indigenous mobilization and protests from 1990 up through today.  He focused on the current struggle between the Bolivian state, the TIPINIS and the interest of private corporations in constructing a highway that would run straight through the territory. In addition, it would destroy and disrupt this environment which is home to many different species of flora and fauna. 

Hernán explained that there were a number of marches in protest in 1990, 1996 and 2002 that indigenous communities led to fight for their land rights. Dating back to the late nineteenth century and leading up to the Bolivian Revolution in 1952, there has been an active rural and indigenous political tradition that has resisted the privatization of indigenous communal lands. Protests, ‘sit-ins’ and marches have been used in the past to fight for representation land and civil rights.

The fight continues up until today, raising questions of how to modernize Bolivia, create economic opportunities for foreign investment that will lead to  growth, however it also involves the exploitation of the land and the people who inhabit it. Below is a paragraph from an online journal that summarizes the start of the march. In 2011,

“Beginning on 15 August, lowland indigenous movements—in alliance with fractions of the highland indigenous movement, and later with the support of the urban labour movement—launched a 600-kilometre, 65-day march of protest from Beni to La Paz to prevent the construction of the highway. The march, after having been denounced by state managers as an imperialist conspiracy, and violently repressed en route by police forces on 25 September, eventually forced the Morales government to capitulate to its demands, at least temporarily.”

Hernán explained to us that a new constitution was established in 2009 which recognizes the political and juridicial plurality that exists in Bolivia and deemed the TIPINIS as a protected “untouchable” ecological zone. However, a law was created called, el derecho de consulta (Law of Consult) that would discuss the TIPINIS’ status as untouchable and consult the indigenous communities on the construction of the road and measures to be taken to protect the territory from be settled illegally in the future.

The marches from Beni to la Paz were repressed violently by Bolivian police, which caused an uproar throughout the country. The consult law also opened up national controversy over the road and the TIPINIS as it has ambiguous connotations for the legal battles to follow. Because the contract between the Bolivian government and the Brazilian companies have already been made, it is difficult to foresee how Evo Morales is going to deal with the strong rural movements throughout Bolivia.