Denmark has a lively, straight tango scene. In Copenhagen, there are milongas every evening, and there are a lot of passionate, competent teachers. Until a few years ago it was not common to see women or men dancing together at tango-dance floors as it happens in queer tango communities in several places in Europe and Buenos Aires.
Queer tango at World Outgames 2009In the summer of 2009, Copenhagen hosted the 2nd World Outgames – a human, cultural and sports event with thousands of participants. The event was based on the belief that cultural diversity is a condition for innovation, which is a condition for value creation in society – economically, socially, and culturally. World Outgames is a forum where people regardless of sexual orientation, gender, age, race, nationality and religion meet in a spirit of openness and tolerance in order to enjoy and learn from the richness of human diversity.
Tina Solveig Koch had and realized the idea of creating a queer tango festival during the World Outgames and with the motto:
"Freedom to dance with whoever you want to"In collaboration with Gunner Svendsen, one of Copenhagen's most experienced teachers and tango festival organizers, planned Tina Solveig Koch and World Outgames this seven-day, the world's largest and Denmark's first queer tango festival.
In 2008, Gunner Svendsen and Tina Solveig Koch also organized the first queer tango-weekend in Copenhagen, as part of the prelude to the queer tango festival during the World Outgames.
"Love of Freedom - Freedom to Love" were the fundamental values for the World Outgames, as well as for the Queer Tango Festival. It focused on the freedom to dance with whoever you want to, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality or faith.
The Queer Tango Festival was a wonderful success. A large group of warm-hearted and hard working volunteers created a fantastic festival, together with many queer teachers from all over the world, and with Gunner Svendsen from Copenhagen. And of course, with a lot of beautiful and talented queer and straight tango dancers. There is no doubt that this very special queer tango event moved boundaries among the dancers and in the Copenhagen tango community.
Copenhagen Queer Tango Festival 2011Since 2009, the straight tango scene in Copenhagen has become more open to queer dancers. Even though, there are still very few of us, the queer tango is now firmly established and growing part of the Copenhagen tango community.
A new queer tango team consisting of Gunner Svendsen, Rosa Juel Nordentoft and Tina Solveig Koch, organized queer tango lessons and practica last Friday of every month from March 2011. Slowly grows the little queer tango community in Copenhagen.
The 1st-4th September 2011 organized the queer tango team an international
queer tango festival in Copenhagen, with teachers from Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Argentina. It was a lovely, cozy and well-attended festival with over 70 participants in workshops and with no less than 110 guests to the gala milonga Saturday night. As something new in the European queer tango community, cooperated the queer tango festival with well-known milongas in Copenhagen. La Boca Thursday evening became La Boca Queer and Piso Clásico Friday evening became Piso Queer Clásico. The queer tango and traditional tango community danced side by side, and many changed both roles and dance partners.
Queer tango-weekend 16th-18th March 2012Queertango.dk by Rosa Juel Nordentoft and Tina Solveig Koch organized
Copenhagen Queer Tango Weekend, 16th-18th March 2012 with dancers from home and abroad. The theme was "Roles in motion" and teacher was Charlotte Rivero from Stockholm. It was a nice weekend where we had many exciting workshops, including a Master Class for very experienced dancers. DJ El Diego and DJ Gunner Svendsen secured the good music at the milongas. And many participants gave a hand, baked cakes and brought on the whole weekend a good atmosphere. Thank you all.
