Once a month, queer people come together to celebrate in folkloric action at the Peña Folklorazo Queer in Buenos Aires. As I enter the space, my eyes are guided to the art-filled walls. Pictures of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, posters demanding trans workers’ rights and a large glittery pride-inspired flag proclaiming “Peña Folklorazo Queer.” In the middle of the venue, I see a space without crowded tables leaving room for the most exciting dancing. Patrons shined due to their glittery make-up known as “brishi,” dancing in ways that paid no attention to the male-female imposed binary structures in Argentine folkloric cannon.  In this queer peña like “normative” ones, patrons enjoy folkloric dancing, eat local foods like empanadas, drink a cold fernet with coke and watch performances. However, patrons at this peña wear gender-bending outfits and engage in gender-bending performances.

Group of patrons watching and reacting to the performance at the Folklorazo Queer Peña, June, Buenos Aires. Photo by Manuel Macedo.

As a queer Uruguayan, I have always feared being in “macho” environments, which precluded me from enjoying folklore as a part of my cultural heritage. Now, I began practicing queer folkloric dances where I am encouraged to be as feminine or masculine as I want, enjoying a cultural practice, I thought I could never have access to as a queer person. My quest is both personal and intellectual.

At the end of 2023, I embarked on a research project in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, inspired by my previous experience investigating queer nightlife post the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, and my positionality as queer Uruguayan. After recently finishing my undergraduate studies at Colorado College, I continue researching the ways LGBTQ+ people produce spaces of art, activism and well-being within contexts of political, legal and everyday violence. This time, I paid close attention to the (new) challenges against LGBTQ+ communities created by the right-wing populists in the Rio de La Plata region. This experience led me to learn about queer folklore, particularly how different groups across Buenos Aires (and other regions of Argentina) are creating communal safe spaces for queer people that center joy, art and activism.

In traditional folkloric spaces, queer people risk physical, verbal or physiological violence, and same-gender couples are frowned upon. At its core, queer folklore involves women, queer people and allies coming together to celebrate and learn about Argentine’s popular music and dance practices, while also making space for queer intervention in those traditions. I’ve noted over the past months how queer folkloric spaces move beyond “LGBTQ+ friendly” notions, like other events that hang a pride flag and call it “welcoming diverse space.” Rather, queer folkloric spaces extend a radical invitation that both stands against violence and celebrates the multiplicity of approaches to the folkloric artistic forms.

Folklorazo Queer is an artistic organization that opened in 2018 hoping to push for a queer trans-feminist folkloric space. As an emergent artistic, activist and pedagogical form, queer folklore, as many of my interlocutors would point out, has origins with Soledad Torres and Mariano Garcés Grizy’s Peñalonga Folk. Eli Marchini and Sol Perez, the directors of Folklorazo Queer, have been creating queer folkloric dance classes, and stage performances, making public artivist (art with political intent) interventions, and hosting monthly queer peñas.

Group of patrons dancing folklore at the Folklorazo Queer Peña, June, Buenos Aires. In the background, and on-stage Vero Marjein and her band. Photo by Manuel Macedo.

The last Folklorazo Queer peña,  hosted on a humid yet cold June winter night in Buenos Aires, started with a dance class, had multiple performances and plenty of segments for improvised folkloric, tango and other styles of dancing. The Folklorazo Queer peña has a queer feminist twist to it. Not only in the framing of radical inclusion of queer people, as mentioned before, but also by diversifying the performances, and engaging with varied music and dance styles. Notably, the event featured reggaeton songs, as well as pop music, including Lali, a beloved artist by the LGBTQ+ community in South America. Furthermore, throughout the night, women’s voices and songs took center stage, as an intent to move away from traditional peñas, where songs are often only by male artists with degrading lyrics.

To the beat of Zamba and cueca rhythms, the first main event of the night occurred: the dance class led by Soledad Torres. For me and other patrons, the class served multiple purposes, it allowed us to connect with others, make friends and learn through our bodies. During the class, about 20 patrons came together to learn the basic steps and figures of Zamba and cueca. In queer folkloric fashion, we learned the basics steps in a circle, and then split in couples. The class broke with key concepts of the folkloric dance tradition in Argentina that tend to (re)produce heterosexist and binary relationship representations. As we danced, we would move away from portraying the embodied narrative of a macho man, who tries to court and seduce a soft woman, who throughout the song allows the male counterpart to chase and capture her.

As the Folklorazo Queer patrons would tell me, dancing does not necessarily have to be about sexual encounter between straight cis men and women. During the peña, I saw romantic encounters between people from different genders, sexualities, but also something else entirely. Throughout the night I saw people sharing candid moments with dear friends, new acquaintances and family members. This queer praxis opens both an affective margin for queer erotic exploration, but also a non-sexualized experience altogether.

In the Folklorazo Queer peña, there is no  “men’s role” or “women’s role,” but instead a “leader” who proposes most of the steps, and a “follower.” Everybody gets to pick, by deciding with their partner, which role they would want to engage in. Furthermore, common figures are changed, such as “zarandeo” where traditionally women move holding their skirts, and “zapateo” in which men do intricate footwork. Each person, regardless of their gender identity, would choose and/or combine figures. A concluding figure, called “arresto” (to arrest) involves the symbolic “crowning” of the women. “Arresto” normally finishes with the women inside the men’s arms, representing a form of sensual surrender. In queer folklore, instead, we call it the “final turn,” and typically each person extends one arm next to the other person, representing a hug, a comforting connection. Overall bending, or should I say queering, rigid dancing structures.

Poetry performance at the Folklorazo Queer Peña, June, Buenos Aires. Showing Euge Karla (poet) in the right, and patrons observing on the left. Photo by Carmela San Román.

The night was also filled with heartwarming performances, all connected by an embodied sense of queer excellence. We started the lineup with poetry performances by Nayla and Euge Karla, accompanied by dancers and music, that explore themes from political violence, and hunger, to the erotic power of trans-Argentine identities. We danced to the beat of Ana Stamponi and Brisa Videla’s feminist tango music, watched the Posse brothers’ folkloric dance, and concluded with a folk performance by Vero Marjein and her band. Through their words, speeches, songs and dances, they also addressed pressing political and social issues, ranging from the selling of Argentine land to foreign companies to the hate crimes increased since the new government’s start.

“Even though it is hard, we should not fear Zamba. It’s just a style of dancing. What we should really fear is having Milei as a president.” That was a joke heard during the dance class that resonated with main themes of the Peña Folklorazo Queer. In Argentina, since the election of Javier Milei, the current president, there has been an increase in everyday and structural violence against LGBTQ+ people, from the increasing number of hate crimes to massive firings of trans, travesty and non-binary people. The need for queer and trans-feminist spaces of support and mutual aid, like Folklorazo Queer has increased tremendously.

During the peña, we were mourning the triple lesbicde in Barracas, Argentina, this past May.  Through the performance and speakers, the event became a place for political awareness and activism. Patrons and artists perceived the attack as coming from a place of hatred that gets perpetrated and allowed by current politics that do not actively stand against the marginalization of minorities. Sol Perez and Eli Marchini remained the patrons that “we got to take care of each other, of our spaces, our events particularly during these times and after the attack in Barracas (…) we gotta remember that Folklorazo Queer is political, or art is political. They can’t continue to take our rights.” This peña was political not only because queer bodies come together to enjoy each other intervening a patriarchal art form, but also due to the intentionality the artists and organizers had for creating awareness about recent violence and the role of the state.

At 3 a.m. on my way home after the peña, the words of Eli and Sol made their way back to me. For me and many other patrons the peña Folklorazo Queer created a queer political safe space to come and celebrate, explore folkloric traditions and enjoy each other amidst times of extreme violence.

Up close of the stage at the Folklorazo Queer Peña, June, Buenos Aires. Showing Eli (to the left) and Sol Perez (to the right), directors of Folklorazo Queer giving a speech. Photo by Carmela San Román.