Dancing under dim lights in a Mānoa studio, tango instructor Gaby Mataloni tells her class of all women to embrace their partners as they lead them.
Their feet glide across the dance floor, but not without some missteps here and there. Some of Mataloni's students had never danced as the lead before.
That's because, in most forms of dance, men usually take the lead while women follow. But in this tango class, the roles have switched.
"One of the biggest misconceptions of tango is that men lead and women follow," Mataloni said. "We have a lot of ideas of how tango should be if we want to keep the tradition alive. But tango is a social dance, representing what society is experimenting and experiencing."
Earlier this year, Mataloni visited Hawaiʻi to teach women how to lead in tango. Mataloni, who has been dancing tango for nearly two decades, held workshops worldwide.
Her class has become part of a larger conversation as dancers break free of gender roles and diversify the art form.
Mataloni, who is from Argentina, said more women are taking the leading role in the popular dance because more women are dancing tango than men. She added that women often have to sit on the sidelines and wait to be asked to dance.
Mataloni said she started leading because she needed to know as an instructor, but she ended up loving it as a social dance.
"It gives me the freedom of dancing every time I want to dance," Mataloni said. "It feels empowering, and it allows you to get creative from a different perspective."
Tango is traditionally a social dance from Buenos Aires, Argentina, which emerged in the late 1800s. The art form rose in popularity worldwide, with many Hollywood movies dramatizing the dance.
The dance requires an intimate embrace of a leader and a follower. The partners communicate through body language and facial expressions.
"You have to be empathic, and if you really want to make it work, you have to be having a conversation with your body and soul," Mataloni said. "Part of the challenge is there are opportunities to create safe environments so that we are both equally listening to each other and walking to each other while we dance."
Buenos Aires was the hub of immigration, and there were few women during that time, according to George Garcia, who started tango in Hawaiʻi.
"With a new country coming up, there were a lot of fun things happening down at the ports," Garcia said. "When the ships came in, there were a lot of sailors, and a lot of workers were needed. So they had a lot of small hotels down at the parts, and of course, you get places of leisure, you know, brothels and everything."
He said men were dancing with men, playing lead and follower roles during that time. He added that men had to take lessons to dance with a woman at a tango salon.
"In tango, there are equal roles," Garcia said. "The follower's response is as important as the leader's invitation.
In tango, switching the leader and follower role has been a growing trend worldwide, even in Argentina.
Cora Yamamoto is one of Mataloni's students in Hawaiʻi. She said it was challenging to learn the leading role, but she was happy that she picked up a new skill.
"You have to have a certain attitude, more assertiveness," Yamamoto said. "You have to control traffic. You have to make sure there are no collisions, and you need to give the impulse in these suggestions. It's a very different mindset."
She referred to the "cabeceo," a look the lead gives another person when they want to dance with them. It usually requires a head nod.
Despite tradition, it's normal for the same sex to dance with each other.
Garcia said he had been a follower of a female leader.
"It's not about this dominant male, passive female thing where she has to do what he commands," Gacia said. "It has nothing to do with that. I think that might have been Hollywood or something dramatized just for the screen."
For Mataloni, she hopes giving women the strength to dance as leaders will empower them.
"The ability to lead gives you tools," Mataloni said. "There might be another woman who is also not dancing, and you've trained your movements and are having fun with another woman instead of just waiting for men that I think a lot of women still do out of what society tells us."
Avid dancers said the beauty of tango is that it's for everyone.
