By Matt Mofett for Wsj.comIn 2010, Rui Saito, a Japanese tango dancer, and her Korean partner were competing in the prestigious citywide competition known as El Metropolitano when Ms. Saito says an Argentine woman in the audience came up to them and said she didn't appreciate their presence. "'What are foreigners doing dancing tango?'" Ms. Saito said the woman told her. "'You don't know tango.'" Later, Ms. Saito says the woman heckled them as they danced.
This year, things got more bleak for foreigners at the Metropolitano. Organizers inserted a new rule stipulating that the May event would be open only to "aficionados and/or professionals of Argentine nationality." Expats here say that was a slap in the face of foreigners who have attained increasing mastery of the dance, and in the process fueled a booming tango tourism industry. "Is it xenophobia—or are they just afraid of getting beaten?" asks Mong-Lan, an expatriate Vietnamese-American poet and artist who made it to the Metropolitano semifinals in 2008 and 2009.
Intent on fighting for their place on the dance floor, three foreign tango dancers, Ms. Lan, along with another American and an Irish woman, sued to have the results annulled. In a preliminary decision that shocked Buenos Aires dance circles, municipal judge Elena Liberatori ruled that...Read Full Article
