Dj Kakah’s live discussion with Felipe Nascimento:

I saw a Priscilla Rangel’s post – BSB in which she asks “What’s the role of the woman in a partner dance?” And I want to talk about it. I am outraged at some things although the dance environment is changing and greatly improving, making it more enjoyable to be a woman in this environment.

I characterize myself as a woman and I am a gay woman. Everyone knows it and I do not have to hide it from anyone. And I’m a gay woman from ballroom dance, and I can say that it’s getting more pleasurable being a woman in dance; people are understanding a little how it is and how the dance environment should be. But I need to position myself on some attitudes that I see at events and students that make me very sad.

I organize events and I want to talk a little about it. I want to talk about the wonderful professionals we have in our scene that we do not value. I will not specify the names of the people. I was outraged at their opinions, but I insist to I will not mention these wonderful professionals. There are many teaches of female gender who do not travel much and do not go to conferences because they don’t have partners. And that, for me, is crazy because in many conferences I go I see many teachers, that are male, teaching without partners. Felipe knows about it, right?

( Felipe: I am an example! )

When I see these things happen I become restless because I want to discuss it. I’m also a DJ, I teach and I travel without a partner. And I’m going to give some examples of wonderful women who teach alone and who have phenomenal jobs: Aline Cleto, Rubia, Ruana Vasquez, Rose Rodrigues, Lari Barreto and many more.

( Felipe: You can even add Priscilla Rangel on that list, she is presenting a ballroom dance program; she created the program all alone to enrich the ballroom dance scene. And she also organized the first congress of zouk in Brasilia.)

I will not go into the aspect of feminism and machismo, I will go into the aspect of humanity, of individuals. We are all human beings and we can all accomplish the same functions. And, regardless of function, we can be professional as good as the other regardless of gender.

Felipe and I were talking about his undergraduate thesis.

( Felipe: Yes, my undergraduate thesis is basically about sexism in physical education classes at school; about how separatism happens. For example, if you are a boy you will play soccer and if you are a girl you will not be able to play, or if you are a girl you will play volleyball or you will not play it.)

That happens since we are children, this separatism and this “woman does not know how to play soccer” thing. And I’ve heard it a lot in my life. I used to play soccer with the boys in my neighborhood and I even used to be the gunner. When my father saw me playing soccer, he went crazy, he said that soccer isn’t for girls. It was like: “You can’t play soccer!” “Why not?” “Because you can not, the boys will hurt you because you’re sensitive, you can not play with the boys you have to play with the girls.” I was forced to like Barbie and I did not like to play with Barbie.

Basically, we grow up listening to the same things in different environments. That’s why I’m insisting on this point and highlighting these wonderful women.

As a kid we listen a lot to this kind of thing, “girls will play volleyball while boys will play soccer and I cannot play because I am not a boy”. I used to play soccer on the street, my mother is online and she can confirm, every time that my father saw me playing soccer with my girlfriend, who was my neighbor, he did not say anything, but when boys start to play with us he took me out of the game because I couldn’t mix me up.

I grew up and I joined the music business – at the age of 12 I started playing – and I set up a women rock band in a scene that only had male bands. The first thing that used to happen when we arrived in a music environment was that the owners of the show houses did not want to help us. The first thing they used to say was: “They will not even be able to connect the cables…”.

The other girls and I did music school, we won a scholarship. Our drummer was wonderful, she was the best drummer in town, certainly better than all men. Although that, when we arrived at the show houses the men looked at us with an ugly face and they did not want to help us, and it was like “So, do you know how to connect your instrument at least, can you tune it?”

When we made the show everyone was impressed, even through this, the guys not even greet us. I’m proud of being a woman and I was full of empowerment since I was a teenager, I’m proud of our girl band. I went through that kind of prejudice all my life, not only because I was a woman but because I was gay too.

I grew up and I went through all that. At the age of 21, I joined ballroom dance, I did West class, as a lady, followers as they call; I learned Salsa, Bachata, Samba and everything else as a follower. I have always been taught to be a lady, who follows, obeys and that has to help my partner.

I saw a very pertinent comment in Priscilla’s post: “ballroom dance is a reflection of life, just like everything you do.” If you teach girls to follow, to obey and to do things for the partner, the man (seeing in the matter of gentleman and lady) in ballroom dance would be no different. That’s how I learned, in society you’re serving the male figure and in dance it’s the same thing.

In the second month of dance classes, I already knew I wanted to be a leader and that’s it. And not only because I’m gay, but because I like it, I’m a musical person and I like to lead. In class, I was often a leader to help because it had so many more girls than boys, if it was necessary to have some volunteer to be a leader, it was me. I learned from the beginning to be a leader.

It was never a problem for me in the classroom, but at a dance, when I was going to dance with the girls, they made ugly faces, not in my town, but when I started traveling I got a lot of “I do not dance with girls”. And it also happens with men, they do not understand that I do not want to dance with them. The guy just put on an ugly face like “You do not wanna dance with me, how is it possible?”. This is my personal choice and after all this, after so much prejudice I went through, in every aspect of my life, I also went through it when I started to be a DJ because I was one of the first DJs producers in Brazil working on Zouk.

And we can also say the opposite, things like “man is not sensitive, woman is more sensitive” or “women play instruments better because they have a better musical taste than men”. The point is: it’s not a matter of being a woman or a man. Regardless if you are a man or a woman, it will not make you a good professional; you have to be a good professional because you study hard, you run after it and because you train a lot. There are male dancers better than women, there are women soccer players better than men soccer players; it has been a long time that Marta is the best in the world, for example. Your profession depends on your dedication and not on your gender.

I organize my own event, it’s called Swing Zouk Weekend. I decided to bring three professional women who give classes alone next year. But I didn’t decide this just because they are women, but because they have sensational jobs; they deserve as much space as men who have good jobs as well and give classes without partners. I am outraged that there are people who still complain about my decision.

For God’s sake! You will learn in the same way, the person will give you such a good lesson as if she has a partner or not. And these three professionals also lead, they are awesome, they are leaders, they teach alone and they are very competent. Please, let’s have good sense! When you are in a dance environment, you are there to learn from a person, you are not there to learn from a woman or a man, you are there to learn from a professional regardless of she/he has partner or not.

Even with all these facts, there are people who still say things like “when you have the leaders of the event, let me know”. The event simply will not just have leaders, they’re two in one, I love it, there’s no leader, they’re three women teaching classes on their own. This is my decision and if someone does not agree, the person should not go to the event, and that’s it. I get sad and outraged when these things happen. And I heard this example from a woman, who should find super nice another woman teaching without a partner.

Seriously, if there are 10 people in the event I will be happy. If I have to pay, out of my own money, the 15 international professionals that I bring I will be happy and I will support these professionals. I am outraged that, even with so many sensational women working in dance without partners trying to make it in an industry, with so many men, they still can’t have that space. I’ve already been in an event that there were 3 or 4 male teachers with no partner and there wasn’t any woman without a partner.

Competence does not a have a gender, professionalism does not as well. I’ve already heard bad things about me teaching alone, and because of that, I’m not going to implement that in my life, I’m not going to make a professional go through embarrassing situations because of her sex.

There will be these three professionals giving classes alone at my event: Ruana Vasquez, Sonia from Canada and Samantha from the USA teaching West Coast Swing alone.

Stop thinking that the man has to dance for the lady now. Nowadays two men are dancing together, or two women, there is also dance to three. Everyone has to get into a consensus that they should have a conversation in the dance that is good for both dancers; I do not have to please and always be pleased, it has to be good for both of them, to enjoy the dance equally. We are fighting for equality and not for superiority in dance and in life, it is not for women to be better than man. Sorry to be talking so angry, it’s hard to not be.

I am a woman, a gay, a dancer, a DJ, a musician, I am from Ceará and I am very proud to be in the dance and to have the opportunity to see a better atmosphere for women forming. These are very important things to be discussed, we can not think that everything is beautiful because it is not. But we are walking towards it, walking slowly. It will be good for everyone and there is space for all professionals, just the organizers and professionals each do their part; it is only necessary that the organizers and the professionals do their part.

( Priscila Rangel’s comment: It is very natural for women to have sexist opinions )

Yes, my mother is here in my “Live” on Instagram and she had sexist opinions, and she has changed some perceptions of her life; it is human to change as well. No one will be the same person forever, life changes and you have to adapt to the things that life brings you. My mother had to adapt to many things, had to adapt with me, for example; I brought a natural change for her. Just as I change constantly, I change my opinions, I change my energy, I go according to what makes me feel good and what makes people around me feel good. I always try to do my part, and unfortunately, there’s going to be sexist thinking around me. And our role in this is to try to make people aware in a legal way, not conflicting with them, this is going to be natural. And one day, perhaps, we will reach that point that we want, equality in dance, equality in life, everyone being happy and doing what they love.

(the original live discussion below, it is in Portuguese)