“The social in movement”: the “expressive experiential” perspective in Argentinean popular dances

Folk music and dance have been effective elements to give shape to ideas of nation through the creation of national subjects that embody and recreate them in their practice, imaginary and affective repertoires. The field of traditional argentine dances is formed by two perspectives: the “academic-traditional” and the “expressive-experiential”. The latter create a new selective tradition that enables other narratives around the construction of a national identity, and the visibility of other bodies and gender imaginary capable of embodying them. Traditional dances become popular and are restored as social discourses that echo other knowledge, social memories and senses of identity. This way of conceiving dances seeks to break with ethnic neutrality, cultural homogenization and static heterosexuality that the academic modes have imposed on traditional folk dances.