ABSTRACT
Tango in Singapore is a niche scene practised among a small community largely populated by highly educated white-collar worker enthusiasts. An important aspect of tango which makes an exclusive focus on women's performances problematic is that it is a coupled dance form. In Singapore, tango classes, where the gender balance tilts slightly in favour of women, women almost always dance with other women at some point on a rotational basis, while the converse is rare. A more vital issue to Singapore's multicultural context lies in local dancers unashamedly claiming cosmopolitanism and liberality of its dance scene, paradoxically on the basis of reinforcing paternalistic behaviours in the dance that are practised internationally. Indeed, a return to the making and remaking of women's sexualities in tango partner dynamics according to notions of degrees of liberalism, measured according to master scales calibrated by "Western" feminist discourses sheds light on the class, cultural and gender-specific contexts of Singaporean women.
