Oxygen Tango’s Core Values
connection | belonging | accountability
This is a living document created with input solicited from the entire Oxygen community. We want to hear your thoughts on refining this document, or if you’re looking for ways to join in. Some of these practices will be uncomfortable at first, but we find it gets easier with time. Please help keep us accountable in trying to live up to these values.
Oxygen’s mission is to nurture and cultivate great tango dancers, and we believe a tango space is about much more than dancing. As we work on our dance skills, we also encourage active development and investment in three core values:
CONNECTION
We believe that becoming a complete tango dancer means developing an awareness of the entire space, and every person in the room. Who is new? Who is not dancing? Who is not talking to anyone? If we notice someone left out of the group, we act to make them feel welcome. This may involve dancing, or it may not. We make this effort not as a sacrifice, or a charity, but for our own enjoyment and emotional well-being, and our growth as dancers and as people.
Whether we use the cabaceo or ask for dances verbally, we are looking for enthusiastic consent from our dance partners. We are sensitive to body language and social cues, and we consider power dynamics or disparities. Whether spoken or unspoken, we accept a “no” cheerfully, don’t ask for a reason, and it doesn’t affect our other social interactions with that person. We don’t pressure people to dance using guilt trips, hovering, badgering, shunning, or “rain checks.” This applies to interactions outside the tango space, including social media.
If we choose to dance with someone, we accept them as they are. We adjust to how close our partner wants to dance, and don’t insist on dancing closer. We do not give unsolicited feedback on their dancing unless it is something that is causing us physical pain. We consider how our choices in personal hygiene and drug & alcohol use might be negatively affecting our dance partners.
BELONGING
Our goal is radical belonging. We welcome and celebrate all bodies regardless of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, race, religion, weight, disability, age, nationality or anything else. We want to be an actively anti-racist space, continually searching for new ways to be more inclusive in our classes, our marketing, our programming, and in the design of the space itself.
We try to avoid practices that create unnecessary status hierarchies, such as special tables, long speeches, insider discounts, or tango star culture. We’re careful not to confuse somebody’s tango dancing experience with their value as a person. We look for ways to spotlight and center each member of the community.
We see no correlation between dancing roles and gender roles. We believe that any dancer can lead, follow, or switch, and we use these gender-neutral terms when referring to dance roles. We also respect others’ pronouns, we are glad to be corrected if we misidentify someone, and we don’t interrogate people about their pronoun use.
Money should never block anyone from learning or dancing tango. We are committed to making all our classes and events financially accessible. We have no dress code (official or unspoken) at any of our classes or events, and we do not require special dance shoes.
ACCOUNTABILITY
We accept that we are responsible for our own progress. When we come up against resistances--a plateau in our dancing, frustration with our partners, ideas that are uncomfortable--we are curious and actively engaged in asking why. We motor our own growth.
We take accountability for our own inevitable prejudices and implicit biases in who we tend to socialize and dance with. We engage in interior investigation to notice these biases and actively work to dismantle them, to challenge and expand our social comfort zone. Again, we do this work for ourselves, to enrich our own experience, to see more clearly, to be more free.
We believe everyone has a right to feel safe in the tango space and so we do not tolerate the following behaviors, even as bystanders:
Unwanted sexual touching on the dance floor or off
Predatory or stalking behavior, including persistent unwanted advances, romantic, sexual, or otherwise.
Language that is racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic or ableist, even in private conversations.
Violence or physical intimidation, either explicit or implicit.
When conflict or injury inevitably occurs, we are committed to naming it, and we celebrate accountability both as an organization and as individuals. We’ll always look for pathways to accountability within the community, as opposed to exclusion, shaming, exile, or law enforcement. These systems are currently still in development, along with protocols for bringing harm to our attention.
Please ask a teacher, organizer, or someone at the front desk if you have any questions about these guidelines. You can submit feedback and report instances of harm (anonymously if you choose) at www.oxygentango.com/comments. We are tracking changes to this document here.
