tenera

Dancers wearing clothes without pockets have a harder time connecting with and building community in partner dance. This often means— women. Tenera is a wearable phone holster that makes it possible for those wearing dresses, skirts, or other non-pocketed clothing to exchange contact information immediately after a dance ends.

Tenera’s feminine design celebrates the affordance for expressivity of the partner dance space, which cisgendered women highly value. But Tenera also makes a statement about the need for embracing femininity in leadership. We can get women leading, and even men following, but if dance roles remain associated with femininity and masculinity, there will still be no place for those who reject these binary forms of expression.

Tenera is designed with the practical and aesthetic sensibilities for partner dance in mind: it’s adjustable, can be worn on different body parts, and is secure.

I rapidly prototyped several versions of a phone holster and shared these with users and SMEs. They were preocuppied with the practical features of the product, such as how to keep it in place and make it comfortable.

I drew inspiration from joint injury wearables, sports holsters, fashion holsters, and fannypacks. I also looked at visual depictions of strong, stealthy women, such as Lara Croft and other women superheroes.*

Ibegan this thesis with a hunch: There was something rotten laying underneath the charm of partner dance and I felt that it was critical to understand what it was and how to fix it.

I couldn’t put into words the reasons why this was important, though. Why pay attention to Latin partner dance, a niche, leisurely activity?

Nine months later, I have no doubt that cosmopolitan Latin partner dance is worth all our efforts.

Cosmopolitan partner dance has the rare ability to affect society at two levels: the individual and the collective. At the individual level, partner dance is a healing haven of endorphins, movement and expression. “I notice the impact on my mental health,” stated Junaid as we waited for the Thursday bachata class to start at Solas Bar in NYC.

At the collective level, partner dance affords a barrier-breaking encounter with people of other races, socio-economic standings, genders, and sexual orientations.

In Notes on Funk II, Adrian Piper wrote about how she used funk dance lessons to immersively educate whites on Black popular culture. For Piper, partner dance was an embodied tool to reduce an unwarranted fear of blackness, or racism, based on ignorance.

Latin partner dance, which is currently growing in global popularity at an impressive speed, can only reach its true potential for individual and social impact if partner dance spaces are made inclusive. Given the demographics of the current market, it makes sense to leverage women’s desire to lead and systematically intervene in the dance experience.

Change is waiting to happen. If organizers want business, they can’t afford to be exclusionary. Organizers who have wanted to break the gender norm in the past, and deem themselves “safe” spaces, have not gotten very far because they’ve been missing the point: Inclusivity is an active effort that takes tools designed for that purpose.

Change is waiting to happen!

Cisgendered dancers are starting to welcome roles into their experiential repertoire that society had deemed “not for them.” And these dancers want to support the queer community.

The challenge, then, is to design and implement tools for inclusivity that leverage the power of organizers and instructors, and to not let the curiosity of dancers who just might give the other role a shot go unsupported.

I think the strong word of mouth of the dance world will take care of the rest.

I believe this approach will, over the long term, rewrite the mental models that constrain women and men to the role binary, and as a result, create access to the full spectrum of dance experiences for all dancers, regardless of gender.

As a niche community, cosmopolitan partner dance is not in the eye of academia, of social innovation or of venture capital. But it should be.

Bailamos Juntos Social

Latin dance event (mostly salsa) IG @bailamosjuntossocial

Passion Thursdays

Latin dance event (mostly bachata) IG @Passion_thursdays

Fusion Experience Social Latin dance event (mixed) IG @fusionexperienceofficial

Blues Dance New York Blues dance event bluesdancenewyork.com

Sensual Movement

Latin dance event (sensual Bachata) IG @sensual_movement

Emma Housner

Latin dance instructor housnere@gmail.com

Indigo Dawn (they/them) Consent culture consultant mxindigodawn@gmail.com

Stephanie Shapiro Wedding dance choreographer stephanie@dancewellny.com

Swagchata (Brian + Andrea) Latin dance instructors IG @swagschata

Valentina Giovannini

Latin dance instructor IG @valentina_56 media

Ismael Fernandez

Photographer ismaelf@me.com

Christine Nieves

Photographer cnievesphoto@gmail.com

Cyntia Abarca

Catalina Albornoz

Ace ArenasVasquez

Nihaarika Arora

Arshlavi Auleear

Pamela Bacian

Emily Baltz

Valeria Benitez

Brianna Brooks

Kate C.

Arnold Cabrera

Kummar Chandan

Inessa Chernomaz

Jaemin Cho

Allan Chochinov

Erika Choe

Michael Cheung

Michael Chou

Josh Cintorino

Giancarlo Cipri

Alexia Cohen

Bill Cromie

Indigo Dawn (they/them)

Alex De Looz

Alessandro Ferdico

Ismael Fernandez

Maria Andrea Garcia

Leandro Gil

Valentina Giovannini

Sarah Hackett

Emma Housner

Abdiel Jacobsen

Sabrih Joy

Julia Knoll

Ogochukwu Ononiwu

Jackson Lee

Kimaya Malwade

Marko Mariquez

Achi Martin

Corey McClelland

Juliet McMains PhD

Val Meneau

Xhercis Méndez

Kristine Mudd

Christine Nieves

Amelia Perry

Sam Potts

Sabrina Ramos

Rohitha Remala

Ben Rigney

Camila Rocha

Sinclair Scott Smith

Stephanie Shapiro

Charvi Shrimali

Amalia Sirica

SVA VFL staff

Kaylan Tran

Cathy Tung

Krissi Xenakis

Helena Yang

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Monica is a Colombian-born designer with a passion for applying a strategic and systems lens to any challenge. She has collaborated on product development with the MoMA design store, built visual identities for quantum computing enthusiasts at Xanadu, strategically innovated digital sales for an e-commerce retailer and produced handmade dinnerware for Michelin-starred restaurants. In the past, Monica has been a holder of the O-1 visa for exceptional artistic achievement, launched Moaz Ceramics, her own line of ceramic products, and been pretty decent at speaking German.