Virulent homophobic assault to Bailaor Manuel Liñán in networks by dancing in cola and manton gown: “vicious, sick and degenerate” | Culture | EUROtoday

“Horror see this Maromo of that guise.” “Do not fuck, this is the last thing I had to see, the hue is not entangled … in the dress!” “Is this seriously or is it a joke?” “I prefer to interpret it as it was a meeting of friends and one of them, the funniest with some more glasses, starred in the scene with the robe and the manton (poor shaft) borrowed from the sister.” “Vicious, sick, degenerate.” “For me, a mamarracho.” This is a few of the 504 feedback {that a} publication from the digital journal acquired Deflamenco.com In the social community Facebook between midnight final Saturday, April 26, till 19.00 on Sunday, 27, when the pinnacle of the journal, Rafael Manjavacas, determined to erase it after the quantity of insults and homophobic messages he was accumulating.

The origin was in a video that collected roughly a minute of the efficiency that the dancer and choreographer Manuel Liñán (Granada, 44 years) supplied on Saturday on the theaters of the Madrid Canal, inside the II Guitar Festival. The dancer, invited by guitarist Manuel Valencia, carried out some cantiñas wearing tail and scarf, one in every of his hallmarks as an artist. Winner of the National Dance Award in 2017, amongst many different awards, Liñán is internationally acknowledged as one of the distinguished creators of up to date flamenco.

The video had gone viral on Facebook and through the quick time it was printed, it had collected 101,000 visualizations, in line with Manjavacas. The journal additionally printed it in its accounts on Instagram and Tiktok, the place it stays printed and has additionally acquired homophobic feedback, though with much less virulence than on Facebook. This Monday morning, the journal has determined to publish it once more on this social community and instantly have begun to duplicate insults.

Throughout Sunday, Liñán compiled catches of insults on Facebook and despatched a few of them to Manjavacas. “I saw the video published and read the first comments. I checked that once again the debate was generated on the work I do, but within normal. It has been passing me usually and at first I only gave it the right importance. But I continued reading and checking that the thing became very ugly. The video had gone viral and, although among the first comments there were some that defended my work, then they were all insults and vexations. Explain by phone the dancer. It was then that he decided to send the captures to the director of the magazine. “I needed to share my astonishment and sadness, Rafael [Manjavacas] He is a great friend, ”he says.

Upon receiving the captures, Manjavacas made the choice to remove the publication on Facebook. “I worried a lot. It is not the first time that a publication of a flamenco artist who opens new paths in creation generates debate on our social networks, but I quickly realized that this video that I recorded and went Tiktok can also read comments, although not with a tone as high as those of Facebook.

“I am scared, worried,” says Liñán. “What if one of these people who have left those comments go to the theater to see me and awaits me at the door?”

Liñán has been opening new paths in Flemish dance, as other colleagues from current creation, such as Rocío Molina and Israel Galván, have made for years. He says that he is aware that the most orthodox part of the profession questions his work and does not empathize with him. “But I have always felt respected by the public,” he says. So much so that your show Viva!!, released in 2019, in which Liñán and six dances more dance transvestite to question gender stereotypes, continues to reap success, full and public standing there where it passes.

“With that show, when we visited New York, in 2022, something similar happened. The Nike brand contacted me to use a photo where the seven dancers’ dresses’ of women ‘came out for an inclusion campaign they were making. The comments in the publication of that photo were also alarming. That is why, on this occasion, I have not wanted to let it pass. My duty goes on to report it to help you can advance.”

Since 2015, the year the work was released Nomadic And the dancer appears for the first time with a tail robe dancing some snails, Liñán has been exploring gender identity in flamenco through a solid speech that has been developed more broadly with works such as Reversible (2016), Viva!! (2019), The documentary Flamenco Queer, Made by the magazine The New Yorker, y Dead of love (2024), his most recent work.

“This new attack affects a lot. It makes you end up questioning why you do what you do, something that should not happen. I know what my speech is, who I am, where my work comes from. But it is inevitable. My boy is also very affected, how it will not be.

Asked if he has denounced the facts in the social network itself, Liñán confesses that although that was his intention, he has not been able to do so when he had erased the publication. “I know Rafael wanted to protect me by eliminating her. All this is very serious and one overflows and ends up not knowing what is best.” Liñán says that on a previous occasion he could report this type of comments on another social network. “It was with the work Nomadic, On YouTube. There I danced for the first time with tail robe and also filled with insults. I denounced it and the network erased the comments. ”

“It is extraordinary these items proceed to occur,” adds Manjavacas. “Manuel Liñán dances with a manton and cola gown when he needs, as Carmen Amaya got here out dancing with pants and have become the primary lady who did it.”