The cumbia of 'Sudor Marika' screams with activism and empowerment. With nine members, the Argentinian band was born in response to the almost disgusted question: "Do you like cumbia?"—the same tone they used when asked about their sexual and existential preferences. Sebastián Zasali on keyboards and vocals, Rocío Feltrez on vocals and güiro, Vicente Quintreleo on guitar and vocals, Nahuel Puyaps on bass, Carolina on Octapad, Sandra on vocals, Lean on timbales, Haquir on accordion, and Nico on trumpet throw a party with a conscience and answered our #5QUESTIONS. By Lucas Gutiérrez

-Where does your dissent lie?

– It has several layers. But it strongly points to morality, which is always white, pure, heterosexual, Christian, proprietary, monogamous, and patriarchal. We are dissidents of the norms that dictate how we should love, live, enjoy, and share. We are also dissidents of neoliberalism, which today is called Macrism, which comes to regulate not only material and economic conditions but also subjective and affective ones.

 -How would you define your activism?

– It could be an activism that “disrupts” the common sense of cumbia and queerness. We create images, songs, and gatherings that disrupt the obvious, the hegemonic. We nurture new imaginaries, disturbing the established one. At our concerts, the pack sings the songs that the Lohana Berkins collective sings at marches, and others as well. That mix of cumbia concert, picket line dance, and assembly of sweaty bodies is enchanting. “We are the Guerrilla of sexual subversion,” a horde of sweaty-breasted lesbians proclaims at more than one show.

– In what ways do they challenge hegemony (hetero and homo)?

– We believe our presence on the music scene disrupts the heterosexual cultural hegemony. As a discourse of the norm, this hegemony is sustained through multiple practices, including music and art, where it also seems that only heterosexual men and women fall in love, dance cumbia, and are activists. And with respect to gay hegemony, there are several fronts where we become anomalous. 'Sudor Marika' plays cumbia, and that in itself is a genre that doesn't seem to fit into the gay-masculine-designed package. Furthermore, not everyone in our band is gay; there are lesbians and others who prefer not to define themselves. This alliance breaks down the distance that usually exists between "hegemonic gay culture," which doesn't typically mix with lesbians and other sexualities, since it's not perceived as part of marginalized minorities but rather as a copy of the models of masculinity dictated by the market. Betting on a name like 'Sudor Marika', making that nomination, which is usually despised, increasingly desirable, is a political gamble.

– How do you choose the dates on which you perform?

It has to do with the affinity we feel for the struggle at hand, the motive, the cause, and the organization. There are many of us, and we have internal discussions about these choices. We like to think of ourselves as one of the soundtracks and sisterhoods of dissent, of struggles. Setting struggles to music is very powerful for us. Those bodies that usually carry weariness, frustrations, long days, sadness, and fury have a moment to dance and sweat to the rhythm of cumbia and lyrics that, far from "disconnecting" them from activism, reconnect them through joy—not that Macri-era, marketing-driven joy, but joy as an increase in the power that we are. Also, whenever we play at an event, it's a pleasure to feel that the music, the lyrics, and the activism are in sync, and not the band as an afterthought that talks about something else and perhaps doesn't even know what struggle is taking place.

-What is it like to do art and activism in Argentina today?

– It's the only way we've found to keep the desert from consuming us. It's our way of resisting and insisting on vital encounters. More than ever, it seems urgent to us to meet, to sweat collectively, for our bodies to break free from the screens that have us captive, and come to dance, to sing, to feel that there are possibilities to be fought for. Our activism produces encounters and alliances, and that's already a lot in this apathetic, crushing, and life-draining reality. Obviously, it's not so easy, because the persecution of cultural centers and other spaces is strong and continuous; hence the alliances that are part of the self-management we build day by day to be able to carry out our project. Much of this happens through social media, even though Facebook prohibits us from advertising. We can't pay to circulate as advertising because it offends the community's morale, although that's our aim, we didn't expect Facebook to be so clear about it and censor us.