Queering Social Dance

[leg028]

I'm doing a project (due Monday, and I just started) about queering social dance. I'm defining that as anything that defies the male lead/female follow norms. Men in skirts counts as queering as well, as does all genderswitching, etc. While people may not do this to be political it has political ramifications, such as increasing acceptance of queer

Comments

Its long, its late--I hope this helps you somehow!

[squeekiemouse]

I do dancing with two allied groups doing english country dances from the 16th century. On stage, we try our best to keep the genders proper in a historic way, because usually we are playing for an audience at a Ren Faire, and history is a factor in what we do. Sometimes we do school performances, and, especially if we're teaching, it doesnt matter as much there. Experienced dancers are experienced dancers.

In practices, there is quite a bit of gender bending in the northern group, of which I am president, because we dont always have enough people of the proper real gender. Again, in this situation, experience counts for more than real gender. This happens quite often, and no one really cares. The group, like most Ren Faire people, is VERY willing to razz anyone for anything, so certainly there are jokes that go around, but thats typical. Its just an especially easy thing to razz someone for. Often, the people changing gender make the jokes themselves, though others certainly dont hesitate to chime in. We usually have a dearth of men, rather than women, so women genderswitching is much more typical. Men do it too though, in certain situations! I think the men razz more about it in general, but that may very well be informed by the fact that it doesnt happen very often, or also in response to the rest of society's view. In general, by society, it is MUCH more acceptable to be a woman genderbending to a man's position than a man to a woman's. This can easily be the nature of power relations--men "lowering" themselves vs. women "raising" themselves, though I've seen that MUCH more evident in other environments than Berkeley or Davis or Seattle or Germany. As for dancing, they're faire people and dancers, they couldnt really care less--if someone were uncomfortable they would leave after a time.

So, the short answer to your questions:
People genderswitch because of a lack of proper gendered experienced people. (The moves are different from the men's position vs. the women's, and since history is a factor on stage, proper gender is preferred when possible. However, experience counts for far more than gender!)
They dont really care much about the ramifications of such an action. Its about dancing, not gender. Making fun of the situation is completely acceptable, but they do that to everything, so thats hardly surprising.
Age is not a factor.
I dont experience strange looks at all, but its a smaller group than just going to a dance night somewhere. Its fairly normal practice.
I find strange looks very amusing, though that depends on the circumstances.

I dont really try to connect gender or sexuality to dance--its about experience and often times about history. I dont try to buck the system (if Im going to play a girl on stage, I should learn the girl part), but I dont care a wit if someone else does. Its about dancing.

As a side note--I did wear a suit to gaskells the one time I went, and someone asked me if I only lead--that could be an interesting thing to look into. What message clothes send to these sorts of things. My problem was simply I didnt have any gowns and I didnt really want to wear one, so I wore a suit. It didnt bother people really at all--I certainly got partners of all kinds.

Good luck on the project!
M

Re: Its long, its late--I hope this helps you somehow!

[leg028]

That's awesome, thanks! It sounds a lot like my experience in Scottish Country, that women lead because of the huge gender gap, and that that's normal and acceptable. But Scottish Country is less okay with genderswitching outside of that. I definitely agree with your analysis of men versus women genderbending. I actually wrote a paper on that last year.