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

Intentionally Switching Over the Course of a Dance

[mackenzie]

I got into leadswitching when my repertoire as a lead was small. I only knew three or four moves and I would be out of stuff to do after thirty seconds. I wasn't confident enough at that point to improvise, so I needed a way to hand the reigns off to my partner. Again, practical rather than political (or fun). As my repertoire has gotten more generous, I've stopped leadswitching mid-dance. Indeed, at this point, it annoys me with very few exceptions.

I'm strongly against place-switiching in Irish and English in almost all cases. Pranking will confuse a set of more beginning dancers like nothing else, because they've learned the dance based on where a given person will be at a given time. Even advanced dancers aren't necessarily looking for it and are prone to get confused. I've been approached enough times (as I teach at a ceili and have the image of someone with authority) with comments like "Can you please talk to so-and-so about that? I completely lost my place when they started fucking around" that I won't place-switch during a set unless I've gotten a verbal okay before the dance. I don't think it's fun enough to place-switch that I'll ever ask, and I won't consent to it if someone in a set asks. Of course, I've frequently found people who enjoy place-shifting in Irish to be too rude to bother asking, instead assuming that everyone in the set will enjoy it, or at least won't mind or notice. This adds to my distaste for the practice.

I recognize that switching the lead back and forth adds even more moves to a dancer's collection, I just don't like it. If I feel like following, I feel like following. If I feel like leading, I feel like leading. The fluid exchange back and forth just isn't satisfying for me, as I'll frequently plan moves to take advantage of turns of phrase in the music, and my sense of musicality is thrown off by needing (to use a waltz example) to create 9-count or 3-count moves to get the feet to line up. And, again, I've encountered a rudeness in other dancers not bothering to ask me if I'd like to switch things up.