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

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[terpsichoros]

First: there is a small group of very experienced male dancers who mostly show up to the Palo Alto dances (FNW and FasterPolka or whatever they're calling it) who often dance with each other. I'm fairly certain that at least half of them are straight, and I don't know whether the others are straight or not. (Bob C is one of these, so if you have info for him, you can ask him more about that.) They're often doing experimental or very high-energy dance moves when they dance with each other.

At the Vintage Invasion, there is a male couple who dance together a lot. I think I've seen them at other events, but they're more obvious at VI because of the lower attendance.

The VI couple appears (to me) to make a dance event more welcoming of men dancing with men than do the Palo Alto men.

Second: there's a big difference between figure dances (Scottish country, Irish ceili or set, English country, square dance, etc) and couple dancing. In figure dancing, you're dancing with a group of people, not just one other, and the amount of physical contact between dancers is significantly less (and less intimate) than in couple dances. That sets a much lower level of importance on the specific gender roles.

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What kind of people queer social dance? Do women dancing with women because there aren't enough men count as "queering"? If not, then the people who do it most are experienced dancers looking for variety, and same-sex couples.

Why do they do it? Experienced dancers are mostly looking for some sort of different experience, or learning the lead/follow role which they wouldn't traditionally take. Same-sex couples are doing it to dance with their preferred gender, mostly.

Are they really creating more acceptance for queer people? I think the vintage dance scene in the Bay Area is already rather accepting of queer people, so I'm not sure if anyone's actions are really creating "more acceptance". In particular, the Palo Alto group is likely not actually doing anything to advance that cause, though it's not setting it back, either. It's likely that seeing same-sex couples which are actually couples dancing with each other makes other same-sex couples feel less intimidated the first time or two they show up to an event, though that's changing/clarifying people's perception of the nature of the event, rather than changing the nature of the event.

Is age a factor? Not up to at least 45 or so. Perhaps even older.

Side note: a story I heard from kid_lit_fan: The only person (people?) to have been ejected from PEERS was one who complained about an obviously lesbian couple dancing with each other.

[edge_of_within]

Side Note - attendants to a WWII Ball in Nazi getup have been denied entry. Is that similar?

Experienced dancers - Bob C, Graham, myself, John Bauer, Eric Lowe, Brendan (Stanfordite), and a couple others, but that's most of us.
We do it for various similar reasons, but it mostly boils down to:
I/we like to dance with the best dancers, regardless of gender.
I love dancing with Tracy, and I also love dancing with Eric. They're both amazing dancers. Tracey usually follows, and Eric and I usually switch off.
Also - yes, as a challenging experience. Gender switching with another adv dancer can be difficult, in a dance scene where nothing much is difficult/challenging anymore.

I think less women danced as men in Irish before we left Plough.
Since then, I think less men can deal with, well, the atmosphere at AC.
I say this as a male who has essentially left.

The two guys at VI are gay, and as stated, like to dance with their preferred gender. As this is the bay area, it's not a big deal.

In the Lindy scene, the gay lindy dancers have formed their own community called the Queer Jitterbugs (just google it).
I think they dance Mondays in SF, but I don't really know.
Leading/Following Lindy is vastly different than Waltz IMHO (Laura can agree/disagree with this), since there are different steps, etc.
Because of this, gays of either gender are rarely seen at normal lindy events. Gay dancers were not ostricized by any means, they just wanted to start their own scene, because the bay area is big enough to support that.
Same-gender Lindy dancing is done occasionally at Lindy clubs by folks advanced enough to do so (again, because it's harder than switching in Waltz) by both genders. I'd say once a club hits a certain level, let's call it 150 people, it happens. I've never seen it at a smaller swing club.
But this also has to do with advanced dancers going to the bigger clubs.