Гендерный баланс
В ECD рассылке обсуждается вопрос, что делать, если на занятие/бале больше кавалеров, чем дам.
Некоторые мысли мне показались интересными:
However, sometimes our weekly contra and English dances and our monthly
contra dance have more men than women. Some men are quite comfortable
dancing with other men, and some even find it fun. These are, so far as I
know, straight guys. Dancing is dancing. In ECD, one sometimes can dance
with more women when dancing as a woman. We keep a couple of bonnets in our
ECD supplies, and sometimes a guy will wear one, either for the humor of it
or, more generally, to avoid confusion for new people when gender helps
orient one to the dance. It's less frequent for two men to waltz with each
other.
Mike Franch
What struck me was that the man dancing on the non-traditional side of the set was fine dancing with the other guy until he had to answer to the term "lady." That made him uncomfortable, but not dancing with the other guy. So I've been working on making the terminology comfortable to people dancing on non-traditional sides of the set. With the help of Brooke Friendly, I started using terminology that talks about position and not about gender, (the one exception being when there is only one person moving-- I'd need to introduce a new term for that situation and it would stand out as something different, while the other gender-neutral terms I've been using seem quite normal to people) As long as there are two people, they can be called 1's and 2's, or 1st and 2nd diagonals. Poussettes move clockwise or counterclockwise and please nobody push or pull! If people ask me if I'm the guy, I say no. I'm still a woman. Even when I'm dancing on the other side of the set.
Since guys are less comfortable dancing wth each other, they are likely to ask pairs of women to split up. But even if they do, the women don't have to be pressured into changing partners. They can say something like "I already have a partner for this dance, but I'd enjoy dancing with you later." Then the guys have a choice-- dance with each other, or sit down and wait for the next dance. I no longer respond to pressure to leave my partner just because she's female, and frankly, I think it would be very insulting to my partner to reject her after agreeing to dance with her. She's not second class or last resort or "extra"-- she's the partner I actually chose for this dance.
I hope the women at your ball will not wait around to see if they are "left over" before taking another woman as partners, but will ask other women as first-choice partners because they are friends, and because they enjoy dancing together.
Victoria Bestock
With regard to the question of what to call the two sides of a longways set if you're not going to say "men" and "women," the very coolest solution I ever saw was done by Erik Hoffman at a family-dance event, mostly for kids. He indicated the line on his right, and said "Ok, what do you want to be called?," and a bunch of them shouted stuff, and he said "I heard . . . butterflies! Ok, other line, what are you called . . . ok, bobcats!" And then that's what he called them. I imagine it took a bit more mental energy to remember new names than it would have to say "door" and "window" or whatever, but it has the virtue of working when there aren't any convenient doors or windows, or too many of them.
Jon Berger
New women dancers are unlikely to ask
someone to dance and will feel like the dreaded
wallflower if they don't get asked.
And for men...Some of them had to overcome a lot of
anti-dance prejudice just to get here. Making them
dance with another man could very well be the last
straw. Men are so afraid of looking gay.
Just be considerate of the special circumstances of
the new dancers.
Melanie Axel-Lute
I attended a Gaye Fifer Waltz Workshop, sponsored by LITMA here on
Long Island about 4 years ago. There was no gender balance. 2
women, besides Gaye, and 6 men showed up for workshop. There was no
way to get much of anything done without having men waltz with other
men. Granted everyone attending was already dancing and looking to
improve their waltz skills. After a few turns, pointers and comments
from Gaye, we were all more concerned with what we were doing than
the gender of our partner. Two of the older men, whom I knew from
contra dances, commented that they learned more from following then
they had ever learned from just leading. Their eyes were opened
because they were on the other side of the couple for the first time.
The others agreed. They better understood how to lead by
experiencing being led.
Keeps the dance interesting and challenging.
Den Collins
So...we put on clothes. We use regular gender-based terminology -- if you're
dancing the man's part, you're a man for five minutes, regardless of what
your chromosomes say. But we differentiate the genders visually; a woman
dancing the man's part will (at contra) put on a tie, or (at ECD) put on a
mustache. Men dancing the woman's part at contra will often put on a scarf.
Social constructs, portable style.
Paul Stamler
Как преподаватель, у которого на занятиях бывает и избыток дам, и избыток кавалеров, я считаю, что, если мы не делаем реконструкции какой-либо эпохи, то гендерный баланс в контрдансах соблюдать не обязательно. Лучше наслаждаться танцами.
Некоторые мысли мне показались интересными:
However, sometimes our weekly contra and English dances and our monthly
contra dance have more men than women. Some men are quite comfortable
dancing with other men, and some even find it fun. These are, so far as I
know, straight guys. Dancing is dancing. In ECD, one sometimes can dance
with more women when dancing as a woman. We keep a couple of bonnets in our
ECD supplies, and sometimes a guy will wear one, either for the humor of it
or, more generally, to avoid confusion for new people when gender helps
orient one to the dance. It's less frequent for two men to waltz with each
other.
Mike Franch
What struck me was that the man dancing on the non-traditional side of the set was fine dancing with the other guy until he had to answer to the term "lady." That made him uncomfortable, but not dancing with the other guy. So I've been working on making the terminology comfortable to people dancing on non-traditional sides of the set. With the help of Brooke Friendly, I started using terminology that talks about position and not about gender, (the one exception being when there is only one person moving-- I'd need to introduce a new term for that situation and it would stand out as something different, while the other gender-neutral terms I've been using seem quite normal to people) As long as there are two people, they can be called 1's and 2's, or 1st and 2nd diagonals. Poussettes move clockwise or counterclockwise and please nobody push or pull! If people ask me if I'm the guy, I say no. I'm still a woman. Even when I'm dancing on the other side of the set.
Since guys are less comfortable dancing wth each other, they are likely to ask pairs of women to split up. But even if they do, the women don't have to be pressured into changing partners. They can say something like "I already have a partner for this dance, but I'd enjoy dancing with you later." Then the guys have a choice-- dance with each other, or sit down and wait for the next dance. I no longer respond to pressure to leave my partner just because she's female, and frankly, I think it would be very insulting to my partner to reject her after agreeing to dance with her. She's not second class or last resort or "extra"-- she's the partner I actually chose for this dance.
I hope the women at your ball will not wait around to see if they are "left over" before taking another woman as partners, but will ask other women as first-choice partners because they are friends, and because they enjoy dancing together.
Victoria Bestock
With regard to the question of what to call the two sides of a longways set if you're not going to say "men" and "women," the very coolest solution I ever saw was done by Erik Hoffman at a family-dance event, mostly for kids. He indicated the line on his right, and said "Ok, what do you want to be called?," and a bunch of them shouted stuff, and he said "I heard . . . butterflies! Ok, other line, what are you called . . . ok, bobcats!" And then that's what he called them. I imagine it took a bit more mental energy to remember new names than it would have to say "door" and "window" or whatever, but it has the virtue of working when there aren't any convenient doors or windows, or too many of them.
Jon Berger
New women dancers are unlikely to ask
someone to dance and will feel like the dreaded
wallflower if they don't get asked.
And for men...Some of them had to overcome a lot of
anti-dance prejudice just to get here. Making them
dance with another man could very well be the last
straw. Men are so afraid of looking gay.
Just be considerate of the special circumstances of
the new dancers.
Melanie Axel-Lute
I attended a Gaye Fifer Waltz Workshop, sponsored by LITMA here on
Long Island about 4 years ago. There was no gender balance. 2
women, besides Gaye, and 6 men showed up for workshop. There was no
way to get much of anything done without having men waltz with other
men. Granted everyone attending was already dancing and looking to
improve their waltz skills. After a few turns, pointers and comments
from Gaye, we were all more concerned with what we were doing than
the gender of our partner. Two of the older men, whom I knew from
contra dances, commented that they learned more from following then
they had ever learned from just leading. Their eyes were opened
because they were on the other side of the couple for the first time.
The others agreed. They better understood how to lead by
experiencing being led.
Keeps the dance interesting and challenging.
Den Collins
So...we put on clothes. We use regular gender-based terminology -- if you're
dancing the man's part, you're a man for five minutes, regardless of what
your chromosomes say. But we differentiate the genders visually; a woman
dancing the man's part will (at contra) put on a tie, or (at ECD) put on a
mustache. Men dancing the woman's part at contra will often put on a scarf.
Social constructs, portable style.
Paul Stamler
Как преподаватель, у которого на занятиях бывает и избыток дам, и избыток кавалеров, я считаю, что, если мы не делаем реконструкции какой-либо эпохи, то гендерный баланс в контрдансах соблюдать не обязательно. Лучше наслаждаться танцами.