a couple crossposts
“I went to Comic-Con and I’ve been to Small Press [Expo] … and Dragon Con,” the congressman recounted about attending his first nerd-culture festivals. “It sort of changed my life.”
Joe and I got food at my local Harris Teeter the other day, and I told him about being there with my friend David who was trying to alert me that John Lewis was currently checking out right ahead of us, but I couldn't see until after he'd left. It turned out Joe wasn't familiar with the story of John Lewis cosplaying himself. So I looked it up and found a delightful article I hadn't seen before, in which I learned that Lewis had been to Comic-Con before that time, and that the march through Comic-Con was impromptu, and that the contents of the backpack almost matched that day in Selma, except for the inexplicable impossibility of finding an orange in San Diego.
The real origin story behind how rep John Lewis became the hit of Comic-Con
and
Went to Blue Monday at Westminster Presbyterian. Full Power Blues was AMAZING. Wasn't there very long because I was terrible at getting out of the house and was expected in Bethesda but got a dance with a guy I'd seen at Blues before, did some solo, watched one guy be ever so stylin using his cane whilst dancing, and did some for reals dancing with a guy who was leading from a wheelchair. Like it felt like blues and lindy, complete with minor dips. Every seat in the house was filled.
What I didn't mention in FB was that, for somewhat strange reason, telling a lady "I also lead" and being told, "I only dance with men, but you should dance with him," made me pay more attention to being in a predominantly black space. She wasn't black, but there's a lot of discussion in the blues community at the moment about how to honor the origins of the dance, and how to deal with there being a lot of scenes where there are few to no black people*. In one of the discussions over on FB on one person's post, someone talked about the tension between the blues scene being very encouraging of same gender dancing, not enforcing gender roles, queer friendly, and that was a tension with many more traditionally minded communities of color.
I can see that, although I'm not sure there's an obvious answer - those communities of color have people within them who are hurt by anti queer bias/hostility. But in any case it was an interesting prompt for me to notice the composition of the audience and especially those of us in back, and it made me kinda extra aware of who was taking up lots of space and who wasn't. I spent a little while talking with the guy with the cane (black), asked him if he danced with partners as well. He said yes he did, and I would have liked to dance with him, but he seemed to want to solo for that last song I was around for. When the guy in the wheelchair (white) came back out and asked me again, I was very aware of how much space we were taking, hoping nobody along the back wall minded, made attempts to keep us from getting too close to the guy with the cane. Was very aware when he was talking fairly loud during the song.
I don't know how much I'd have been paying attention without that first woman declining my offer to dance.
As I was leaving I talked with the guy at the door. Mentioned that the guy with the chair was really fun to dance with but I was terrified he'd back into the guy with the cane. Yeah, said the doorguy. "he thinks he's privileged." Still turning that one over a bit.
Crap, it's past 1 and I wanted to make the next FFE event.
* why i stopped blues dancing
A letter to the white blues dance community
This entry was originally posted at https://vvalkyri.dreamwidth.org/1646790.html. You can add to the
comments there using OpenID, or here is okay too.
Joe and I got food at my local Harris Teeter the other day, and I told him about being there with my friend David who was trying to alert me that John Lewis was currently checking out right ahead of us, but I couldn't see until after he'd left. It turned out Joe wasn't familiar with the story of John Lewis cosplaying himself. So I looked it up and found a delightful article I hadn't seen before, in which I learned that Lewis had been to Comic-Con before that time, and that the march through Comic-Con was impromptu, and that the contents of the backpack almost matched that day in Selma, except for the inexplicable impossibility of finding an orange in San Diego.
The real origin story behind how rep John Lewis became the hit of Comic-Con
and
Went to Blue Monday at Westminster Presbyterian. Full Power Blues was AMAZING. Wasn't there very long because I was terrible at getting out of the house and was expected in Bethesda but got a dance with a guy I'd seen at Blues before, did some solo, watched one guy be ever so stylin using his cane whilst dancing, and did some for reals dancing with a guy who was leading from a wheelchair. Like it felt like blues and lindy, complete with minor dips. Every seat in the house was filled.
What I didn't mention in FB was that, for somewhat strange reason, telling a lady "I also lead" and being told, "I only dance with men, but you should dance with him," made me pay more attention to being in a predominantly black space. She wasn't black, but there's a lot of discussion in the blues community at the moment about how to honor the origins of the dance, and how to deal with there being a lot of scenes where there are few to no black people*. In one of the discussions over on FB on one person's post, someone talked about the tension between the blues scene being very encouraging of same gender dancing, not enforcing gender roles, queer friendly, and that was a tension with many more traditionally minded communities of color.
I can see that, although I'm not sure there's an obvious answer - those communities of color have people within them who are hurt by anti queer bias/hostility. But in any case it was an interesting prompt for me to notice the composition of the audience and especially those of us in back, and it made me kinda extra aware of who was taking up lots of space and who wasn't. I spent a little while talking with the guy with the cane (black), asked him if he danced with partners as well. He said yes he did, and I would have liked to dance with him, but he seemed to want to solo for that last song I was around for. When the guy in the wheelchair (white) came back out and asked me again, I was very aware of how much space we were taking, hoping nobody along the back wall minded, made attempts to keep us from getting too close to the guy with the cane. Was very aware when he was talking fairly loud during the song.
I don't know how much I'd have been paying attention without that first woman declining my offer to dance.
As I was leaving I talked with the guy at the door. Mentioned that the guy with the chair was really fun to dance with but I was terrified he'd back into the guy with the cane. Yeah, said the doorguy. "he thinks he's privileged." Still turning that one over a bit.
Crap, it's past 1 and I wanted to make the next FFE event.
* why i stopped blues dancing
A letter to the white blues dance community
This entry was originally posted at https://vvalkyri.dreamwidth.org/1646790.html. You can add to the
comments there using OpenID, or here is okay too.