Some thoughts on dance...

[demotu]

I am not a dancer, but I grew up with dance. For my own part, I Scottish Country danced every Friday with my family, so I understand the sheer pleasure of movement to music on an instinctual level, though I am not talented at it

Comments

[rm]

There is a very real reason ballroom dance is a competitive sport at the Gay Games, and that's because in the wider world of competitive ballroom dancing exaggerated heteronormativity is essentially one of its requirements.

[demotu]

Yeah. I didn't want to surmise that the wider ballroom community is as bad as SYTYCD makes it out to be, because the wider ballet/modern/jazz community isn't as bad as SYTYCD makes it out to be, but Nigel and Mary both really seem to drag their prejudices from that field into the wider dance arena.

I didn't start watching this season at the beginning, so I missed the male ballroom couple issue, but watching it back it's all of these issues, magnified.

[rm]

The wider ballroom community is REALLY bad. It's one of the things that Luhrmann is addressing covertly in Strictly Ballroom which is one of those "queer sensibility in a movie without queer content" things. Luhrmann grew up as a competitive ballroom dancer because his family was very involved in it as well and he's pretty much said in interviews (older and now hard to find) that he and his wife (who is also one of his creative partners) are both bisexual and that ballroom dancing is both cool and weird and suffocating.

[xtricks]

But ... these sorts of reality shows, from the Bachlor/ette to talent shows to dance/acting etc are all about teaching and reinforcing social norms. For a lot of broadcast TV, with its relationship to advertising, one of the main functions, I think is to present and enforce a standarized norm. This way, advertising can be assured of a standardized audience they can 'aim' their product at.

[demotu]

I - what? Sorry, I'm not sure what your argument is. I'm presuming it's an answer as to why they do it, not an apology for them doing it.

But, yes, of course that's why. I'm not really confused as to why they're doing it, just pissed off that that's how it goes. Especially in relation to a form of art for which I have a long-standing love.

[paragraphs]

OH, I would love to see that Fall show of yours!

[antelope_writes]

I think it was the Lillehammer Olympics that had a brother-sister figure skating pair? Maybe the one before that? IIRC they were french-canadian. For one of their skates, they both wore these weird blue things that made them look like they were straight out of Tron. For another, they skated to one of the brother-sister songs from West Side Story.

Anyway, it was really, really cool to watch the skaters doing a routine that did NOT feature the exaggerated sexuality that typical pairs skating does. Not quite the same as a same-sex pairing (sexualized or not) but definitely a refreshing change from the norm.

[demotu]

That is really interesting.

Actually, one of the things I do appreciate about SYTYCD is the body positivity on it. Not in terms of them showcasing a wide variety of forms, that doesn't happen (to be frank, anyone training to or dancing full time and professionally, which most of these people are, is going to be in damn good shape, and coming from the ballet world for the most part, there's a MUCH wider representation of dancers bodies there than I'm used to. Jeanine, honestly, is way too curvy to be a ballet dancer!)

But in terms of - hey, lots of leg, lots of stomach, lots of skin, but it never reads as skeezy to me (except when Nigel pants over the 18 year olds), it reads as "look, we have strong, powerful, beautiful bodies, and here's what they can do without trying to hide all of them". It's really gorgeous to watch, in that sense.

[paragraphs]

I haven't watched these episodes yet Dem, but started following last year when Joshua was competing. He graduated from high school with Tiff...and I had the chance to see him perform many times. Watching last year then was especially special (and everything went nuts here when he won!). Nick and I went to see them when they came through here, which was a lot of fun though our seats were way too far away to truly appreciate the routines. (I pretty much preferred last year's routines too. Still hear the specific songs and remember who danced them

[demotu]

That's so cool you've seen Joshua dance that much! Watching someone that gifted is just... enthralling. Transporting. And now I'm going to have to go see what's on at the NAC because it's been too long. We had such bad seats in Paris (because, lol, ancient Opera house was not designed for great viewing in the cheap seats!)

I loved a lot of routines from last season, especially those two hip hop ones - Bleeding Love (LOVED Mark) and No Air. Joshua was pretty damn fabulous - I loved that he won despite having so little formal training AND being a hip hop dancer. It was a beautiful victory!

This seasons winner was actually my favourite, so that was awesome! I must say I wasn't fond of Melissa - mostly because her solos were so boring, and I feel like she rested on being a ballerina far too much. The 2nd place finisher in SYTYCD Canada was a ballerina last year, and she had so much spunk and quirky style and variety I couldn't excuse Melissa's lack of creativity. I think I never really looked beyond her to Ade, and I feel like he got

[paragraphs]

OH OH I have to go look and see who won! Will look! LOL. Then I can see who your favorite was.

Gev is the inspiration for my ballet boy story I'm working on (more off at the moment) for loose-id, and the way you talked about ballet and dance in your post really got my brain churning again. I've written them into a wall and am lettign the story bounce around in my head for a bit, figure out how to break that wall down. Total seats-of-pants on this fic and lol I may need to do some actual planning. Grin.

Ahhh so agree re: Ade the way you put this.

[dancingscorpio]

hey! did you watch the finale? I won't spoil but *sigh* not MY favorite dancer. oh and as for favorite choreographers...there's something about wade robsen's routines that i LOVE (think rama lama from 2 years ago, and the test dummy one from this year)

[demotu]

Aw! Jeanine WAS my favourite dancer, actually! I loved her and Evan, actually. I was thrilled she won, especially because they needed another female winner to keep it from getting too obviously off-balance.

[dancingscorpio]

i loved jeannette--i thought she was the most well rounded. something about jeannine bugged me, not sure what. and of course, loved evan but clearly he shouldn't have been in the final 4

[demotu]

See, to me, Evan was superior to, say, Kayla.

Yes, Kayla had better lines and arguably better technique, but she had no musicality and lacked the... thing. I can't describe this thing, but having seen so much dance, there's just this thing that some dancers have, regardless of their genre. A gift, a talent, a musicality that draws your eyes to them and makes you enjoy watching them no matter what. Evan had that, to me, and he was one of the few dancers this season did. Yeah, his loose and smooth style in Broadway didn't translate into perfect kicks in his jive (though I thought he did pretty damn well in his last one), but all the training in the world can't give you that extra spark. I'd pay to see him dance over a lot of the more technically diverse dancers this season.