On Fri, Jan 04, 2013, Alan Winston wrote: > On 1/4/2013 7:49 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote: >>On Thu, Jan 03, 2013, Kalia Kliban wrote: >>>On 1/3/2013 8:21 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote: >>>>On Thu, Jan 03, 2013, Alan Winston wrote: >>>>> >>>>>I don't think you need this for the argument; there were flourishes >>>>>when I started contra dancing in 1985 (but we called the people who >>>>>did them "hot-doggers" and complained about them). >>>> >>>>Which "we" are you talking about? >>> >>>I'm one of them. It's possible to flourish responsibly, but that is >>>often not the case. [...] >> >>My point/snark was that using "we" as Alan did implies a kind of >>agreement that I think is vastly overgeneralizing here. As I wrote in >>the part of my post you elided, this has long been a source of tension >>across multiple dance communities, I'd bet it probably goes back hundreds >>or thousands of years. >> >>Your point about people disrupting the dance with flourishes is >>appropriate, but I don't think that making grandiose statements about >>community attitudes toward flourishes helps any. > > Ah, I thought you were saying "Alan doesn't speak for me" while I now > think you're saying "Alan doesn't have the right to speak for the > entire community." So I will clarify that across a fairly broad swath > of Bay Area callers, dance organizers, and volunteers in the late > 1980s, "hot-dogging" and "hot-doggers" were fairly standard terms, and > they referred to people who did flourishes to the possible detriment > of the overall dance - showy swing dance balances that intruded into > other dancers spaces, men cranking women around in twirls, swinging > extra-long and being late for the next figure, grabbing neighbors > nonconsensually for a swing in the middle of the hey, not taking hands > along long lines and instead one partner drops the other partner to > the floor and picks (her, usually) up, a guy who used to literally > pick women up and put them on his shoulder for lines of four down the > hall. "We" (Bay area dance organizers, callers, and volunteers I > talked to in the late 1980s) called it hot-dogging and considered it a > problem.
Okay, it was not at all clear from your original post that you were talking about a subset of flourishes, specifically ones disrupting the dance. > Over the years the flourish baseline has adjusted, we don't hear a > lot about hot-dogging, and so on. But *I* internally still feel > that no other dancer should do anything to me without at least my > implied consent that keeps me from following the callers directions, > no other dancer should rob me of agency (and the stupid "make an arch > instead of R&L thru" thing is asymmetrical, keeps me from following > the directions, and doesn't give me a way to decline), everybody > should release their neighbors or partners in time to dance with me > on time, and should dance in a way that shows awareness and at least > minimal consideration of the people around them. > > If you disagree with that, let's discuss it. But I haven't seen you > dance in a way that looks like you disagree with it. Overall I agree; I try to maintain awareness of other dancers around me and avoid flourishes that will affect anyone who either doesn't want or isn't prepared to deal with them. However, I'm indeed guilty of the arch on R&L thru. ;-) I like it because it permits the more balanced twirling of a California twirl (I think it's easier for the man to twirl with a California twirl than the standard courtesy turn because of the forward movement). -- Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/ <*> <*> <*> Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html
