On Wed, Oct 04, 2017, Jeremy Child via Callers wrote: > > I have a question for anyone who calls or dances Gender Free MWSD (by > Gender Free I mean where no assumptions are made about what role a dancer > will take based on their gender).
For pedantic reasons, I'll note that MWSD doesn't use the term "gender free", it's called "gay square dancing". > MWSD is unique amongst folk dancing in that dancers need to know the role > being danced by others in the square (if I'm a "boy" and the call is "boys > trade", I need to know who the other boy in my line / wave is in order to > do the call). Callers also need to track gender because there are some gendered calls. They're not necessarily what you might think. For example, if you're calling Mainstream, Right & Left Thru is a gendered call. > So to my question: How do the dancers identify which roles the other people > are dancing? Traditionally this is done with dancers taking the opposite > role to their gender wearing bands, but that is surely inappropriate if the > dance is GF. Bands are especially useless when you're gender-swapping in a square, just like contra. (And yes, I often gender-swap in square dancing, as do a lot of other people, mostly in gay square-dance circles but a few coming primarily from straight club backgrounds.) > Also, if any MWSD clubs are using truly non-gendered terms, please let me > know. As a caller and dancer, I really can't imagine switching to gender-free terminology in MWSD. Contra works because standardization of vocabulary matters much less when you teach each dance before starting, and it's easy to switch between gendered and gender-free dances. MWSD requires a deep realtime link between muscle memory and the auditory command loop. There's also Salsa Rueda de Casino, I know almost nothing about it (and really nothing about gender management) but I know a couple of people I could ask. -- Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/ <*> <*> <*> Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html _______________________________________________ List Name: Callers mailing list List Address: [email protected] Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
