Hi all, And thanks Louise for articulating the issue so clearly and kindly. However, I’m aware that Maia asked specifically that we avoid devolving into a thread about gendered dance roles and once again we have. Can we take this off thread? Kat K already started an alternate thread — I’ll go give that bump.
>From my perspective, insisting on dancing with someone even though they have selected another partner and ignoring initial requests to stick to the thread’s topic come from similar places (of valuing one’s own preferences over community priorities). Let’s not do either! Tanya H. Merchant On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 08:54 Alan J Rosenthal via Contra Callers < [email protected]> wrote: > I believe it's traditional that the roles have been *called* "woman" and > "man", but I don't believe that it's traditional that they have always > been *actually* danced by people of the specified gender. For example, > I think that there's a long history of gender-segregated dance where > people are all [believed to be] one particular gender and they all dance > together, half of them taking each dance role. Sometimes for practice > before they dare to be seen dancing by the "opposite" sex at the fancy > ball; > sometimes because of sex-phobia under a presumption of heterosexuality. > And plenty of other reasons that people have not adhered to the gender > designations for the roles, for a long time. > > regards, > ajr, dancing in and near Toronto, Canada > > p.s. I like the young people's saying that "tradition is just peer > pressure from dead people". If doing something the way we've always > done it is fun for everyone and connects you to people at other times > and places, that's cool. But if your response to the question (this is > a quotation) "if I show up at [that dance] with my boyfriend, how will > people react?" is "well, you'll be required to dance exclusively with > women as partners all night because that's the way we've always done it", > then that's not cool, and your dance community will continue to shrink. > _______________________________________________ > Contra Callers mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >
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