I have SO much to say about this but it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. 

pervyanon:

bristolswing:

dustandrain:

I only realised that I had idealised the Lindy Hop community way too much after experiencing an international event. I’ve never felt as disappointed as I did after I met teachers who thought jokes on the account of gay people were oh so funny. It’s not okay from anyone, but somehow the fact that those were the people I should learn from made it worse… 

Sometimes I wonder how much of it is actually the fault of “Lindy culture”. We like to recall the “golden age”, by which we mean the fashion, the music, the dance. It makes me think of how much of the way of thinking from that time seeps through, as well. It’s not only the male=lead, female=follow dichotomy that still prevails.  You may say that that’s untrue because there’s an exception: The loophole that women may lead. But on the other hand men who follow are immediately suspected of lack of masculinity, so this argument has to be taken with a grain of salt. I’ll always remember Jo telling us girls that learning to lead would improve our dancing, but noone ever told the men that learning to follow might just expand their horizon as well. 

We follow a very specific pattern while dancing, in which the lead has to be masculine, and the follow feminine. 

The “love me or leave me” routine by Thomas and Max (that went kind of viral on youtube a couple of years ago?) was so lovely because it broke with that pattern, the revival I witnessed at SSS last winter was so horrible to me because Thomas visibly and over the top ”gayed it up”, played a character that was effeminate and ridiculously so. It’s the same with women couples where the lead is trying super hard to appear masculine, it’s unnecessary and sometimes looks awkward… (by which I don’t mean to say that being masculine as a female lead, and being effeminate as a male follow is not okay: If that is who you are, do it. Just don’t let yourself be pressured into something that you’re not, in either case…)

I guess, what I want is for the dance-roles and the gender-roles to separate: I want masculine people to be able to dance follow, and I want them to be able to dance lead, and I want feminine people to have those opportunities as well. I want everybody to find the part in dancing they feel most comfortable with, no matter what sex or gender or sexuality they may have. 

Needs reblogging. I think I saw a video of Max & Thomas doing it again recently too (may have been the same performance you saw first hand), and was equally frustrated by the camping-up of the performance - especially as Max has also performed some straight-up male-male performances.

I’ve been told I lead like a boy, not like a girl - which I think is meant as a compliment, but I’m not entirely sure how to take it.

Essentially it does still seem “funny” for men to follow, and even “funnier” when two men dance together (as opposed to a man and a woman dancing but reversing roles) - which I don’t think it’s right.

Society as a whole is still a bit confused by males and females though - us ladies can dress really androgynously or even all-out masculinely without anyone batting an eyelid, and yet men dressing in a feminine manner is inherently “funny”. I am myself guilty of thinking this way - and it’s not helped by men camping it up when they’re dressed as women and actively trying to be silly (just in case somebody might think they actually /are/ gay, oh noes end of the world).

BUT the times they are a-changing, several men at my usual dance place now dance together (though they’re still a little shy about dancing blues this way!), with some even attending classes as follows, and of course we have several girls who lead. It just takes a while for these winds of change to sweep through…

I’m going to be so disappointed the day I encounter a homophobic scene, because every place I have ever danced at over the last two years has been incredibly accepting and even encouraging of same-sex dancing and role switching. In my scene it’s encouraged for everyone to learn to lead and follow. During jam circles there is almost always a same-sex couple and everyone always screams the loudest for them. Sadly, we still live in an incredibly homophobic world, and so eventually you’re going to run into homophobic swing dancers. We’ve just got to be louder than them. 

My original comment on the video wasn’t to say that the swing scene is -incredibly- homophobic, but I think we as Lindy Hoppers always assume that Lindy Hoppers are somehow magically good and open-minded people, when they can be just as dodgy as everyone else.  

I also hate when people insist that dancing the non-traditional role tooootally doesn’t imply anything about their sexuality. But what if they are gay?

I also think it’s probably easier to be accepted as a female lead if you present yourself in a feminine (i.e. non-threatening) way…

(Source: tangledletters)

Swing Jesus! 

As unfortunate as it is, she’s dead-on. Men will have a hard time seeing a female lead as a role model, I think. Dogpossum might disagree. Maybe I’m just not sufficiently awesome enough. Women usually get the surprised “you are a really good lead (…for a girl)” compliments, but can they inspire men to take up swing dancing, or become inspirations to male leads? As with other things, I think they would have to be ridiculously amazing and work twice as hard as a male lead.

 I could really use a Swing Jesus in my scene…

(Source: bobbicharleston)

dancequeer:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF63E8D051C4BE683

A playlist of excellent lindy hoppers, where women act as the ‘lead’ and men the ‘follow’.  They are all same-sex dance partnerships - videos of women leading men seem to be harder to find.

(Source: sarahsellaphix)

- Follow does something that’s meant to be “sexy”, emphasising bum/boobs (e.g. shimmy, tabby the cat) - whooping

- Lead imitates it (without really trying) - for laughs

or alternatively (mostly group routines):

- Follows get to do something ‘sexy’/twee

- Leads get to do something impressive/skillful

EVERY DAMN TIME. Yaaaaawn.

Come on people, Lindy Hop can say more interesting things than this.

ETA: On an afterthought, I think it’s pretty hard to break out of this, though - because gender stereotypes might cause us to read the same movement in different ways.

Some more observations on skewed ratios and their effects by Lindy Hop Variations for Followers.

I think it’s probably not been discussed much on blogs because the US do not seem to have the problem of follower-heavy events to the same extent, and most lindy bloggers seem to live in the US. That’s just the impression I got from the things I’ve heard; I’ve never danced in the US. Many of them are also male and/or very experienced dancers, so probably don’t tend to encounter the problem on a personal level.

As far as suggestions go, there’s not much I can think of, short of smashing the patriarchy changing rigid gender roles and how dancing is perceived. Encouraging women leaders and making them feel validated should help as well.

A commenter mentions learning to lead out of necessity, which led to her following even less because a lot of women would refuse to learn how to lead and instead ask them while still dancing with all the (full-time male) leads. My experience has actually been the opposite - I would be flattered if people asked me to lead them more! Only a few close friends ever ask, and I have to do most of the asking myself, which leads to me not practising my leading enough. I see this happening to other female leads in my scene, too. Then again, my home scene is actually not too bad when it comes to the lead/follow ratio, but I’m starting to get the “big fish in a small pond” feeling, so I want and need to travel when i can afford it.

So I went to an event a little while ago. Usually you always read how travelling for dancing will make you more passionate about the dance yadda yadda. Whereas this event pretty much destroyed my dancing mojo.

This is about the icky feeling of having to compete for leads with other follows. More often than not, I was asked for a second dance by wonderful leads, but over the whole weekend I probably got asked to dance no more than five times. Rationally, I know this is not because everyone hates me, but because all free leads get snapped two seconds into a song due to the imbalance (this is also why I didn’t enjoy the social side of Herräng very much). I hate what it does to my state of mind - often the eagerness to please takes precedence over fun or establishing a true partnership.

I like leading, but due to the whole men lead/women follow thing, I always have to make myself known to follows by asking them. I’m also an OK lead (you know, “for a girl”) with fairly solid basics and musicality, but I don’t have a huge range of moves, nor am I able to lead super fast swing outs. There’s still the nagging feeling that I’m second best, somehow. I would ask more women to dance, but unless you know them, how do you know they lead? Plus, they often tend to be amazing follows as well who have no problem getting dances. Even at home, there is really only one person who regulary asks me to lead.

Maybe we should introduce the whole wristband thing…

Also: leads who are not necessarily creepy but make it very clear that they will only dance with the super hottest follows? Do not want. I say this as a young, semi-conventionally attractive woman.

Another side of it is that I don’t feel like I’m improving anymore. Oh no, it’s the dreaded plateau! Sometimes I have amazing and playful dances, but most of the time things are a bit meh. I’ve been trying to implement things I was told in a private a couple of months ago but it does not seem to be making a difference. Sigh….

One thing that has been given me more joy than anything else lately is solo dancing, so I’ll be trying to focus on that, and encourage more people to do it with me. No one to please but myself, not being a vessel to express someone else’s vision of a song but my own, taking risks that don’t affect anyone but me. I think that’s what I need right now.

New York Worlds Fair (by twobarbreak)

A longer version of the 1939 World’s Fair clip

I knew subscribing to Peter Loggins’ youtube channel would pay off someday…