[Tango-L] [OT] Men|Women|Dancing Ability [WAS Re: Don't blame your follower]

[Carol Shepherd]

Interesting.  I get to the same conclusion (boys weren't encouraged to 
develop dance skills) but by a different explanation.

Huck Kennedy wrote:
 >
 >      Now let's get to the truth of the matter--any
 > advantage women have in dancing comes from their being
 > shunted off to dance class at an early age, while the
 > boys were playing sports and/or running around in the
 > woods with toy guns pretending to be on army patrol.
 > The idea that women somehow "have more of an inherent
 > musicality in their bodies" than men is patent nonsense.
 >
 > Huck
 > _______________________________________________

Most girls in my neighborhood were shunted off to gymnastics, tennis 
camp, piano lessons and karate self-defense classes.  Some got dance 
training but maybe they didn't stay with it because a ballet instructor 
swatted their legs with a wooden blackboard pointer to the point of 
making welts, like mine did.  (And I still dance.)  Some went on for 
lots of ballet, jazz, tap, etc. but not many.  I come from a US 
middle-class suburban background; other social strata would be 
different, my uncle made everyone on the farm learn square dancing and 
two-step.

I don't think dance lessons have anything to do with the fact that, if 
you go to a random WASP wedding** or other event with a dance floor and 
a band, you will see almost every woman not in a wheelchair out on the 
dance floor at some point, but only a minority of the men.  (**This 
observation doesn't apply to the many ethnic and cultural groups in the 
US which have continuously valued dancing and partner dancing, including 
African American culture.)

I would say the difference in US male/female dance skill is more 
attributable to changes in pop culture.  In the 60's everyone started 
hopping around to the Beatles and Motown rather than partner dancing. 
Parents didn't bother to teach the kids because the kids were not 
interested in anything that wasn't a complete break from tradition.  The 
mid 70's brought in this era of machismo where it was all of a sudden 
extremely unmasculine for the boys to hop around.  Also, along with the 
machismo was this hyperreal seriousness invested in one's coolness and 
badness, at every waking moment.  Guys would not admit that they liked 
to dance, that was an invitation to be ridiculed and humiliated.   Plus 
if they looked a little goofy trying do something, it was the end of the 
universe.  I realize that men are always under pressure to perform well 
and this creates great anxiety about dancing and leading, but I am 
talking about a cultural phenomenon far more extreme.

Boys were only allowed to express themselves to music in that era in 
limited ways.  If they liked music they would invariably buy an electric 
guitar and form a rock band with their buddies.  Hence the universal 
adoration of rock stars and the popularity of Guitar Hero I, II and III. 
  My school dances were filled with power rock, boys huddled on one side 
of the room showing each other their killer air guitar performances to 
Stairway to Heaven and Smoke On the Water, and girls hopping around in 
groups to some of the power rock and then going off to the bathroom or 
out to smoke during the extended guitar solos.  Disco came in, had a 
brief heyday and made it OK for men to dance and then was satirized and 
rejected overwhelmingly by macho WASP culture (a wooden cache of disco 
records was exploded in Chicago by radio jock Steve Dahl at a baseball 
game, turning the crowd into a mob burning records and smashing disco 
mirror balls in the stands, in the rock concert equivalent of a soccer 
riot.  People came from all over the country to attend this).

Largely for the above reasons, I think, a large age group of men 
spanning many eras, just aren't comfortable with dancing.  And they 
cringe when they see the guys on 'Dancing With The Stars' wearing 
spandex and gliding around...no matter how masterful and powerful the 
dancing might be.  Everyone my dad's age dances.  Nobody my brother's 
age dances.  The men I know between 25 and 55 who dance are a distinct 
minority.  At least two thirds of the men I know in this age group who 
dance were not born here.

And then came that Gap commercial with some manly aerial throwing around 
of girls to manly jump blues music.  Some US kids decided partner 
dancing was interesting.  I know dozens of men under 25 who think it's 
cool to dance even if they don't.  At some point many of them go out and 
learn basic swing and salsa so they can dance a little bit.  And there's 
Dance Dance Revolution: one of my middle-aged friends recently said that 
he was very happy that the arcade game made it "okay" for his son to 
learn to enjoy dancing.

Men from other cultures seem to be much more comfortable with themselves 
in relation to dancing.  And back to Huck's point, a lot of schools in 
other countries *do* require learning partner dancing at some point.

CS


I think the body slamming in punk music and grunge rock made dancing 
acceptably masculine again in the US.  The knife fighting and foot 
swipes cited in the endless debates about some of the elements of tango 
seem to me to be an interesting parallel to the violence in punk.  (I'm 
not saying the aesthetic is at all similar or appealing, I'm not saying 
knife fighting is the same as slam dancing, I'm not saying punk music is 
as worthy as tango music, and I am not inviting this to become Yet 
Another 'origins of tango' thread or an 'expressions of outrage against 
any comparison between punk and tango' thread.)

-- 
Carol Ruth Shepherd
Arborlaw PLC
Ann Arbor MI USA
734 668 4646 v  734 786 1241 f
http://arborlaw.com

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