In modern Lindy Hop, most people’s entrance into the community is through a class. I think perhaps Back In The Day, you just got out on the floor and learned ‘in the wild’. But Nowadays, instructors rule our world.
Good and bad, right? I think having instructors as the leaders gives Lindy Hop an attitude of constant learning and sharing. Education is at the root of our gatherings so frequently. (Think how often classes are involved in events and weekends.) I think the more we learn how to dance, the better language/tools we have to dance awesome and collaborate.
But on the other hand, with so much influence and power in the hands of instructors – they are the faces and the voices of how to dance, how to act, how to look - they can perpetuate a lot of negative things, maybe codifying a certain technique as Correct when it could essentially be a fad, or propagating harmful stereotypes about dancers or style. (This is why Sarah Breck took so much heat for her comments about high heels – she has clout as a travelling performer and teacher and there was an expectation that her advice would be of higher quality than many people thought it was.)
Also consider the monopoly teachers have on our world. The same people who are teaching at an event are also judging the competitions.
I’ve watched dance classes with eyes on the instruction for many years and my impression is that many of the teachers don’t seem to acknowledge the incredible influence they have on their students in terms of attitude and community initiation. Or perhaps they do understand their influence, but not how their words and actions affect their students.
From a 30 minute pre-dance crash course, to Masters classes at major events, our dance teachers are teaching us more than moves. By their example and their language they teach their students how to relate to Lindy Hop and to each other.
For most Lindy Hoppers, an instructor has at least for some time served as a role-model. I think it begins with admiration of their dancing, but it can easily carry over to behavior, fashion, attitudes about the purpose of Lindy Hop, and how their gender is performed in the swing scene’s context.
Other than just being a dancer, my identity in this dance (and in life) is as a facilitator and teacher. I have been teaching locally in Iowa and Nebraska for about 7 years and I love it and want to do more. I acknowlege and embrace my special role as gatekeeper to the community. I want to be the one to show people how amazing Lindy Hop is, and how they can and should make their own path, and be the best person/dancer they can be here. I want women and men to know that they don’t have to conform to a single way of gender performance; I want them to know that Lindy Hop is for everyone.
So the central issue of my discussion: How do teachers treat negative stereotypes of gender in Lindy Hop? What unhealthy attitudes could they normalizing about social dancing, our community and the way men and women ought to behave?
Words
At the most basic level, an instructors’ words can normalize the idea that women are automatically follows and men are automatically leads. ”All men stand over here, women over there.” “Ladies, I want to see good footwork!” ”Lead like the men you are! With purpose! Conviction!” An instructor can make a very different impression if they remove gendered definitions for their dancers. Just stick to ‘lead’ and ‘follow’ and give the dancer the freedom to define their own gender. Our dance roles might be binary, but our gender isn’t. Start right away in that beginner class – when asking students to divide up for footwork, use our lead/follow vocabulary. And allow people to choose their own partners for those first couple minutes – they’ll partner in the way that’s most comfortable and natural to them.
Something wild to try could be letting the students try both sides during the course of the lesson. It’s not so much a problem of instruction (how to teach both sides?) but of people-moving and organization (how do accomplish my goals with these space and time challenges?). Logistically, we’re not at all used to that format in the very formulaic classes we see, but c’mon – we’re creative and flexible dancers. I think we can figure something out.
On a more serious line of discussion, I’ve heard some really rotten things said to beginners, apparently with the intention to lighten the mood, or simply a concept. Not only do I see instructors frequently gender their instruction, they sexualize it, normalizing a very hetero and inequitable relationship of dance partners to each other.
That sad explanation of leading and following along the lines of, “Gentlemen, you are the leads in this dance! Finally, you’re in change of something in your relationship.” And everyone laughs nervously.
Or when discussion were that hand on the back goes, or how to avoid the ‘Accidental Boob Grap’ how it becomes about men having to tip-toe around the women lest they get slapped and labeled as a creeper. There are MUCH better reasons we hold the back where we do, and for the follow to turn to face the lead on the swing out – connection! And that reason is frankly a thousand times more useful than a stupid joke about sex and stereotypes. (EDIT: And I must add as per Dog Possum’s recent post about sexual abuse on the dance floor, these jokes don’t actually raise any awareness of advocating for your own boundaries and dignity – they make inappropriate contact a joke.)
What’s so frustrating is that in many of these examples, I know that the instructor is probably just making a joke and they don’t really perceive their partners or themselves that way. (Or maybe they do?) But what they don’t realize is that their students are taking it all in. They are in an unfamiliar environment and they really really want to fit in. They want to do everything right, they want to know how to behave and they’re going to look to their instructors for clues about what’s expected and appropriate in this community. The students do, on some level, take these jokes for serious.
Class Content
Dance content for leads always seems to contain the elements of the analytic ‘male’ mind – very technique driven – it’s about what you do, it’s about the content. Follow instruction is typically more ‘soft’ in that the technique is less concrete, if any technique is discussed at all. The role of the follow in class is often to ‘not think’, as so many teachers describe following especially in beginner classes.
Following is extremely technical as I’ve experienced it – Lindy Hop is a very technical dance. Even in a beginner class we could start introducing the typically female experience of following as a deep, active experience. Talk to them about adapting their footwork clearly, about matching and activating points of connection, how to turn and keep your balance. But instead so much of what I see all the way through all the skill levels is an emphasis on how follows should look. Recently at Hawkeye Swing Fest back in April, they scheduled a class that was one whole hour of how Nina Gilkenson swivels. Attendance was maxed out. In the same block of time? The Leads were invited to Everything Leads Need to Know with Andy Reid, a class that talked about connection, rhythm, line and composing movements. Ass-shaking for the ladies. Learning to dance for the men. (From what I hear, the swivel class was a pretty candid self-assessment by Nina – ‘I belly dance, so my swivels are affected by the muscles and techniques I take from that. That’s my influence. That’s my body. So let’s do some of that.’) (Did not get a low-down account of Andy’s class.) What concerns me isn’t what Nina and Andy chose to do in their classes (because the class schedule is often lined up by event organizers), it concerns me that these two classes were set opposite each other as equal.
The primary content for follows should not be formulaic variations, their primary mode of contribution should not simply be the open part of a swing-out. They participate in every moment – we should teach about every moment. We should teach them how to add their creative input and contribute equally to the dance.
Don’t make swivels a sexual performance for the lead to watch, as a reward for all their hard work coming up with all the moves. Please, please, please. That is weird as hell. I hear that said in classes all the time and I’m aghast. Please don’t say that stuff. Don’t make follows for that.
Using words like ‘hijack’ and ‘backleading’ give the impression that a follow’s initiations are destructively disruptive when they really aren’t. We should treat follow moves exactly like lead moves and do our best to include them as frequently as possible.
Who Is Teaching
Almost always, the teachers for a dance class are a male lead and a female follow. This does make an impression. This does show students that women progress to excel only as follows and males progress to excel only as leads. It’s not wrong for a women to become an excellent dedicated follow, but the status quo sort of… begets more of that. Without alternate examples of role-models it can be more difficult for new dancers to see that the other options out there really are viable. That’s why all the dancers in this YouTube playlist are so cool – it shows people rocking hard in the ‘other’ role. Shows it can be done and be all badass.
This is also why I was so stoked to see what was called the Leading Ladies workshop in Seattle Washington. Rebecca DecaVita and Kelly Porter – two accomplished female leads – invited women in the area to come learn to lead Lindy Hop.
*Strange Footnote
I think me and Dog Possom were on some strange extra-universe wavelenth. Just as I’ve been working through writing this post, Possum comes up with a great article about Sexual Abuse in the dance community and has a paragraph on this very topic I’m addressing.
Dance classes are important. Dance classes are a key point in the socialising of new dancers. How do the male lead and female follower model appropriate behaviour on and off the dance floor? Who does most of the talking in class? Who interrupts who, and how often, and how? Who makes the jokes? Who’s the butt of the joke? What type of jokes are they? Is there sexualised talk or joking? What sort of language do teachers use to refer to gender or to leading and following? What analogies do they use? How do they dress? How old are they? What are their relative ages? Where are they teaching? What material are they teaching? Who are the dancers they mention?
I especially like the part that mentions what other dancers they reference. We hear a lot about Al Minns, Leon James, Frankie Manning, Dean Collins, but we hear significantly less about the mothers of our dance. Luckily Bobby White and Dog Possum are setting us straight!
What Now?
I don’t want this post to be so much of a You Are All Bad Stoppit as a We Can Do Great Things For Students Of Lindy Hop. We can make class more valuable and build a more accessible, welcoming community by looking at the role of instructors in our scene and using their powers for good. We don’t want our instructors to fall back on the traditional dance teacher models we might take from ballroom dancing or Olden Times, formats and ideals that make light of important issue, ignore the diversity of our dancing population, and ultimately give new dancers the wrong idea.
We want our instructors to see the influence they have and be creative and purposeful with how they teach and how they behave in a class situation.
Tagged with: feminism • Lindy Hop
“There are MUCH better reasons we hold the back where we do, and for the follow to turn to face the lead on the swing out – connection!” – Amen to this! The language we use and the jokes we make send very clear signals about our values in the dance. This alone could keep an instructor engaged and improving for a lifetime. Nice article!
I always find these “Lindy Hop is too gender-normative” posts focus on the women.
Do you know any guys who seriously want to become primary follows? I know one in the whole of Europe. He’s a superb follow (although leads in Balboa) but he’s also famously camp. This isn’t a coincidence.
Girls are comfortable dancing with each other, guys are not.
No amount of language in class will change that.
If you ask a class of total beginners to pair up without mentioning gender, sure some girls will pair up, but very few guys will. And they’ll be looking forward to rotating to a girl as soon as possible.
Am I saying you can’t get away from sexual roles when considering physical interaction between genders? Broadly: yes, I am saying that.
Or, at least, the solution involves a lot more than the language used in class.
In parts of the Indian subcontinent, male friends hold hands walking down the street. In the west they don’t. Until they do, this is all a bit of a waste of time.
I beg to differ with you. Change has to start somewhere, why not with teaching? Why give up so quickly? And why don’t more males who want to follow speak up? Maybe because dance leadership doesn’t ?
Yes, I do know some men who’re keen to become serious followers. I also know men who just want to learn to follow because they want to Learn All The Things. I know women who want to learn to follow for the same reason. I also know plenty of women who are dead set on being serious leads. I know gay men who come to dance classes with their husbands, I know gay women who come to dance classes with zero interest in dancing with men. And I know plenty of students who don’t really give a shit about gender or sexuality – they’re just there to have a bunch of fun once a week for an hour or two. Humans: they are seriously complicated creatures. Thank fuck. If we were all the same, we’d be too boring for words.
I know there are good arguments for dancers learning to lead and follow, but in my opinion the one thing men in Anglophile cultures need to learn to solo dance, because they are well behind the eight ball when it comes to dancing. Brothers need to learn to move their arses before they even touch another person. Women tend to pwn men as beginners because they’re already used to dancing on their own. So quit worrying about whether women leading or men following will fuck up society – get your arse out on that dance floor and work nine hundred times harder so you can actually get to the point where you’re ready to dance with a partner. Of any gender. Right from the get-go, my friends, men are disadvantaged by conventional gender norms. Because they do not know how to dance on their own before they get to lindy hop.
At the moment I’ve decided to commit to leading almost exclusively because I’ve realised that that’s what I need to do to level up as a lead. I need to lead as much as possible, and following reduces the amount of time I spend leading. I still like following, and I love solo dance.
I teach a class as a lead, with a woman (I’m a woman too :D). We have female leads, male leads, female follows, and male follows in our lindy hop class. Then we have a second class which is all solo dance (at the moment). Again, this class is taught by two women.
I’m very disappointed that we haven’t already toppled the patriarchy, made women infertile or exploded testicles with our classes. I had been led to believe that these things were all inevitable if I taught as a lead.
At the end of the day, students come to a class (and stay with that class) because they like the class vibe – the other people in the group, the teachers’, they way everyone interacts, the venue, the location of the venue, the cost of drinks at the venue. So far I’ve realised that how much music I play is more important than what I say, whether I dance in the circle with students is more important than whether I use gender neutral language, and how much respect I give my partner is more important than whether or not I have a dick.
Respect all students, respect your partner, use gender neutral language because it’ll make you a better teacher, play lots of music and aim to talk less during class. Lindy hop is awesome, and it’ll be mind blowingly awesome if we open our brains a bit and make our scenes more welcoming and inclusive. If we carry on pretending there is and has only ever been one way of being a man and one way of being a woman and that these ways should never change, we’ll never really have brilliant scenes, and our dancing will never really reach its potential. I aim to be fucking excellent, as excellent as I can, and I’m sure as shit not going to let ridiculously wrong ideas about what men and women are capable of stop me trying. And I see it as my responsibility to the hoomans around me to support them in their efforts to be equally excellent.
What an interesting blog post. I agree with some of what you’re saying. Teachers should always be aware of the influnce they have because even local teachers in tiny scenes become role models for everyone in their scene. At the same time dancers should be discouraged from putting teachers on a pedastle and encouraged to see them as regular people who are just as shy and socially awkward as other dancers and often still learning themselves.
I also believe in using gender neutral terms in all classes and that we shouldn’t necessarily encourage all men to start as leaders by default and all women to start as followers. I learned to dance in the US and have now lived in the UK for nearly two years. It’s quite a different expereince because there are some many more women than men in European scenes so you see a lot more women leading even in beginner classes. We often have female/female teaching pairs for our weekly drop in lessons.
Personally I infinitely prefer following to leading but I’m not a super girlie follow so I love that people like Frida Segerdahl exist so that when I started dancing I had someone to look up to who was more badass than sexy. I think the best way to change the gender stereotyping issue is for more of us to find our own styles that are more than just cookie cutter copies of other dancers because there are lots of ways to be awesome!
“At the same time dancers should be discouraged from putting teachers on a pedastle and encouraged to see them as regular people who are just as shy and socially awkward as other dancers and often still learning themselves.”
I totally agree with this. Great thought.
I read posts like this and wonder: Is it really that bad if Lindy Hop tends to emphasize different roles for different genders? It often seems to me that for many people, part of the appeal of Lindy Hop and other social dances is that they do emphasize (for lack of a better word) “traditional” roles for ladies and gentlemen. Or to put it another way, Lindy Hop is a space where both ladies and gentlemen can enjoy playing those roles without anyone thinking that there’s anything unusual or inappropriate about it. (They can, of course, also enjoy playing nontraditional roles.)
While people today generally realize that there were (and are) many shortcomings associated with traditional roles for men and women, that doesn’t mean that everyone wants to abandon everything about those roles.
I personally do think it is really ‘that bad’ if Lindy Hop emphasizes specific gender roles, because one size does not fit all.
We all perform our gender (or not) in many different ways, and Lindy Hop should be more open to that. Frankly, that’s why I was drawn to swing dancing in the first place. Of all the dances I saw that I could try, swing was the one that didn’t outright seem to expect me to behave like a sexy lady.
I don’t want everyone to abandon everything – I want a space where people can freely choose and still be included.
Thank you for your comment. :)
Firstly – great article.
Teachers will often blame the lead by default when a move goes wrong – but as you say there is a LOT to following; learning to hang back, not anticipating, keeping tone in our arms and body but knowing when to relax them at the right time, matching our lead’s frame, keeping ourselves safe, stepping through turns though occasionally spinning AND on top of all of that, keeping the rhythm and footwork going regardless, whether it’s 6 or 8 beat, being able to switch between the two upon ‘feeling’ it’s right to do so. Phew.
OK, so followers don’t learn patterns, but they need to learn a behaviour, a manner, a way of holding ourselves. I would argue that’s just as hard as laying down moves into memory.
Finally, in response to Will, I know quite a lot of male leads, not particularly effeminate ones, who would totally like to be able to follow!
Some are just the give-it-a-go type who put themselves into follow position with me, I lead them and they screw up a lot as they’re not used to not being in control.
Some dance together and have fun switching their roles, testing the water (though this can be frustrating for the many, many female follows sitting out waiting for a dance).
Some are making a concerted effort, closing their eyes to negate the anticipation, actively trying to get better, considering attending classes as follow. These are the ones who keep switching lead/follow with me within a tune, and make the dances REALLY good fun (if a little nerve-wracking)!
Though as yet I’ve never been in a class where we’ve had a male follow. It won’t be long though, I suspect.
Ambidancetrousness is the way forward. It’s coming :)
I always get exasperated when I read some of the responses to these posts. To me, it seems like you are arguing for a more inclusive swing dance community, not trying to alienate anyone who prefers traditional gender roles.
Sometimes I like ‘just’ following, sometimes I like being an expressive follow, sometimes I like to lead. Sometimes, all in the space of one song. But right now, I feel that the ideal of how to be a woman in Lindy Hop is pretty narrow, and not all of these options are seen as equally valid.
ANYWAY.
I’m going to start teaching soon, and I’m pretty terrified of the responsibility. I’m already in a position where people look to me as a representative of Lindy Hop, and teaching will only make this more intense.
My first teachers were very ‘traditional’, and there was lots of heterosexual innuendo, and lots of ‘this styling is for the followers, unless you want to look very camp’, and using male pronouns for the leaders despite the presence of female leaders (apparently it’s ‘hard’ to use gender-neutral pronouns…). As someone who likes to take classes as a lead as well, everytime teachers reinforce the idea that leaders are male by using male pronouns etc., I feel a little alienated and somehow illegitimate, even if that is not the teacher’s intention. And this is coming from a Lindy Hopper. Imagine how beginners must feel!
So I’m scared of replicating this because I’ve taken most of my beginners classes with them, and then mostly learned on the social dance floor. There’s probably no better way than trying to be very aware of how I teach.
I’m not sure letting people partner up by themselves would work, because most come to partner dancing with the preconception that a man and a woman “have” to dance together, and this could pose a problem for those coming to a class wanting to learn the non-traditional role. E.g. it’s time to partner up and a woman wants to lead. A man approaches her, then gets offended when she doesn’t want to dance with him…
Maybe explaining the different roles first, and having them try simple connection exercises could help determine which role they prefer? If you find it easier to initiate and your partner can feel you clearly, you might want to try leading, if you find it easier to pick up your partner’s weight changes and how much stretch/compression they want, maybe try following.
This won’t undo years of heteronormative baggage, but it’s a start.
“I’m going to start teaching soon, and I’m pretty terrified of the responsibility.”
I think just that fact that you’re aware that the way to teach matters as much as what you teach puts you in a position to be reflective.
I often go back after a class and ask myself, or a trusted observer what I can do better. Often it’s ‘talk less’ but other times it was – did I give enough time to the follows? Did I use any words I might not have intended to use? Because they are habits, sometimes, and can be hard to break.
Good luck. I think you’re right though – it’s a start.
(Oh! Forgot to mention – I love Fuckyeah! Been following for ages.)
I’ve always taken classes and workshops as a lead, and I taught as a lead. When it comes to gender neutral terms, there were times that I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to respond to ‘guy’ or ‘man.’ I always thought that it was funny.
I make a point of saying that I am a lead who follows instead of a follow who leads, even when I dance both roles evenly. It’s a mindset, I think. As an instructor, a female lead throws some beginners, especially when they come into dancing with heteronormative expectations of what the dance looks like. I’m told that it can be intimidating for new male leads, learning from a female instructor.
That being said, when we go to exchanges, my club has the only registered female leads, and that throws people every time. I can’t say how many times follows rotate to me and are confused when I tell them I’m a lead. On a related note, many follows, surprised, say “You’re a really good lead!” with the silent “for a girl.” It is as if I shouldn’t be as good as a man by virtue of being a woman.
One time at a workshop, there were an excess of leads in the class (gasp! This never happens!) and the instructors told me that I had to follow because I was a girl and there were too many leads. I found this to be insulting, like my leading was not worth as much as their leading. I walked out of that lesson.
Lindy has a very steep learning curve as it is, without navigating gender landmines. We can all be better teachers.
Really enjoyed reading about your experiences as a woman who leads. That instructor should have not put the burden of balancing the class upon you! Perhaps he could have offered the option to any of the leads in the room or just dealt with the imbalance.
I think one reason people are sometimes surprised that a women can lead well is that there is a mistaken idea that strength is an important part of leading. You can power-lead, but I think most leads will say that muscling through moves is kind of the wrong way to do it.
Wow…this is a really interesting post. I really like it, and there’s so much in here I want to comment on. I especially like that you’re drawing attention to the way that small comments can shape the culture of a dance scene, and potentially make people feel much more or less comfortable.
This post reminded me of something that happened recently. I attended an event recently with a large number of LGBTQ people present, and someone there described the swing dance scene as “heteronormative”. I thought about it, and I actually agreed with them to a large degree…outside of bisexual females, I think that LGBTQ people seem to be less represented in swing dance than they do in other social circles in which I hang out. However, when I brought this up with other swing dancers, they brushed the comment off. I find it hard to brush it off though, especially because I also contra dance, and I’ve found that contra dance seems much more friendly of gender-bending in general…and, at a typical contra, relative to a typical lindy-hop dance, there seems to be (a) far more gender-bendy outfits (b) more “role switching”, and (c) a greater portion of people who break outside the heteronormative box in some way (regardless of whether or not they are actually straight).
I also found your commentary on the association with a technical approach to things, with stereotypical male roles, and conversely for female roles, to be very interesting. I’ve always been a bit genderqueer myself, and I strongly prefer an emphasis on connection, communication, and feeling in any sort of teaching, whether something like a dance class, or something as technical as a linear algebra class (my Linear Algebra teacher used to write a theorem on the board and ask: “How does this make you FEEL?” — I loved it. Some people, however, hated it.)
So…yeah. I find the lindy hop community to be very normative with respect to gender, at times, and I really hate this element of it.
I hate it in the vintage dress too…I wonder how people would react if I came out in all-out vintage dress…dressing as a woman. I kind of want to do it, not because I really want to cross-dress, but just because I’m so sick of the gender normativity and I find it stifling.
I don’t know. Yeah. So, you’ve hit on a lot of sore points for me, and I’m glad you’re bringing up these issues…keep writing more, please!
I am so not involved in other types of dancing, that it’s very interesting to hear how gender (and teaching and all that’s rolled up in it) is treated in other dance communities. On one hand, I was drawn to swing as a teenager because it seemed casual and I didn’t have to wear heels or be all sexy. But on the other, we aren’t as super progressive as some of us like to think.
I’ve heard what you said about Contra dance before. Maybe they’ve got something going there. :)
Hey, thanks for the kinds words and for the really interesting piece, Sarah. Imma gonna try to write something less ranty and more coherent than that other comment when I get a bit more time – you’ve inspired me. Rock on !\m/
Thanks, dp. :) You inspire me as well!
In Buenos Aires its very common for dancers to swap roles. There are many dedicated classes for same gender dancing, female lead classes, and male follow classes. All the best leaders I know have studied the dance as a follower and follow very well. I would say that its a requirement to being a good lead. Also, interesting note on that back to Buenos Aires, traditionally men had to learn the follow role before they were allowed to learn the lead role, because how could you lead what you didnt know how to follow!
This has been so interesting and thought-provoking. I really love that people are getting out there talking about this stuff.
One thing I thought of as I read this was I was recently re-watching Ken Burns’ Jazz, which has lots of great footage of social as well as performance dancing in the swing era. One clip that struck me was the one of people dancing to Benny Goodman at the Parmount in California- there were a few same-sex couples around the place, dancing what looks like balboa (which they probably would have just called ‘swing’) and lindy hop. It was good to see, particularly since I know a couple of teachers now who make a big deal about how in the 30s and 40s couples were men and women, men leading, women following. If there’s anything about that clip I took away, it was that it didn’t (and still doesn’t) matter who you danced with, it mattered that you wanted to dance. Not surprisingly, these are not the clips we tend to show in class or link on our Facebook (probably because they’re not examples of masterful dancing in crazy-complicated routines). But I hope that by sharing these clips, we can at least fight stereotypes about ‘how it was back when the old-timers were dancing’.
What an excellent observation. There ought to be a compilation out there somewhere! My own playlist only has a couple of vintage examples.
Thanks for your comment. ;)