[Callers] Another vote for "jets" and "rubies"

[Ron Blechner via Callers]

Hi Jeff,

Some points:

"You're classifying everyone who attends a dance with gender-free
calling as having wanting it to be gender free, but I'm sure some are
attending in spite of it being gender free, and many more don't care
either way."

If that's the case, one would assume there are also plenty of traditional
venue dancers who don't care either way. To that effect, genderfree roles
are not as scary as some have claimed.

"The particular dances that have
been gender free for a long time are mostly doing fine, but it doesn't
look to me like they're growing tremendously.  Instead, newer
fast-growing dances are either started as gender free or are switching
to it.  I don't think the causality goes the way you're suggesting."

Dances using gents/ladies up and down the East coast are dwindling in
attendance. I'm hearing that from nearly every organizer I speak with.

I don't understand discounting new dances at all. If there was a demand for
a genderfree dance, and it was filled, how is that not proof of growth of
overall genderfree dancing?

"Some pushback seems reasonable to me.  Just like I think people should
be able to dance either role at any contra dance, I think all contra
dances should move to being gender free.  Not immediately -- it's fine
to take some more time to consense on terms, have some brave dances
try them out, have callers get used to calling them -- but I do think
moving entirely to gender free terms is what we should be doing as a
community."

That may be in many peoples' beliefs, but I hadn't seen it specifically
brought up by anyone in this email discussion until now. I might have
understood pushback had it been brought up, but it wasn't.

Best,
Ron

On Jan 27, 2017 12:58 PM, "Jeff Kaufman" <jeff at alum.swarthmore.edu> wrote:

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Ron Blechner via Callers
<callers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
> To answer your question, though, about how many dancers want genderfree
> terms, at least ten dances are genderfree, and I bet we can poll those
> dances and find out how many active dancers they have. While the Western
> Mass one by me is a little low, dances like Brooklyn, Portland Maine, and
> Montpelier second Saturday boast very large crowds, and that's just ones
> I've personally attended. There's queer dance camps, too. Clearly there's
a
> demand. I realize "huge" is a relative number, but we can safely agree on
> several thousand dancers as a safe low estimate of dancers who want gender
> free roles.

You're classifying everyone who attends a dance with gender-free
calling as having wanting it to be gender free, but I'm sure some are
attending in spite of it being gender free, and many more don't care
either way.

> These genderfree dances exist, some for 39 years, they've grown
tremendously
> in the last 5 years *while many traditional dances are losing attendance*.

That's not what it looks like to me.  The particular dances that have
been gender free for a long time are mostly doing fine, but it doesn't
look to me like they're growing tremendously.  Instead, newer
fast-growing dances are either started as gender free or are switching
to it.  I don't think the causality goes the way you're suggesting.

> This isn't some existential threat to non-genderfree
> traditional dances. Let us talk.

Some pushback seems reasonable to me.  Just like I think people should
be able to dance either role at any contra dance, I think all contra
dances should move to being gender free.  Not immediately -- it's fine
to take some more time to consense on terms, have some brave dances
try them out, have callers get used to calling them -- but I do think
moving entirely to gender free terms is what we should be doing as a
community.

Jeff
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