5 Dec
2010
5 Dec
'10
3:43 p.m.
I can't find Ivan Illich's quote (help, anyone?) but he said something like:
It's very good for industry to have men and women be "equal". ie,
interchangeable cogs in the machine. But this destroys the cultural delight
of differing roles and gender celebration.
--------------------
Lindsay Morris
CEO, TSMworks
Tel. 1-859-539-9900
lindsay(a)tsmworks.com
On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Lewis Land <lewisland(a)windstream.net> wrote:
I feel compelled to comment on this very fascinating
discussion about
calling gender-free dances, especially now that the subject of eliminating
"dominant/submissive" moves like the courtesy turn has come up. I have a gay
son, and one of my students once described me as the most
politically-correct person he'd ever met, but come on, people. One of the
things that adds zest to contra dancing, and in my opinion to life in
general, is the interplay of men's and women's roles... as one of the
earlier correspondents put it, "when do they match and support each other?
When do they work in opposition, it's what makes dances so unexpectedly
yummy. We have to acknowledge and embrace those issues, because if we get
too neutral we'll lose the story lines that make some of our best dances
come to life". I couldn't agree more. I am not sure what new language could
be developed to replace "ladies" and "gents". Some of the suggestions
seem
valid. But when the discussion turns to eliminating some of the most
pleasurable aspects of contra dancing simply to make the event more
gender-neutral, I cannot help but think we're becoming absurdly politically
correct. -Lewis Land
As one who's life has been a little gender-role-freeish, I feel politically
entitled to come out and say I DON't like the
band/bare thing, just
because
the verbiage is less than euphonious to my ears.
That said, I don't have
any
better ideas .... yet. But I'm thinking,
I'm thinking.
In many dances the roles of the "gent" and "lady" are NOT the same --
one
is
a little more active, one is more reactive.
In any given pair of people, one PERson is often more active than the
other.
It's the interplay of these two things (when
do they match, support each
other? When do they work in opposition?) that make dances so unexpectedly
yummy.
There must be a way to acknowledge and embrace this -- if we get too
neutral
we'll lose the story lines that make some of
our best dances come to life.
On 12/4/2010 10:08 PM, Jim McKinney wrote:
There's my inexperience showing. Beckett
formation never even crossed my
mind.
Something I have been thinking about in regard to this gender free
discussion is ladies chain with a courtesy turn. Having Evens/Ns/Bares
chain removes gender from the language but the act of courtesy turn still
seems very dominant/submissive to me. My wife and I tried walking through a
couple options: a skater's/promenade hand-hold in front or a no hand-hold,
kind of gypsy to maintain the interaction and still get turned around the
right way. The thing we decided we liked best was evens chain across to an
allemande left. That seemed to keep the roles more neutral no matter which
part was danced by a man or woman and still get everyone into the right
places.
I love ladies chain with a courtesy turn and as a dancer would hate to
give that up but as a caller I think I need to be prepared for the occasion
when neutral is better.
Jim
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