I believe it's traditional that the roles have been *called* "woman" and
"man", but I don't believe that it's traditional that they have always
been *actually* danced by people of the specified gender.  For example,
I think that there's a long history of gender-segregated dance where
people are all [believed to be] one particular gender and they all dance
together, half of them taking each dance role.  Sometimes for practice
before they dare to be seen dancing by the "opposite" sex at the fancy ball;
sometimes because of sex-phobia under a presumption of heterosexuality.
And plenty of other reasons that people have not adhered to the gender
designations for the roles, for a long time.

regards,
ajr, dancing in and near Toronto, Canada

p.s. I like the young people's saying that "tradition is just peer
pressure from dead people".  If doing something the way we've always
done it is fun for everyone and connects you to people at other times
and places, that's cool.  But if your response to the question (this is
a quotation) "if I show up at [that dance] with my boyfriend, how will
people react?" is "well, you'll be required to dance exclusively with
women as partners all night because that's the way we've always done it",
then that's not cool, and your dance community will continue to shrink.
_______________________________________________
Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-leave@lists.sharedweight.net