Hello all,

Last week, at our regular monthly dance for the Mad Robin Callers Collective, we tried Ports and Starboards instead of Gents and Ladies (the usual language for our dance). The MRCC dance is called by a collection of callers who work together ahead of time on a program for the evening. MRCC callers are interested in developing and honing their craft as dance facilitators.

We had over a hundred dancers, a slightly bigger than average turn-out for us. A majority (60~70%) of whom knew the evening was going to be called gender free (we'd announced it at prior dances, on our flyer, and via our e-mail list).

We had a handful of dancers who explicitly came to our dance because we were using gender free language. We had one caller explicitly come out because we were using gender free language.

We did not have anyone say they were avoiding our dance because of gender free language, but I acknowledge they might not have let us know.

All six of our callers were able to make the transition to Ports and Starboards, and didn't have any prompting slips on mic. The callers were able to keep clear in their head which word went with which roll (ports on the left after a swing, starboards on the right).

Starboards was not an easy word to say, but it did not seem to create confusion with stars; possibly because stars are prompted as left hand star, right hands across star, etc; whereas starboards was used with star coming first in the call, starboards chain, etc.

At least one dancer had an initial confusion about port/starboard being in reference to direction currently facing, as opposed to a property of the room (which would be more in line with how it's used on boats).

A few dancers who have danced to armbands/barearms terminology did say that they preferred ports/startboards. I did not hear anyone advocate a preference for armbands/barearms.

Using different terminology for the roles did cause some added difficulty on the floor. Not everyone was immediately able to identify themselves and where they needed to be/what they should be doing. It also meant that our experienced dancers were not as able to help guide new dancers on the floor, both because they themselves were less confident, and they were less certain of their assumptions of the role of the neighbor coming at them. (We did not use any sort of marker for the different roles. Not out of deliberately eschewing them, but didn't get that part put together.) I think the average skill level of our dance as ports/starboards dancers was below the average skill level of our dance as gents/ladies dancers; but it would not be an insurmountable barrier to fully swap over.

The use of gender free language did not cause a large amount of folks dancing a role different than their apparent traditional role. We had folks swap (even mid-dance), but that happens at our dance anyway. It may have upped it slightly, but it may have depressed it slightly as folks lost the comfort of thinking 'I'm a man dancing the women's role' (or such) and had to translate 'I'm usually a port currently dancing as a starboard'. That effect would go away with long term familiarity, but we're certainly not there yet.

We are not planning on fully swapping over our terms permanently. Next month, we'll return to using gents & ladies as our terms. However, we (the callers and the dancers) are entertaining thoughts of having a dance in the evening called gender free, possibly exploring the different label options, and/or possibly developing a catalog of dances that don't require gender differentiation (no neighbor swings, gents allemands, ladies chains, etc).

Personally, I'm happy that we brought a few folks out to the dance that wouldn't have come otherwise. Maybe they'll come back even if we use gendered language in the future. Maybe they'll start a gender free dance. I think there were also some on-the-floor discussions of gender and role and identity, and I have no report of any of those being negative experiences. For our community, I'd call it a success.

Happy Dancing,
Luke Donforth