4 Jan
2013
4 Jan
'13
5:56 p.m.
I was dancing at Greenfield when someone I partnered with (I was following)
asked me a question that I had not yet heart in my nearly-two-years of
dancing: "do you like being flourished?" I was floored. It had literally
NOT OCCURRED to me that that was a question you could/should ask. Now I
always ask if I'm leading someone I don't know and I feel in a spinny mood
(i.e., anything other than a standard one-twirl at the beginning or end of
a swing, and maybe two off a courtesy turn). I think it ought to be much
more of an obligation that people ask it of their dance partners (and
asking about dip preferences SHOULD be a no-brainer).
Another thought on flourishes, that relates to my first post on the topic
and some of the questions that have been going around: I realized writing
another post that I first started flourishing others, and that I pride
myself on my leading/flourishing ability to such a large extent, because
it's a way of compensating for my sex when it comes to leading. Part of me
feels that to be an impressive and good partner, I should have that little
extra bit of flash--in a sense, to prove that I have a reason for leading,
and a *right* to, instead of following like women ought. Of course, that's
only part of it, but I was really interested in this thought when it
occurred to me. Maybe equalizing gender roles would, to a small extent,
lessen their applicability (i.e., the degree of lead/follow dynamic) in the
first place? Has anyone else experienced or seen this sort of thought
pattern before?
Maia
On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 5:22 PM, Alan Winston <winston(a)slac.stanford.edu>wrote;wrote:
On 1/4/2013 7:49 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote:
On Thu, Jan 03, 2013, Kalia Kliban wrote:
Ah, I thought you were saying "Alan doesn't speak for me" while I now
think you're saying "Alan doesn't
have the right to speak for the entire community." So I will clarify that
across a fairly broad swath of
Bay Area callers, dance organizers, and volunteers in the late 1980s,
"hot-dogging" and "hot-doggers"
were fairly standard terms, and they referred to people who did flourishes
to the possible detriment of
the overall dance - showy swing dance balances that intruded into other
dancers spaces, men cranking women
around in twirls, swinging extra-long and being late for the next figure,
grabbing neighbors nonconsensually
for a swing in the middle of the hey, not taking hands along long lines
and instead one partner drops the other partner to the floor and picks
(her, usually) up, a guy who used to literally pick women up and put them on
his shoulder for lines of four down the hall. "We" (Bay area dance
organizers, callers, and volunteers I talked to
in the late 1980s) called it hot-dogging and considered it a problem.
Things not considered a problem: Cheat swings, general playfulness,
sticking out your tongue during a gypsy, etc, etc.
Over the years the flourish baseline has adjusted, we don't hear a lot
about hot-dogging, and so on. But *I* internally still feel that no other
dancer should do anything to me without at least my implied consent that
keeps me from following the callers directions, no other dancer should rob
me of agency (and the stupid "make an arch instead of R&L thru" thing is
asymmetrical, keeps me from following the directions, and doesn't give me
a way to decline), everybody should release their neighbors or partners in
time to dance with me on time, and
should dance in a way that shows awareness and at least minimal
consideration of the people around them.
If you disagree with that, let's discuss it. But I haven't seen you dance
in a way that looks like you disagree with it.
-- Alan
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On 1/3/2013 8:21 AM, Aahz Maruch wrote:
My point/snark was that using "we" as Alan did implies a kind of
agreement that I think is vastly overgeneralizing here. As I wrote in
the part of my post you elided, this has long been a source of tension
across multiple dance communities, I'd bet it probably goes back hundreds
or thousands of years.
Your point about people disrupting the dance with flourishes is
appropriate, but I don't think that making grandiose statements about
community attitudes toward flourishes helps any.
On Thu, Jan 03, 2013, Alan Winston wrote:
> I don't think you need this for the argument; there were flourishes
> when I started contra dancing in 1985 (but we called the people who
> did them "hot-doggers" and complained about them).
>
Which "we" are you talking about?
I'm one of them. It's possible to flourish responsibly, but that is
often not the case. [...]