8 Oct
2017
8 Oct
'17
2:59 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 04, 2017, Jeremy Child via Callers wrote:
I have a question for anyone who calls or dances Gender Free MWSD (by
Gender Free I mean where no assumptions are made about what role a dancer
will take based on their gender).
For pedantic reasons, I'll note that MWSD doesn't use the term "gender
free", it's called "gay square dancing".
MWSD is unique amongst folk dancing in that dancers
need to know the role
being danced by others in the square (if I'm a "boy" and the call is
"boys
trade", I need to know who the other boy in my line / wave is in order to
do the call).
Callers also need to track gender because there are some gendered calls.
They're not necessarily what you might think. For example, if you're
calling Mainstream, Right & Left Thru is a gendered call.
So to my question: How do the dancers identify which
roles the other people
are dancing? Traditionally this is done with dancers taking the opposite
role to their gender wearing bands, but that is surely inappropriate if the
dance is GF.
Bands are especially useless when you're gender-swapping in a square,
just like contra. (And yes, I often gender-swap in square dancing, as do
a lot of other people, mostly in gay square-dance circles but a few
coming primarily from straight club backgrounds.)
Also, if any MWSD clubs are using truly non-gendered
terms, please let me
know.
As a caller and dancer, I really can't imagine switching to gender-free
terminology in MWSD. Contra works because standardization of vocabulary
matters much less when you teach each dance before starting, and it's
easy to switch between gendered and gender-free dances. MWSD requires a
deep realtime link between muscle memory and the auditory command loop.
There's also Salsa Rueda de Casino, I know almost nothing about it (and
really nothing about gender management) but I know a couple of people I
could ask.
--
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://rule6.info/
<*> <*> <*>
Help a hearing-impaired person: http://rule6.info/hearing.html