I can't dance, don't ask me ...
Michael Blowhard considers an issue that can be encapsulated thus: why, when we think of American male dancers, do we envision him? And why, when we think of Russian male dancers, do we envision him?
Then again, when I think of American male dancers, I think of him or him. Alas, that was long ago and far away. And it was a somewhat different kind of dance. Why have certain art forms -- particularly certain performance arts -- become so identified with gay men, at least in America? Certainly one possible answer might be that gay men are disproportionately interested in such art forms, and so, while Fred Astaire may have been the face of American dance for a long time, perhaps he wasn't really representative of the "dance world" at the time. I have no idea whether that's the case, though, and I'm too lazy and, at least theoretically, too busy to find out.
By the way, saying that certain art forms are identified with gay men doesn't, as far as I'm concerned, imply that those art forms aren't "manly," or that the men (gay and straight) who participate in them aren't "manly." It takes a lot of manly strength and grace to do what Johnny Weir does. Whether those arts are considered "masculine" is a different question, though. I don't want to get too pomo about it, but it's a question of how those art forms -- particularly ballet and other forms of dance -- are "gendered" in American society.
So what about it? Why are so many American men afraid to dance? Maybe it has nothing to do with how dance is "gendered" and everything to do with appearing competent, or the desire not to appear incompetent. Of course, I can't dance (don't ask me), but I don't mind taking a stab at it every now and then, and occasionally I'll experience an un-self-conscious joy in it, a pleasure in the simple act of moving my body, however ineptly, to the music. It helps if you're dancing with small children, but that's another subject.
Maybe if people still routinely danced together it would be different. It's not, for most people, a social activity, an embodiment of culture and tradition. Nobody learns the steps anymore. Can a non-dancing society truly appreciate the great scene in Emma (and in the movie adaptation), in which the gallant Mr. Knightly rescues Harriet Smith from a fate worse than death by dancing with her? Come to think of it, there's a kind of nostalgia for tradition and an elegy for societies in which everybody learned the steps, in The Last Days of Disco.
Ummmmm, what was my point again? You have in this post (or pre-post, rather) an example of the way my mind works, although "work" is a questionable term for the series of half-thoughts and associations that flit across the surface of my consciousness and get crudely translated into words. I'm going to resist the urge to delete it, because I want to preserve the illusion that I exercised my flabby mind today.
Maybe if I'd learned to dance, this post would have flowed more smoothly.
Update: To top it all off, I've been misquoting the lyrics referred to in my post title. It's "I won't dance," not "I can't dance." Maybe that's more appropriate, anyway.
Then again, when I think of American male dancers, I think of him or him. Alas, that was long ago and far away. And it was a somewhat different kind of dance. Why have certain art forms -- particularly certain performance arts -- become so identified with gay men, at least in America? Certainly one possible answer might be that gay men are disproportionately interested in such art forms, and so, while Fred Astaire may have been the face of American dance for a long time, perhaps he wasn't really representative of the "dance world" at the time. I have no idea whether that's the case, though, and I'm too lazy and, at least theoretically, too busy to find out.
By the way, saying that certain art forms are identified with gay men doesn't, as far as I'm concerned, imply that those art forms aren't "manly," or that the men (gay and straight) who participate in them aren't "manly." It takes a lot of manly strength and grace to do what Johnny Weir does. Whether those arts are considered "masculine" is a different question, though. I don't want to get too pomo about it, but it's a question of how those art forms -- particularly ballet and other forms of dance -- are "gendered" in American society.
So what about it? Why are so many American men afraid to dance? Maybe it has nothing to do with how dance is "gendered" and everything to do with appearing competent, or the desire not to appear incompetent. Of course, I can't dance (don't ask me), but I don't mind taking a stab at it every now and then, and occasionally I'll experience an un-self-conscious joy in it, a pleasure in the simple act of moving my body, however ineptly, to the music. It helps if you're dancing with small children, but that's another subject.
Maybe if people still routinely danced together it would be different. It's not, for most people, a social activity, an embodiment of culture and tradition. Nobody learns the steps anymore. Can a non-dancing society truly appreciate the great scene in Emma (and in the movie adaptation), in which the gallant Mr. Knightly rescues Harriet Smith from a fate worse than death by dancing with her? Come to think of it, there's a kind of nostalgia for tradition and an elegy for societies in which everybody learned the steps, in The Last Days of Disco.
Ummmmm, what was my point again? You have in this post (or pre-post, rather) an example of the way my mind works, although "work" is a questionable term for the series of half-thoughts and associations that flit across the surface of my consciousness and get crudely translated into words. I'm going to resist the urge to delete it, because I want to preserve the illusion that I exercised my flabby mind today.
Maybe if I'd learned to dance, this post would have flowed more smoothly.
Update: To top it all off, I've been misquoting the lyrics referred to in my post title. It's "I won't dance," not "I can't dance." Maybe that's more appropriate, anyway.
posted by Kate Marie | 10:11 AM | Permalink
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4 comments
4 Comments:
Pomo? "a member of an American Indian people of northern California"?
You can't dance? What, did you SLEEP through the seventies? Yeesh. Gimme that disco beat.
Tap, step. Tap, step. Walk, walk.
CIV, I was still in high school when disco died. (You should watch The Last Days of Disco sometime, by the way).
For what it's worth, though, I've never ridden a mechanical bull or done the achy breaky, either.
I like to think I wouldn't have minded learning to dance in the days when people dressed up to go out to nightclubs and women always wore hats and gloves.
It is a question of competence: Some of us are simply terrible dancers. Besides, it's hard to get unselfconscious when you see so many other guys who dance as if they're in the end stages of rabies. You wonder: Do I look like as much of an ass as that dude?
That said, after a couple of drinks, I'll all too eagerly hit the dance floor at a wedding...
Hey, I watched a husband and wife in a dance class. He had a cast on one arm. The guys were on one side of the room, the gals on the other. Instructor says to the men, "move your left foot" and across the room, wife points to husband's left. Instructor says, "move right" and wife points to husband's right.
I'm thinking, why didn't the wife paint "LEFT" on the guy's cast?
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