I went to my first west coast swing event.
Oh god. Why. Why is it?
And why would you choose to do uptight tightywhitey partner dancing to pop music? Why?!
The music. Oh god, the music. No. No.
I do hope the Australian westy scene is not indicative of all westy scenes. I really, really hope it.
I’ve had a go at WCS (it was extremely cheap- don’t judge me!). I kind of enjoyed being new at something, and it was fun trying out dancing it socially, but the music put me off. If it were soul and funk, I’d probably have stuck around longer, but…yeah.
Yeah, I can dig that. We did a private class with Jenny and Christian on St Louis shag and it was the MOST fun ever being totally new at something and learning a whole new dance.
But I couldn’t get past the music for wcs. And, to be honest, it was the general culture of the scene that I didn’t feel comfortable with: all the women had looong hair, wore lots of very conventional makeup, and wore heeled sandals with tight, flared trousers, kind of shiny or bedazzled blouses with slashed backs, and were very conventionally feminine. There weren’t any female leads or male follows, and there was no solo dance. There were no bands, no female DJs or MCs, and I felt as though the music was really not all that important. It was a very boozy, kind of m/s crowd and I felt quite uncomfortable. I didn’t really dig the way the dancers interacted with performers, and I found the whole vibe very odd. It was like being at a mainstream straight night club in 1998. Do not want.
One event is not a good sample, but I just didn’t like any of it. There’s this push from the wcs people here that somehow we should be doing cross-over events with them, the way they used to in the US, but it seems to me that even the Americans don’t really do as much crossing over as they did, and that the two dances and dance scenes are separate and different now, they can’t really mix.
I actually enjoyed the hip hop/African dance/tap/lindy/jazz cross over events much more – there’s a rhythmic resemblance, and a cultural proximity that feels more natural.
Some of the things I’ve heard (and observed) about gender politics within WCS are not very encouraging, but I suspect it varies across communities. I assume you’ve heard about Kelly Casanova’s campaign to change the rules for WCS competitions which discriminate against women who lead and men who follow? http://nakedbasics.com/2015/02/05/perspectives-on-degendering-competitions-kelly-casanova/