Hey, happy International Women’s Day, friends. In previous years I’ve listed women dancers (2011, 2012, 2013, and in 2014 I was distracted). This year I’ve been too busy to do daily posts, but I did write this on the facey today:
Happy international women’s day, everyone!
IWD has a nicely worker-centred history (https://unwomen.org.au/iwd/history-international-womens-day), and it’s about celebrating the achievements of the ordinary women around you.
I’m lucky enough to get to work with many, many _extra_ordinary working women in the lindy hop and jazz scene, so I’d like to say THANK YOU to them for be inspiring and encouraging and occasionally mighty fierce!
Thanks to Laura, Bec, and Alice, my co-teachers, who pull out great material and fun, challenging classes. Thanks to Sharon, who said YES to our new Harlem project.
Thank you to Ramona for showing me just how exciting it can be as a woman whose body is an instrument and a source of joy.
Thank you to Marie N’Diaye, for showing me how a fierceness of intellect and of spirit can make for the gentlest and most beautiful dancing.
Thank you to Sylvia Sykes for saying ‘lead or follow?’ when I asked her to dance.
Thank you to Loz for being _determined_ to dance and inspiring me.
Thank you to Lexi who simply expected me to run a business of my own.
Thank you to the women who come to our dance classes and overcome shyness to shake it like queens on the dance floor.
Thank you to Sugar Sullivan for correcting her gender-specific language in one of my first Herrang classes, and saying “Because anyone can lead.”
Thank you to Naomi, Loosha, Justine, Alice, Kat, Manon, Allie, Loz, Fatima, Leru, Superheidi, Bec, Barb, Shaz, Sarah, Naomi, Giselle, Tina, Heather, Mary, Christine, Kate, Kate, Kate, Michelle, Di, Sharon, Peta, Georgia, Jen and the many, many other women DJs who challenge me to bring the shit.
Thank you to Claudia for backing my mad schemes.
Thank you Sarah and the other women who spoke up about sexual assault in our community.
Thank you to Justine for the wickedest sense of humour and solidest DJing and managing skills.
Thank you to that shy young trans girl at fair day who wanted to know about lindy hop but was almost too shy to speak.
Thank you to Marie at the Chicago studio for answering all my emails. Thank you to Hetty Kate for marrying humour and a wicked sense of fun with the best music of all.
Thank you to Eleonora, Jan, Jenny, Elizabeth, Liz, Nurani, Nicola, Julie, Amanda and all the other venue managers who answer all my questions.
Thank you to the women musicians I haven’t met, and won’t, but whose music makes me dance til I drop. Thank you to Lexi, Tina, Kerryn, Megan, Cheryl, Kara, Karen, Leigh, Peta, Sharon, Trish, Trish, Kate, Kate, Cheng, Marybeth, Justine, Olivia, Becky, Sarah, Melinda, Mel, Trudi, Sandy, Vivi, Bethany, Tania, Luna, Fiona, Alice, Lauren, Evelyn, Sing, Sophie, Emma, Nikki, and all the other hundreds of women who organise dance events.
Thank you to the women dancers I meet all over the world who immediately make me feel welcome.
Thank you to the women jazz dancers who came before us and invented this thing.
Thank you to Shorty George’s unnamed partner in After Seben who actually did the swinging out.
Thank you to Norma for demanding “Where’s your swing out?!”
Thank you most of all to the hundreds of women who work at the door of dance events, and who tidy up afterwards, who move chairs and arrange tables, who arrive early to set up, who host visitors, who make sandwiches and beds, bank money and count out floats, figure out how to manage events for the first time on their own, chauffeur guests, design flyers and send emails and answer questions and make all this possible, every night of the week, all around the world.
Since I wrote this, I’ve thought of one million more women I want to thank. Thank you to Anaïs for that big brain and that wonderful dancing. Thank you to Kira for showing me burlesque can be empowering. To women DJs I missed. To the formerly male-identified dancer who chose our dance last night on mardi gras weekend to come out onto the dance floor as a woman. Gaby and Anaïs and Marie the women dancers who are putting together chorus line projects. The women who come social dancing for the very first time. The women who ask me to dance because they want me to lead. The queer women dancers who’ve come out recently in the lindy hop scene because they feel safe and proud of who they are. The older women who come dancing and rock it on the dance floor with the finest young men they can find. Women band leaders like Laura and Naomi and Hetty Kate and Georgia who bring it on the stage. Nicole who kept a public record of her physical transition. The women who are more than happy to just rock out solo style on the dance floor. Those fierce, ambitious women dancers who move on to teach internationally because they are so determined to be GOOD at this…. there are just so many. So many of them! I can’t even begin to name them all!
In my everyday work in the lindy hop community, I deal with far more women than men. Though men have most of the higher profile spots (playing in bands, teaching guest workshops), women by far provide the bulk of labour in the lindy hop community. In Australia, they are most of the volunteers, they are most of the organisers, and they are most of the DJs. They’re often also most of the dancers. Despite this, we are encouraged to compete for male dance partners, and discouraged from leading and dancing with other women. Lindy hoppers very rarely point out to each other that most of the labour in the lindy hop world is provided by women, and we tend to privilege the male dancers from the swing era. This last point prompted my Women’s History Month posts in the past, and of course my Women Jazz Dancers site.
I think it is important remind ourselves of all the different forms of labour that go into a jazz dance and jazz music community. I hear some men argue that the real ‘art’ of jazz or authentic ‘artistic life’ can only be defined as living form music and dance, as a dance teacher or performer. But that is just complete bullshit. I’ve written about that in Heroes of Jazz and Other Visible Mythologies.
In the simplest terms, there can be no jazz at all without all the invisible labour provided by women. There can be no jazz dance performance or party without a woman to work the door, to clean the floors, to cook the food, and serve the drinks. There can be no jazz musicians working endless gigs without a woman to care for their children, wash their clothes, cook their food. And if these women are not in their lives now, they were there when they were children and young adults studying their art.
Art is not the product of individual creativity and genius. Art is the work of a whole community.
I have real problems with stories about jazz music and jazz dance (both historical and contemporary) that present it as a series of stories about heroic figures. Particularly heroic men. Who aren’t burdened by caring for children or partners. Or otherwise engaged with their local communities.
I get really shitty about this approach because it ignores all the other labour that makes art possible: cooking meals, earning money, cleaning houses, paying for doctors, networking with venue managers, agents, producers, and recording record labels, etc etc etc. And it ignores all the ways in which artists are engaged with and participate in their local communities, and how all these relationships shape their creative work.
This was something that the Ken Burns Jazz documentary did, and which I’ve written about a bunch of times, in posts like:
I was reminded of this today by a quote-pic (don’t you hate those? Can’t search them!) getting about on twitter. This is the bit that interested me:
Frank Barat: You often talk about the importance of movements rather than individuals. How can we do that in a society that promotes individualism as a sacred concept?
Angela Davis: Even as Nelson Mandela always insisted that his accomplishments were collective—also achieved by the men and women who were his comrades—the media attempted to sanctify him as a heroic individual. A similar process has attempted to dissociate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from the vast numbers of women and men who constituted the very heart of the mid-twentieth-century US freedom movement. It is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals in order for people today to recognize their potential agency as a part of an ever-expanding community of struggle.
I got into a discussion on Jive Junction today (yeah yeah, I should have seen it coming), and I wanted to write a reply there, but I didn’t. I wrote it all out, I edited it, but I couldn’t press post. Because I felt too fucking scared.
Basically, I wasn’t paying close attention to the discussion, because I was multi-tasking at the time. I read the first post and dismissed it as yet another fucking pain in the arse post about how we’re overreacting, and isn’t lindy hop just… whatever. Then I skim read a bit. Then I just posted a few times and kind of lost track. But I probably should have paid more attention, because it escalated quite quickly.
I used to write quite personal things on this blog. I’d write about my everyday, my life, my feels. But I don’t do that so much any more because I attract quite a lot more readers than I used to. And that means more unpleasant comments, more emails, more interaction. Urk. All that shit is tiring.
Anyways, here is a personal post. I feel like I have to be logical logical logical. Calm calm calm. Sensible sensible sensible in these discussions. Like I have to fact check and edit and logic check. And then add a lump of self-depreciating, dry humour to deflect any personal attacks. When most of the time I’m actually trying not to cry, and I can’t help thinking about the shitty stuff that happens to me on a daily basis, just part of everyday sexism as a woman having the balls to be out in public on her own – whether that’s the bus, the dance floor, or the internet.
This is what I ended up posting:
Jump back. Feminist posts series of illogical, emotional, failure-to-listen-to-men posts about sexual harassment that don’t actually engage with the topic at hand and almost derails sensible discussion.
I can see the appeal of this approach. I might try it again in the future. #notallfeminists
It’s textbook trolling. I should feel ashamed. But I don’t. Not really. Well, only a little bit. Self-doubt. I have it.
This is what I wanted to write on JJ, but didn’t post:
So, whatevs, right? It’s not like there’s a shortage of random illogic in JJ, yeah? I reckon there’s some confusion about how we’re each using words. Predatory behaviour _is_ about sexual harassment and bullying, and grooming, and a whole host of other behaviours. Even the way you use the word ‘studios’ is culturally specific, Peter: we don’t even have that concept of ‘studio dance’ in Sydney, let alone Australian lindy hop, and the word doesn’t resonate with me the way it does with you. But I’ve lost track of this discussion. I tend to skim read most threads on this stuff because I can’t handle the scary sexism underlying a lot of the talk about this issue. Yolo.
As I said, I find it really difficult to read about and talk about this stuff, particularly in real time, because every time I write in detail about what it’s like to be sexually harassed, I get the shakes, because this shit happens to ME. I can’t be cool and logical because this stuff isn’t cool and logical for me. It happened to me yesterday on the bus, it’ll probably happen to me this afternoon when I go out, and it’ll keep happening to me, pretty much every day. Sexual harassment is my lived experience, it’s my every day.
Of course I’m distracted by my lived experience in my local scene – we all are. That’s the _point_. I have to start with my own experiences, and yet part of being a feminist is recognising that your own lived experiences cannot be generalised to the whole world. I’m on board with that. Are you?
Most of the time when I’m writing about these issues, I have to stop and edit millions of times before I post a comment. I had to wait a long time before I could post about Sarah’s story on my blog. And even now, I’d like to write more, but I can’t because I’m kind of scared shitless by the sort of fallout I’ll attract. I take a lot of care to be logical and calm when I write about this stuff, because I feel I have to be nine million times calmer than the randos who then move in and send me hate mail and horrible comments.
Because that’s what happens whenever I write about this stuff in a public forum – my ‘other’ inbox on fb fills up with nasty comments, I get unpleasant emails, I get messages from people who want to ‘initiate a dialogue’ about sexual assault with me, people come up to me in person at dance events and want to talk about hardcore sexual politics in lindy hop, and it can scare me silly not to mention just tire me the fuck out.
I know it’s not cool to devolve an internet discussion into poor-me-I’m-a-baby talk, but whatevs. I’m not 100% coherent and cool and logical all the time.
This is why I’m so impressed by those women who actually wrote whole posts about being sexually assaulted. Who recorded live videos! It’s so hard just writing about everyday ordinary stuff like being groped in the supermarket, having men stare at your body and try to make eye contact on the footpath, shouted at by passing cars, or manhandled on the dance floor. To speak about being drugged and assaulted! It’s beyond brave. It’s mighty.
So you know, when all that fucking awful sexual assault shit was going down, I was in Seoul, Korea, having the TIME OF MY LIFE discovering that the rest of the lindy hopping world? It is actually, in TOTAL, a quarter the size of SEOUL’s scene. And also, Seoul lindy hoppers? They are fucking amazing. The solo dance comp at that one weekend: better than any of the shit coming out of the American solo comps. It was so good, I had to stop and really think: was I just overcome by holiday feels? Were they really this good?
Look: they really are that good. Stop planning your trip to ILHC, Australia, and get on a fucking plane to Seoul.
There’s social dancing EVERY NIGHT. There are 5 different venues running social dancing parties on a Tuesday night alone. There were 200 people at one party the night I was there. And there are FOURTEEN different parties on Saturday nights.
And that is just normal. A normal week.
Also, Seoul is the fucking business. It is such a great city. Go there. GO THERE. It’s only 10 hours from Sydney, and you don’t get jetlag. It’s cheap to stay and eat there, and the food is really GREAT.
Not many live bands atm (just three that they use regularly – three more than a lot of small scenes) – but I bet, just like everything else in their jazz world, they will fix that shit by next year. Meanwhile, I know half a dozen Australian bands who are already planning their next Korean tour. The DJed music: fabulous. One hundred times better than Sydney. There’s so much social dancing, and it’s so important, that the big name DJs have facebook pages where they list their gigs _each week_. And dancers follow their favourite DJs around town.
Just think about that. So many dancers that you choose your DJs to compete with other venues.
Stop reading this post. Go to Seoul. I’m going there again in July. Because, fuck. Seoul is fantastic.
Billie Holiday, with Teddy Wilson at the piano and Milt Hinton on bass, at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1954, five years from the close of her career and the end of her life (from shorpy, via jelly)
Here is a post just about dancing and music, because even though we’re thinking and talking about gender politics and good business practices in the scene, we’re also dancers. Hopefully. This post is kind of rambly, because that’s how I roll.
This post is about the ‘rhythm centred‘ approach to lindy hop that a few teachers are really digging on at the moment. And music.
What is this ‘rhythm method’? Basically, we’re talking about prioritising the rhythms at the heart of a dance step, rather than the shapes. Shapes are important, yes, but the rhythm comes first.
This isn’t a new approach. People’ve been into this forever. People like NormaMiller, other old timers, the Rhythm Hot Shots… pretty much anyone who’s legit.
I think this is a bit like another approach that got around in the early 2000s: work from the ground up. In both cases, the emphasis is on what your body does, and on the foundation of good dancing. Committing your weight properly, understanding how you make contact with the ground, and how you initiate movement from your core. In other words, good lindy hop, as a partner dance, is like good solo dancing: you have to move your arse if you want to actually be dancing with someone.
Anyhow, I was in a class this week, taught by Bec and Alice at our regular Wednesday night intermediate class. They began the class with an exercise we’d picked up from Ramona and from the other Sea of Rhythm peeps (all of whom are tap dancers): in a circle one person does a rhythm, then the next person has to do a step inspired by that rhythm, and so on round the circle. Then the class continued with a fairly simple idea: you use a pass by (where the lead goes under the joined arms) as a ‘space’ for improvising, or adding in a rhythm. You can either do call and response (where one parter does the rhythm first, and the other copies on the next go through), or you can both do your own rhythms at the same time.
Nothing new, right? We’ve done this approximately one million times, though we might say ‘do your own jazz steps’ in that bit where you walk past each other. You might shorty george under there, or swivel around. It’s a nice, simple example of how jazz and lindy hop are structure + improvisation. But when you shift the emphasis to the rhythm, it gets a bit more interesting.
And I actually found it a bit nicer as a lead-follow exercise. Because if you focus on the rhythm, not the shape, you focus on how your feet strike the floor, and with what sort of emphasis. Where are you pausing? Where do you speed up? Is it a straight step, or is it syncopated? If you are doing call and response, you have to be as clear as you can, so your partner can recognise the rhythm and then repeat it back to you (this is my favourite). And in an under arm pass by situation, it’s not easy to see your partner all the time, so you have to feel the rhythm through your connected arms.
Exciting!
Of course, for this to work, you need to have a) an understanding of swung timing, straight timing, syncopation, and how to keep time while ‘paused’ (ie gotta have bounce, and b) a relaxed connection, because a hugely tight pair of arms don’t let messages (weight changes) through.
And to get those things, you need to focus on the rhythm of your basic footwork, and on leading by moving your body rather than yanking with your arms.
And, the best bit of this, is that you have to really pay attention to your partner to catch the rhythm, then repeat it back. You have to watch and listen and feel them, and then you have to watch and listen and feel them responding to see if you’re getting it right. The other best bit is that you assume from the beginning that both partners – lead and follow – can call, and both can respond. This immediately undoes the idea that follows always react and leads always initiate. It reminds you that both of you are partners, and that both good leading and good following requires listening very carefully to your partner, and responding to what they’re doing.
[Segue: if you set up this model of dancing relationships, you are undoing the bullshit power dynamic that encourages sexual harassment (which is where one partner exploits their higher position of power). In this model of dance partnership, each partner is important and powerful. You listen to each other. You respect each other. Higher power and its exploitation is detrimental to both the dancing partnership, and to the social partnership.]
Ok, so where’s the music in all this?
This is where we get amazing. This is where jazz dancing gets fantastic. We are doing polyrhythms, here. There’s the band, doing what they do. And then there’s the dancers, dancing a rhythm on the top. They might be dancing what they hear in the music, or, because lindy hop is wonderful, they might add a complementary rhythm to what they hear. Something that’s not in the music at all. Yet.
As if that wasn’t wonderful enough, if there are two of you having a rhythmic conversation like this, you’ll be adding two layers of rhythm on top of the music. Because you two aren’t in sync – you’re doing call and response. And that means that while you’re responding to your partner, they’re already adding in another rhythm. So you have to listen to and recognise that new rhythm while you’re responding with the previous rhythm! Wow!
Wait, no, we’re not done.
This is where it gets fantastic.
You don’t have to play the call and response game. You can just rock out doing whatever you like, not syncing up with your partner. So you’re doing a whole heap of rhythms all at once, on top of the music. Boom. Of course, the challenge here is to make all this actually be rhythmically sound. It can’t just be a bunch of noise and rubbish. This is why I like the call and response game: it makes you be super clear and definite in your movements. I actually like it when you have to do a rhythm, then repeat it, and then your partner repeats it. Because that way you get clear feedback about whether your rhythm is legit, and not just a bunch of banging and jumping about. If you can’t do it twice in a row, then you suck a bit and you need to clean it up. Usually that means simplifying.
The extra wonderful part of this, is that this is a game brand new dancers can play as well. And as you get more experience, and more control of your body, your rhythms can get more complex. To me, it feels like leading and following on a micro-level. Am I leading clearly enough for a brand new dancer to pick it up and follow? If not, then I suck. My partner shouldn’t have to be a superstar to recognise and repeat my rhythm.
Tell me about the music!
Right, lets talk about the shout chorus at the end of a song. Wikipedia puts it like this. The shout chorus is
characterized by being the most energetic, lively, and exciting and by containing the musical climax of the piece. A shout chorus characteristically employs extreme ranges, loud dynamics, and a re-arrangement of melodic motives into short, accented riffs. Shout choruses often feature tutti or concerted writing, but may also use contrapuntal writing or call and response between the brass and saxophones, or between the ensemble and the drummer. Additionally, brass players frequently use extended techniques such as falls, doits, turns, and shakes to add excitement.
I like ones by musicians like Sidney Bechet, old school NOLA people. Or Fats Waller usually brings good ones. That last chorus often feels more chaotic and shouty than with a big classic swing band. And there’s probably going to be some improvisation in there too. Here, check out ‘Shortnin’ Bread’ by Waller and his Rhythm, from about 2.00:
[DJing note: I often use a song with this sort of ending to build the energy in the room. From here I can ramp up the tempos and excitement level, because the shout chorus has primed the room for something more.]
Ok, so here’s my thinking: that last shout chorus is just like when you’re playing call and response rhythms with your partner. The rhythms and notes just pile on up. It sounds a bit like chaos, but it’s not, because everyone has to really listen to each other.
This is jazz.
And this is why that idea that ‘follows do what leads say’ is just rubbish. It’s not only sexist and dumb, it’s not jazz. It’s creatively BOOOORING.
Not much in the way of shout chorus to that song, aye? In fact, it’s the opposite: it’s a quieter, calmer, sparser arrangement and performance. The tempo is nice and relaxed, it swings like a gate, and it has a nice clear, consistent rhythm. Perfect for lindy hopping.
Then let’s look at Marie and Skye. They’re doing the same shapes, they have the same beat in their bodies, but they often aren’t doing exactly the same rhythm. I don’t want to say ‘footwork’ because ‘footwork’ is misleading: it suggests that it’s your feet doing the work. It’s actually your body that’s doing the work, and your foot placement and emphasis is a consequence of choices you’ve made with your body. That’s why it’s so much easier to see Skye and Maria’s rhythms. It’s almost as though Skye in particular has velvet covered feet. Velvet covered bricks, because though each step is perfectly and gently places, the commitment of weight is very solid and definite. And he understands that he has more than just one flat surface to his foot – there’s lots more to work with. And then, to make it more awesome, he lifts his feet from his hip or his knee… the movement begins higher in his body, not just with his feet.
Again, though, the rhythms that they bring, even to just the last 2 beats of a swing out, where you might triple step habitually, are very clear decisions, and they are working with the music. They aren’t just ramming some random combination of steps that they love on top of the music. They’re building it in. Watching Skye (because I’m a lead, that’s what I’m doing right now), he’s also working with all the instruments. There aren’t many of them, but he makes very clear that it’s the combination of instruments that make the band.
I really hate ‘musicality classes’ where teachers say something like ‘now dance to the saxophone!’ Because there’s a whole band there, and the sound they make is a combination of all those instruments and sounds. So why would I just take out one instrument? What I like about Skye in this particular video is that he’s moving between instruments, or dancing to all of them at once, and creating a series of shapes and patterns and rhythms that join them all together.
And Marie is with him, working with his overall pattern, but adding stuff by shifting the emphasis here and there, by adding in completely new sequences, by taking out sequences and paring things down. I particularly like the way her moments of stillness and simplicity (something I see Naomi Uyama do a lot) are essential for Skye’s busy-ness. If they were both going hardcore, you’d get more of a shout chorus effect, but for the whole song, and it’d be a bit much. It certainly wouldn’t suit this quieter, pared back song.
Ok, so you see straight away, that there’s a different rhythmic relationship going on here between these two people. I’ve written about Frida before, in reference to this same issue: she brings the shit. She also has a very active, engaged and exciting edge to her dancing that isn’t like Marie’s. Watching this, I’m struck by the way Skye becomes the ‘simpler’ dancer, when Frida adds the vajazzle. Not that he’s necessarily doing simple steps; it’s just that the layers of rhythm and timing and emphasis are different in this partnership. By dancing with a different partner to a different song, his dancing is changed. Partly because he’s a very good lead, and changes his dancing to suit the music and his partner. But also because dancing with a different partner frames his approach to music in a different way.
Theres’s something more exciting about dancing to a live band, and I think it’s because anything can happen. Jazz wants improvisation, and in a recording, the improvisation is over: the sound is fixed. But when it’s live, it’s not fixed. And when dancers and musicians work together, that degree of the unexpected increases. Much more can happen now. So there’s an edge of anticipation and risk to improvised dancing to a live, improvising jazz band. Which adds excitement. And with Frida, you know that her reflexes are so good, and she is so fast, that she can not only respond really quickly to a new lead, but she can respond quickly to a new sound in the band, and add her own thoughts to both or either. And yet still make the partnership work.
Anyway, I wanted to jot all these thoughts down while they were still fresh after a couple of days of interesting dance work. Bec and Alice also led a session in our practice group last night where they taught us how to do one particular move that Skye leads in both these videos. Bec and Alice came to practice all excited because they’d realised Skye dances that same move in many ways, with many partners. And it’s always different. Our challenge in this session was to be able to dance two versions, and to understand how changes in timing (rhythm) were about changes in how you use your body, as both a lead and a follow. One thing we realised was that if you overcommit – if you get too ‘deep’ into a pause or a stop, your timing changes, and you can’t respond as quickly. It was very interesting.
So I guess this post is about layers of rhythm, and how we can think about lindy hop as sequences and layers of rhythm, both between partners, and between musicians and dancers. Long live lindy hop. You are the best.
The idea that someone is using this this blog as a guide for developing safe space policies:
This blog is a blog. That means it’s all my own, personal opinion. I’m just speculating here.
Don’t be a lazy arse. Get your shit to someone who knows what they’re talking about, and develop some solid policy and some well-planned strategies.
Note: sexual harassment is a form of sexual discrimination, which means that it is against the law in Australia.
So that time your teaching partner felt up your arse in class? Broke the law. That time your teacher ogled your body and made a suggestive comment after class? Broke the law.
So you have legal responsibilities, peeps.
There have been various discussions on Jive Junction about who should do what, and what role organisers (of weekend events or of regular classes and venues) should play in preventing sexual harassment and assault. I have a vested interest in figuring this stuff out, as a business woman in the scene, but also as a human being in the scene.
Who’s responsible for what?
I’m going to respond to a few issues raised by the Yehoodi Event organisers forum, but only a few. This forum unfortunately reinforces very traditional ideas of power and responsibility in the lindy hop world, ideas that have ultimately resulted in misuse of power, and in powerlessness. But I don’t have time to engage with those broader issues here. Instead, let me comment directly on a couple of things, as they relate to the responsibilities of businesses in the lindy hop world, and to sexual harassment.
I found this Yehoodi forum in turn exciting and enraging. People said things that I wanted to shout at them for, and people said things that I wanted to send them fan mail for. I’m finding this whole issue immensely unsettling and upsetting. Partly because I’m a woman, and most of the discussion is reminding me of the bullshit that happens to me every day, as a woman in a patriarchal culture. Fuck. I am taking this personally, because it is personal.
Here is my opinion RE ‘scene leaders’ and who should do what.
1. If you are running a business (in Australia) you have a legal obligation to your employees, at least, to actively prevent sexual harassment.
2. Not all ‘scene leaders’ are business owners, nor are all business owners ‘scene leaders’. The two should not necessarily be conflated. Scott Cupit uses the expression ‘scene leader’ rather than business owner and employer. I think this is seriously misleading, because it confuses the legal responsibilities of people who run dance schools or dance events.
You may be a ‘scene leader’, but run no businesses; you might commit your energy to… I dunno. Being a very good competitor or teacher. But be an employee rather than an employer.
Can you operate a business in the lindy hop world and not be a ‘scene leader’ (god I hate that expression)? Hmmm. I think so.
I do not like the way ‘leadership’ is equated to economic power.
So….
3. You may be an important person in your scene but focus your effort on things like good working conditions for volunteers, taking care of children at events, or making friends with musicians. You can be a ‘scene leader’ without being a business owner or institutionally powerful person.
This is important, because of the way labour and economic power work in the lindy hop and broader world. Women are over-represented in unpaid labour in lindy hop. Women earn less than men in the broader community. It is a fact that patriarchy is based on the greater economic power of men. So if we determine ‘scene leaders’ by their economic power, we are doing bad gender work. We are privileging men, and disadvantaging women. You can see where this goes, when we then talk about ‘scene leaders” responsibility in issues of sexual harassment and gender. In the clumsiest terms, women become the victims, men become the saviours. As a woman, I say no no no no NO, I am NOT happy with that!
So let’s not just look to business owners in lindy hop when we’re looking for leadership, or for responsibility.
4. A business does not necessarily equate to ‘community’. Again, Cupit conflates his business (Swing Patrol London) with the whole London swing dance community. This is not something I’d do, because a) weirdo power stuff there; b) I’m not responsible for everything that happens in my local dance community. Legally or personally, c), London (and Sydney) are far bigger than my projects, which is good because DIVERSITY, and d) It’s important to distribute power more evenly throughout a community, if that community is to be healthy and prevent sexual harassment.
It’s important to make that distinction as a business owner and employer, but also in terms of community power and activism. If you are the ‘scene leader’ of ‘your community’, then you take power away from the other people in that local scene.
Part of this whole discussion relies on the importance of undoing systems of power and exploitation. So get undoing, and set aside that idea that you are ‘the’ scene leader, or even ‘a’ scene leader. You are a person in a community, working with other people.
I’d sum up my comments on that Yehoodi panel by saying that I think Michael Gamble is doing and saying some very interesting things. Lindy Focus may include things like this which scare the pants off me, but in this Yehoodi discussion, Gamble is bringing the goods.
So, anyway, if you want to actually build good policy, use good resources.
Here are some actually informed and knowledgeable resources you could use. They are all Australian, because that is where I am:
The Australian Human Right Commission have some resources to help you understand what sexual harassment is. I recommend clicking around, and finding all the useful guides to identifying, responding to, and preventing sexual harassment. The bits on s.h. in the workplace and in education are most relevant to our discussions in lindy hop.
Do a search on your local workcover website (I use http://www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/ because I’m in NSW) for resources on sexual harassment and workplace bullying. Note: if you are hiring teachers, DJs, bands, etc, you have certain legal responsibilities to provide your workers with a safe environment.
Sexual harassment in the workplaces is the no.1 cause of complaints to the Anti-Discrimination Board NSW (reference here. So addressing this issue is one of your MOST important responsibilities as an employer.
