Keeping it topical with the theme.
Alice and I are teaching at Swingpit next week, Friday 9th December.
Beginner-friendly class from 8.15, crazy-pants social dancing for all from 9.15.
St Stephen’s Church Hall, Newtown
189 Church St Newtown (off King)
[edit: if you’re interested, I’ve done some talk about step stealing in the post Another look at appropriation in dance. But this class will be mostly jumping about, with very little talking. Phew.]
I’m just doing some housekeeping over here in the blog (hence the somewhat dodgy CSS), and have been looking back through unpublished drafts. This is a post that I wrote back in July. I put off publishing it then because I was getting a bit more attention than I felt comfortable with. So I just put it on pause. It’s probably going to be read as controversial, but to my mind it’s really just standard critical engagement with a few texts. But the fact that I’m writing about people in my own community in a way that academics often don’t – ie with a real sense that my words have consequences and aren’t just ‘neutral’ observation – changes the way this will be read. And the way I think about writing this stuff.
So, I guess this is my unpacking and rummaging through a little cultural baggage. I’ve made plenty of apologetic explanations below, though it kind of shits me that I feel so little confidence in my own ideas. But, you know, this is a post about talking about important issues. Right now, in this moment when my government is taking such a shameful stance on refugees (fuck off, you’re not white, we don’t want you here), is continuing with the NT Intervention (fuck off, you’re not white, we don’t want you here) and generally being complete arseholes, I think it’s more important to take a few risks myself.
Structurally, this post begins with Lisa Wade’s article which discusses Sarah and Dax’s ESDC 2011 routine. I tie in (in a limited way), the Two Cousins video clip which starred Ryan Francois and Remy Kouakou Kouame.
Then I explain why I’m not entirely ok with Lisa’s use of ‘black’ and ‘white’ – I want a more critically nuanced approach, one which also looks at how class and gender work in ethnicity. I’m especially frustrated by her use of the concept of ‘tacit knowledge’ because it doesn’t prioritise or encourage activism (or speaking out about or engaging with racism). I suggest a more politicised approach helps. Then I suggest that all this makes more sense within cultural context: race and ethnicity in Australia, Britain and America; the way different film texts work within an historical industrial context; reading Sarah and Dax’s performance in relation to their broader online presence (ie their blog). That last bit is important because I tie their talk about bodies, beauty and gender into this performance’s portrayal of bodies, ‘fat’ and masculinity.
I started writing this comment over at Lisa Wade’s post ‘RACE, APPROPRIATION, & LINDY HOP: HOW TO HONOR OUR HEROES’, but I couldn’t really justify such a long comment on someone else’s post. I want to write and write about this, because I’ve spent so much time looking at cultural transmission in lindy hop, and the role digital media plays in this process. I’ve spent a long time thinking about this stuff, and I think I have some responses to Lisa’s question
How do white people, especially when they’re more or less on their racial own, honor art forms invented by oppressed racial groups without “stealing” them from those that invented them, misrepresenting them, or honoring them in ways that reproduce racism? You tell me… ’cause I’d like to know.
But it’s such a complex issue, and I’m not really sure I have the brains to work through it right now. I certainly want to return to my brief and fairly rubbish post about Slow Club’s Two Cousins clip, but I don’t really have room to think about that right now, either.
So why am I posting at all? I want to jot these ideas down. I want to participate (that is my greatest fault, I think – I hate the thought of missing out!) Also, I LOVE to talk and write. And this is my blog, so I can just ramble on as long as I like.
This is Lisa’s original post. I’m reproducing it here because posts disappear. Please note: I’m using Lisa’s first name rather than her last because that’s how we tend to address peeps in the dance world. I certainly don’t mean any disrespect.
RACE, APPROPRIATION, & LINDY HOP: HOW TO HONOR OUR HEROES
by Lisa Wade, 1 day ago [6 Jully 2011] at 10:00 amLindy hopper Jerry Almonte sent along a clip of the first place-winning routine in a division at the European Swing Dance Championships. Lindy hop is a partner dance invented by African American youth in Harlem dancing to swing music in the early 1930s. It’s near and dear to my heart; I’ve been a lindy hopper for 13 years (minus that year with a broken leg).
Modern day lindy hop raises difficult questions. In a post I wrote when the beloved Frankie Manning died, titled Race, Entertainment, and Historical Borrowing, I tried to capture the conundrum. I’m going to quote myself extensively, only because this is a tricky issue that deserves real discussion:
Though lindy hop was invented by African Americans, lindy hoppers today are primarily white. These contemporary dancers look to old movie clips of famous black dancers as inspiration. And this is where things get interesting: The old clips feature profoundly talented black dancers, but the context in which they are dancing is important. Professional black musicians, choreographers, and dancers had to make the same concessions that other black entertainers at the time made. That is, they were required to capitulate to white producers and directors who presented black people to white audiences. These movies portrayed black people in ways that white people were comfortable with: blacks were musical, entertaining, athletic (even animalistic), outrageous (even wild), not-so-smart, happy-go-lucky, etc.
So what we see in the old clips that contemporary lindy hoppers idolize is not a pure manifestation of lindy hop, but a manifestation of the dance infused by racism. While lindy hoppers today look at those old clips with nothing short of reverance, they are mostly naive to the fact that the dancing they are emulating was a product made to confirm white people’s beliefs about black people.
…
So we have a set of (mostly) white dancers who (mostly) naively and (always) wholeheartedly emulate a set of black dancers whose performances, now 70 to 80 years old, were produced for mostly white audiences and adjusted according to the racial ethos of the time. On the one hand, it’s neat that the dance is still alive; it’s wonderful to see it embodied, and with so much enthusiasm, so many years later. And certainly no ill will can be fairly attributed to today’s dancers. On the other hand, it’s troubling that the dance was appropriated then (for white audiences) and that it is that appropriation that lives on (for mostly white dancers). Then again, without those dancers, there would likely be no revival at all. And without those clips, however imperfect, the dance might have remained in obscurity, lost with the bodies of the original dancers.It is this paradox that stirred Jerry to send along the clip of Dax Hock and Sarah Breck performing a routine that was an homage to a famous clip from the movie Day at the Races, featuring Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers. Here’s the original clip from 1937.
To be as clear as possible, I do believe 100% that Dax and Sarah have no intention to mock and, as essentially professional lindy hoppers, I doubt very much that they’ve never considered the ideas I’ve explained above.
Dax and Sarah are not my target here and, besides, they’re just two people. All conscious lindy hoppers struggle with these issues. My target, and my own personal struggle, is the entire endeavor.
I leave this as an open question for discussion, and one that extends far beyond lindy hop to jazz, blues, rap, and hip hop music; other forms of dance, like break dancing and pop and locking; and even the American obsession with spectating sports that are currently dominated by black athletes. It also extends far past the relationship between blacks and whites, as Adrienne Keene well illustrates in her blog, Native Appropriations.
How do white people, especially when they’re more or less on their racial own, honor art forms invented by oppressed racial groups without “stealing” them from those that invented them, misrepresenting them, or honoring them in ways that reproduce racism? You tell me… ’cause I’d like to know.
———————
For more, I’d be thrilled if you read my original post, inspired by the passing of Frankie Manning.Also worth considering is this beautiful music video (Slow Club, Two Cousins) featuring lindy hoppers Ryan Francoise and Remy Kouakou Kouame performing vintage jazz movement. Is it different? What makes it so (other than production value and the race of the dancers)? Can you articulate it? Or is it tacit knowledge?
Inspired in part by The Spirit Moves?
I’m interested in Lisa’s points, but I think some of the key issues need a little expansion. I find some of her conclusions troubling. So I’m going to address them here in a disorganised, ad hoc way. Cool. Not.
Initially, I’m not comfortable with talking about race or ethnicity without also talking about class (and then gender and then sexuality). This becomes particularly important when you consider lindy hop in Japan or Korea or Singapore. The majority of dancers there are not white, but perhaps they are middle class? I think that it’s very, very important to interrogate class as an engagement with social and cultural power; it is not enough to end with skin colour as the defining marker of race or ethnicity.
In a related point, I also have some troubles with the way Lisa talks about ‘white people’ as though they were a homogenous group. I mean, setting aside class, sexuality and a heap of other issues, it’s been fairly stunning to me to see how simply having a group of women perform the Tranky Doo changes its meaning. So I think we need to be careful of using ‘white’ and ‘black’ as blanket terms, lumping masses of people together under single terms. ‘Black’ is especially interesting, as the word works in different ways in Australia, in America, in the UK, in Europe. And then within those countries the word is used in different ways by different groups and individuals.
And I have some concerns about approaching this discussion via the concept of ‘tacit knowledge’. Simply, I think there are other, more useful ways of talking about what’s going on in the clips. I’m with Katrina Hazzard Gordon and Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy and bell hooks and Judith Butler… I think we need to engage with the ideology at work here in an actively politicised way. Because these performances aren’t ideologically neutral, nor are the effects of their actions neutral. We need to engage with these issues, we need to unpack the politics, interpersonal as well as institutional. To do otherwise would be to ignore the way these texts embody the wider discourses of the societies in which lindy hop scenes exist, how they function culturally and socially in the modern lindy hop world, and how they articulate power within lindy hop today.
As an example, Lisa suggests that we cannot articulate why a performance might be racist, but we have ‘tacit knowledge’ of what racism is. I find this approach a little lame. Racism does not exist in a black/white, on/off dichotomy. It works in complex ways and a particular text might be articulating racist ideas in a range of ways, might be read as racist because of how it frames or reproduces and supports racism through the relationship between textual elements, reception and then dissemination. I would suggest that not being able to articulate why something ‘feels’ racist should just be the starting point. Don’t stop here! Speaking up about racism is very important – do it!
If I find a particular routine or image discomforting, I don’t say ‘oh, it’s racist because I have a tacit knowledge of racism’. I start analysing the text, the way the text is framed, where I found it, what other texts were circulating at the same time. I start interrogating my own feelings and try to figure out what’s happening. The goal here is that we learn how to articulate our concerns, and then develop the confidence to articulate them. Tacit my arse. Let’s get fucking ACTIVE here!
After all, if we simply say ‘I think it’s racist but I can’t explain why’, how is this any more convincing an argument than ‘I don’t think it’s racist, and I don’t have to explain why’? You need to start expressing your ideas, and exploring your concerns so that you can then say to those ‘I don’t think it’s racist’ people: “I’m suspicious of the fact that we see so many scenes where black dancers are dressed as servants in films. So I reckon we should think twice before we recreate those scenes.”
Cultural context is important. It’s difficult to apply American critical tools for discussing race and cultural transmission to the UK or Europe (where Ryan Francoise and Remy Kouakou Kouame are based), for example. The black British migrant experience is also quite different to the American, and histories of slavery in Britain, America and Australia are quite different. I faced similar challenges discussing lindy hop in Australia, where our discursive engagement with race is quite different to the American example.
It’s very difficult to talk about black American dance in film in the 30s without also talking about slavery, blackface and minstrelsy and segregation in American history. It’s difficult enough addressing these issues in an American setting, but it’s even harder in an Australian context. Many Australians simply aren’t aware of this country’s slave history. A recent debate about the use of blackface on a tv program revealed not only most Australians’ unfamiliarity with blackface in Australia, but with the racial politics at work in blackface in an American context. Nor do many Australians really understand the long standing history of segregation in this country. They simply don’t know that black Australians couldn’t eat, drink, shop, swim or travel in the same spaces as white Australians. So when Australians watch sequences from films like the Day At The Races, with all its intonations of segregation, black face, slavery and so on, these themes don’t resonate in the same way as when an American watches. I guess, here, we also need to talk about audiences and reception as well as cultures of production (and institutions producing and disseminating media texts).
When we’re talking about dance clips, who is watching? Where are they watching? The Slow Club text is a music video. We are talking about Dax and Sarah’s showcase routine as an AV recording of a performance at a dance competition in Europe. I am a white, middle class woman living in a large, well-serviced, safe city in Australia watching these clips on my (reasonably ok) internet connection in my own home on my own computer. I am a dancer, but I am not a brilliant dancer. I am/was a media studies scholar who’s studied and published and taught film and media studies and who wrote a PhD on race/gender/identity in dance and digital media. All these things shape the way I read these texts. What I see will reflect who I am and what I am reading for. How I use these texts will reflect these things as well. I am also reading these texts in relation to each other, and in relation to a vast body of audio-visual recordings of dance. I’m accessing them online, and I’m reading them in relation to other online texts – Sarah and Dax’s blog, Faceplant, the Yehoodi discussion board, the Yehoodi Talk show, Lisa’s blog, etc etc etc. These texts don’t exist in isolation. They are part of and constitute a discourse on/about dance.
The Slow Club clip is interesting because it’s a British band featuring European dancers. The song exists in an international context, and is referencing American television performances by black American dancers. But these performances circulate today again in an international context, and are most familiar to middle class dancers in a number of countries.
I think we need to talk about masculinity as well. Luckily Paul Gilroy and Stuart Hall have done a lot of the heavy lifting for discussions about black British masculinity and identity.
While I’ve found the Slow Club clip quite exciting and interesting and posted a little bit about it already, the Dax and Sarah clip is a little more challenging. I cannot help but engage with this performance in reference to the things they’ve written about gender on their own blog. I wrote a couple of things in response to their posts myself: Women talking about their own bodies and how this issue was trolled or women dancers wearing high heels and talking about it (Saturday, March 26th, 2011) and Fuck that shit. I’m not wearing no fucking high heeled shoes (Tuesday, April 5th, 2011). I’m sure they are endorsing conventionally gendered notions of physical ‘beauty’. I’m not sure they’re actually engaging reflexively with the way their appearance (when that appearance includes gender and race and class and other identity markers) informs audiences’ readings of their dancing.
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m on some sort of anti Dax and Sarah vendetta. I’m not. It’s just that they keep/kept leaping into the public discourse with such enthusiasm. As I wrote in the ‘Women talking about their own bodies…’ post, I think that lindy hoppers need to think through their public personas, and to be aware of the fact that teachers and performers – ‘celebrity lindy hoppers’ – are going to attract a great deal of public scrutiny.
As I write this I’m thinking about my own experiences with public scrutiny. The recent attention to this blog has been difficult to adjust to. I’m not sure I like all this attention. I know I haven’t liked some of the unpleasant comments I’ve had to delete, and it’s definitely been strange being approached by strangers at dance events who feel they ‘know me’ or have a right to regale me with their opinions at 2am while I’m DJing. I haven’t liked that. But then, this is the internet. If I’d wanted to keep my ideas secret, I shouldn’t have posted them…
… wait a minute. Fuck that. It smells a little too much like ‘don’t wear a short skirt or walk about by yourself at night if you want to be safe’. Don’t we all deserve respect and safety, just BECAUSE?
Yes.
Which is why I want to repeat: Sarah and Dax are great dancers, I suppose they could also be great people (I wouldn’t know). But that doesn’t mean I don’t think there are some problems with the things they’ve said online and done in dance performances. I feel that we need to engage with the ideas behind and within dancing as well. That stuff isn’t ideologically neutral: dancing IS discourse. And when you put it out there, in a competition, you are inviting discussion. So I’m going to discuss.
Firstly, I certainly don’t think Dax or Sarah intended offence, and I’m almost certain they intended their dancing as homage. That routine also has to be read in reference to other recreations of iconic routines: in this setting, and by these dancers, this routine was almost certainly intended as a mark of respect and admiration for the ‘original lindy hoppers’. It is however, I’m fairly certain, not a critically reflexive performance of racialised identity. In other words, I don’t think Dax and Sarah thought this thing through. Which, really, isn’t that surprising if you read them as young white people who haven’t had to engage with the issues of race and power embodied in the Day At The Races film. When you are a member of an empowered group, you don’t need to think about these things. Because they enable what you do, rather than inhibit you.
The troubling part seems to be the ‘fat suit’ (and what a troubling term that is), and I would have liked to see Lisa place this in the foreground of her article, rather than setting it aside. It seems to me that the suit initiates connotations of ‘humour’, and that is where many of the difficulties with this routine lie. It is difficult to negotiate when and how the ‘joke’ begins in this routine. Fat people are funny? Black fat people are funny? White fat people are funny? I find all these ideas deeply offensive, but also indicative of both the dancers’ ideas about physical beauty (which they have both articulated at length on their blog) and of modern lindy hop’s ideas about ‘beautiful bodies’. Would the routine have prompted such debate if it had presented a more familiar example of male athleticism? If Dax had appeared in his usual muscled, fit, and conventionally attractive body?
I’m wondering if the fat suit works as a sort of ‘blackface’. It’s a performance of a particular type of masculinity which, while it isn’t physically ‘black’, is continually referencing the black bodies dancing in Day At The Races. The very point of that routine is that it requires audiences’ familiarity with that film. Race is there, even if it is ‘invisible’. And I must say, here, that whiteness is as much about race and ethnicity as blackness is. To make whiteness ‘neutral’ or unmarked by race is wrongtown.
But then, how are we supposed to respond to this routine? Are we supposed to ‘laugh at the fat guy’? I know that in most lindy hop culture the muscled, athletic body is valorised (you only need consider the popularity of P90X and Insanity for evidence). If we are supposed to ‘laugh at the fat guy’, is it possible to also admire and valorise this ‘fat body’ at the same time? The crux of the original Day At The Races clip lies in exactly this tension: the dancer’s ability to perform impressive acts of athleticism with his body. Additionally, ‘fatness’ and fleshliness carried different connotative values in 1930s black American culture. So Dax and Sarah bring a different understanding of ‘fat’ to that clip, and to their performances. And audiences watching Dax and Sarah perform are watching from another point in time and culture.
I think gender is important here. The ‘fat suit’ – the ‘fat guy’ – only works in reference to the other male bodies on screen, and most particularly, the female body on-screen and on-stage. Dax in the ‘fat suit’ only works when compared to Sarah’s presentation of highly conventional female ‘beauty’. While she is also in connotative ‘blackface’ (at that same distance Dax is – through reference to the film and in her costuming), she is also in ‘whiteface’, wearing an athletic, healthy, conventionally ‘female’ body. The joke requires the conventionally attractive white/black heterosexual woman as foil for the ‘laugh at the fat guy’ joke. Part of the joke is the implication that ‘the fat guy’ has to be a seriously badarse dancer to secure such an attractive partner, because she’d otherwise have no interest in him.
I suspect that this is where the real conflict lies. One of the most persistent taboos in lindy hop today is disrespecting dancers from the 30s or 40s. It makes us uncomfortable to negotiate the disrespect of ‘laughing at the fat guy’ when this ‘fat guy’ (Dax in costume) is meant to be one of the Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers. Not only is Dax appropriating a black performance (of awesome dancing) from a film produced in decidedly unjust social context, he is also capitalising on the joke. He is not going to be the butt of this joke – we know he is wearing ‘the fat suit’ – so he is ‘safe’. He’s ‘not actually fat’. He doesn’t need to physically experience what it is to be ‘fat’ in modern American culture. He takes no risks. But at the same time he can also claim credit for the dancing ability he demonstrates – it’s good dancing, he is a good dancer. This is also where their performance fails, really, to realise the goals of the original performance. The original dance scene was impressive because he was a ‘fat guy’ who danced well despite/with his body. We never forget that Dax is ‘wearing the fat suit’. He has nothing to ‘overcome’, here.
[I would to talk about a Yehoodi talk show interview (16 March 2011) where Dax talks about dancing with an injury on So You Think You Can Dance, and how this is different to ‘dancing fat’, but I don’t really have space or time or brainz to do it. Except to say that there’s something interesting to be written about dance, injuries, perceptions of injuries, pain and masculinity.]
There is the chance, though, that Dax and Sarah didn’t intend this reading. Perhaps they are working to present an alternative portrayal of white masculinity. The physically large, well-fleshed heterosexual man as desirable, desiring, powerful and admirable subject. Perhaps they are trying to say “Look – ‘fat’ is, after all, only an arbitrary evaluation of physical size articulating western consumer values and notions of ‘beauty’.” Perhaps they are trying to comment reflexively on bodies and embodiment in dance. Perhaps. I’m not convinced. The thing is, this clip is existing in the same discourse as their blog, where they have both repeatedly articulated conventionally heterosexist and patriarchal ideas about gender, sex and beauty.
They are not, unfortunately, fucking over the patriarchy here.
Where do I leave this discussion? With a loud sigh and a bit of head shaking, I’m afraid. I don’t really have a solid ‘solution’. I think it’s a really excellent thing that we are actually talking about this issue openly in lindy hop today. It’s something that’s bothered me as long as I’ve been dancing. I mean, there are some problematic things happening here as well. I’d be very surprised if Australian dancers actually participated in this online discussion about race and dance or engaged with it in their dancing.
[EDIT: wtf does Lisa mean by “white people more or less on their racial own”?! When the fuck are people ever on their ‘racial own’? And what does that even MEAN?]
I do think, even after a bunch of years, that Joann Kealiinohomoku’s article ‘An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance’ is the most useful thing I’ve ever read about dance. That, matched up with Jacqui Malone’s talk about kneebones. The basic idea is that culture and ethnicity are made very clear in the way we move our bodies. In dance, but in other places as well. These two were very important references in my development of ideas, but there are some other really useful sources that help develop my thinking (see list below). I wrote about Kealiinohomoku and Malone in a post called black – white dance in 2006, but it’s pretty much the foundation for everything I write about dance, and everything I think about dance when I’m dancing. And why I get really annoyed by lindy hoppers who point their toes.
The other half of this is of course Gender as a social construct.
All together, they add up to these points: the way you move is a product not only of biology and physiology (ie the stuff you were born with), but more importantly, a product of lifestyle and culture (the things you do with – and have done to – your body).
NB I was just looking over some early posts about my phd, which were written around 2004/2005. Before youtube. It really blows my mind that I did all this video-analysis work without youtube. Sheeeeet. It just shows how valuable file sharing sites like dance.poy were, and how much we owed to the dancers who made and then shared videos and DVDs of vintage clips.
Kealiinohomoku, Joann. “An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance.” What Is Dance? Readings in Theory and Criticism. Eds. Roger Copeland and Marshall Cohen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. 533 – 49.
Malone, Jacqui. Steppin’ on the Blues: The Visible Rhythms of African American Dance. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996.
Friedland, LeeEllen. “Social Commentary in African-American Movement Performance.” Â Human Action Signs in Cultural Context: The Visible and the Invisible in Movement and Dance. Ed. Brenda Farnell. London: Scarecrow Press, 1995. 136 – 57.
Pietrobruno, Sheenagh. “Embodying Canadian Multiculturalism: The Case of Salsa Dancing in Montreal.” Revista Mexicana de Estudios Canadienses nueva época, número 3. (2002).
[Edit: I think this is partly why I’m not a fan of high heels for lindy hop. They lengthen the leg and make the foot look really small.]
(Photo of Amiri Baraka by Pat A. Robinson, stoled from here).
Long time no post. I’ve been busy with a few different projects lately, most of them impeded by vast quantities of randomly-generated anxiety. I’m bossing some DJs for MLX11, I’m bossing some DJs locally, I’m sorting some solo dance practices, I’m looking at venues, I went to Church City Blues, I’m doing lots and lots of exercises to help my knees, I’m trying to improve my own DJing, and I’m working on at least two websites. They’re actually all the fun things. Also, we’ve started cooking meat at our house. The less said about that the better.
Perhaps the most challenging part of all this is trying to get my brain in gear for writing coherent sentences. More than one at a time. Ones that link up and make paragraphs. Anything more than that is really a little too ambitious right now. Writing. Why are you so demanding? The hardest thing in the world is writing properly when your brain won’t stop buzzing and fretting. Dance workshops? Actually quite good when you can’t make your brain shush. Forty minutes of slow, careful strengthening and stretching exercises every day? Quite calming, actually. But anything creative or requiring sustained creative thought – choreography, writing, editing… that shit is impossible. So here is something messy. Because it’s like learning to dance fast. If you never actually do it, you’ll never be any good at it.
Right now I’m thinking about writing about music. Again. I think it’s because I like to write about music. I’m also a woman. Wait – that last part is important (have vag will type). And because the things people write and say about music shape the way dancers and DJs think about music. And that affects the way they dance to music, which bands and DJs they hire to play their events, whether and how much they pay musicians and DJs, and what sort of music they put into the event programs. I know this is kind of old school literary studies/cultural studies/media studies stuff. And I even wrote about it in my PhD.
But now, I want to write and think about it again. Because I am organising DJs for MLX, and because I’ve noticed a clear trickle down (or bleed out?) affect from the developing online dancer discourse to the face-to-face. Yes. My PhD has come to life. Basically, Faceplant, blogs, podcast, youtube and all those other goodies are having a clear effect on face-to-face dance practice. Dancers are writing more about music (and dance), Faceplant has increased the penetration of this writing, and dancers are now reading more about music and dance. And this is having clear effects on how dance events are run. And on the interpersonal and institutional relationships and power dynamics of the international lindy hop scene. Yes, I will make that call. I can’t help it. I’m trained to see words as articulating power and ideology. And discourse as at once articulating ideology and creating it. I CAN’T HELP IT. I HAVE LEARNT TO USE MY BRAIN. ALL THIS THINKING WILL NO DOUBT RESULT IN THE COLLAPSE OF CIVILISATION AND RISE OF OUR FELINE OVERLORDS (WORSHIP THEM).
So what I’m saying, here, is that I’m getting that niggly tingly itchy feeling in the back of my brain that tells me there’s something going on that I need to pay attention to. Some dots are being joined. Unfortunately not by my conscious, rational brain, so you’re going to have to muddle through some fairly irritatingly vague, malformed or downright wrongtown blog posts til I get it together. If this was a magazine or an academic journal you’d be reading coherent sentences. But it’s not. So you’re getting dodgy stuff, but sooner. The fact that I’m still managing all those buzzing-brain anxiety issues means that it’s going to take me longer than usual to make this all into proper paragraphs. But then, I figure it’s a goddamn improvement on the past few months that I’m actually able to set fingertips to keyboard and make with the sentencing.
Words: why are you so demanding?!
I’ve been trying to get an idea of how jazz journalism works, both in historical and contemporary contexts. I’ve read a bit about the history of jazz journalism/criticism, a lot of which is really concerning. Lots of white, middle class guys writing about jazz, to paraphrase Amiri Baraka. Very few not-men, very few not-white anyones. To quote Baraka:
Most jazz critics began as hobbyists or boyishly brash members of the American petite bourgeoisie, whose only claim to any understanding about the music was that they knew it was different; or else they had once been brave enough to make a trip into a Negro slum to hear their favorite instrumentalists defame Western musical tradition. Most jazz critics were (and are) not only white middle-class Americans, but middle-brows as well. (Baraka, Amiri, “Jazz and the white critic”, The Jazz Cadence of American Culture, ed. O’Meally, Robert G. ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998: 137-142. pp 140)
Yeah! Baraka brings the smackdown! Old school 60s politics style!
What I have read has, for the most part, been really annoying. It’s kind of frustrating to see jazz studies – jazz criticism – failing to really get a grasp on gender and race politics. It’s like the 60s didn’t happen for so many of these guys. And it’s maddening to read the arguments that jazz histories emphasising black contributions are ‘racist’. Reminds me of those fuckwit people who try to argue that affirmative action policies are ‘reverse sexism’. …wait, I’m going to derail here for a bit of a rant:
IF we were all starting from the same place on the running track, it might be reverse sexism. But, dumbarse, we are working within PATRIARCHY, so affirmative action policy isn’t ‘reverse-sexism’, it’s simply an attempt to get us all at least onto the running track together. Of course, you’ve got to be a real ninja to actually pull off that sort of affirmative action effectively. So it’s ok, dickhead. Your power and privilege really aren’t in a whole lot of danger. We still have quite a bit of work to do. And anyway, most of our most important successes have been sneaky, and you haven’t noticed them. But, FYI, just like that beefcake guy in that rubbish film Crazy Stupid Love says, convincing women they’re learning to pole dance ‘for fitness’, that’s not a feminist victory. Convincing women stripping for money is empowering: that is not feminism. That’s old school sexism. So you’ve pretty much scored a point there.
…but back to my story.
Some of these jazz writer guys are entirely lacking in a sense of cultural and social context. And they really, really need to do a few introductory gender/race studies classes. Hellz, some introductory literary studies subjects.
But it’s worth having a look about at what has been written about race and class and gender and ethnicity in reference to and within jazz criticism. Queer studies? Yeah, don’t hold your breath, buddy.
So there is some critical (in the sense that these authors are engaging with the ideology and assumptions at work, rather than ‘being negative’) attention to jazz histories and jazz criticism/journalism. I’ve written a little bit about it before (in the post the trouble with linear jazz narratives + more and New Orleans jazz?), but I’m certainly not well read on this topic.
(Photo of Ellen Willis (with Bessie Smith), feminist and music journalist stoled from Ellen Willis tumblr)
That was made quite clear when I bitched (yet again) about the lack of women jazz journalists on twitter. @hawleyrose suggested I talk to @elementsofjazz (herself a woman jazz writer), who then hooked me up with Nate Chinen’s article On women in jazz (criticism) and Angelika Beener’s article Nice Work If We Can Get It: Women Writing on Jazz. Then I followed a million links from each of those articles to many more articles. The bottom line, here is that I mouthed off without researching the topic properly. I fell into that old ‘invisible women’ trap. Because I didn’t see women writing for big name jazz publications, I figured they didn’t exist. Just like that arsehat who recently bleated that there weren’t any women bloggers or tweeters writing about politics. With that bloke, the problem was a) that he defined ‘politics’ using the usual, very limited party-politics-institutions-and-polls definition and b) that he didn’t bother with bloggers and tweeters outside his usual sphere.
So my problem was a) I wasn’t looking in the right places (I was only looking in the conservative ‘official’ jazz journalism public sphere), and b) I hadn’t bothered to do much work to find those women journalists. Now I know better. And I’m delighted to be wrong. There are lots of women jazz journalists. Particularly when you broaden your definitions and include independent media, especially online media.
I think it’s worth talking about the history of jazz criticism here. And how small independent print publications were so important to the development of jazz criticism and writing from the turn of the century. But it’s also worth giving an eye (or ear) to the larger print publications like Esquire and Downbeat. I’ve written about this before, quite a few times, so I won’t go into it here (search for ‘magazines’ and you’ll find some old posts, or follow the links from More Esquire Talk).
What I do want to say, here, is that I’ve been thinking perhaps I should be asking “Are there any women writing about early jazz?” I’m wondering if the usual industrial and labour divisions of the early 20th century made it harder not only for women to get published, but for women to get read in the early days. And if there’s a resistance to writing about early jazz in the modern jazz publications and sites. Surely I’m once again voluntarily making women writers invisible. Surely. Time for more research, yes? YES!
Matthew Bailes, one of the scientists who discovered that diamond planet writes about how his experiences would have been a bit different if he’d been a climate scientist in the article Diamond planets, climate change and the scientific method.
Where newspapers thrive is Judy Muller’s story about local newspapers, news values and journalism in small towns. I’m especially interested in this because I did my MA on state based newspaper coverage of gender, and then conceived my PhD project as a study of ‘local’ or community-based media. How do you tell controversial stories in a tiny community where your words will affect the lives of people you know, but also affect your life as part of that community?
This clip is brilliant.
Video for ‘Two Cousins’ by Slow Club, featuring Ryan Francois and Remy Kouakou Kouame
I have so much to say about this, but I have to just start here, and perhaps get back to it later.
I think it’s great! I must have watched it a million billion times already. I LOVE that you can see what they’re doing clearly – there’s so little footage of Ryan around it’s really cool to finally get a good look at his action. And I’d never seen Remy before!
I like the editing and composition a LOT. I think it’s a bit jarring if you’re used to the usual dance footage, which is just one camera at one angle, filming a whole-body shot. Great for watching and rewatching and learning choreography. Rubbish for creating a complex, involving narrative. This video clip is constructed for a different reason: to sell a song. Video clips have a long history of telling mini stories and working with narrative in interesting ways. This simply isn’t a dance clip like the ones we use every day. It wants to be read in a different way. Having said that, I think this clip also echoes the things Mura Dehn did in Spirit Moves: a white background; dancers framed in a strange, unnatural environment; inappropriate music; etc etc.
I think the editing and composition are wonderful for showcasing the movements. I really like (for example) the way the scarecrow is in slo-mo – it really emphasises the _feel_ of a scarecrow, which uses that long, slow slide back into a SNAP! I also love the close up on their hands. And the slow change from the gaze to-camera to the itches. I love that bit. Itches can feel kind of cheesy, but that deep, slow gaze reminds me that itches are old, old movements, their roots in Africa, funny on one level, serious on another. These two men – ancestors from Africa, living in modern Europe, dressed in the sharpest, finest suits are modern artists and professionals. They immediately trip up any orientalist impulses. This isn’t a romantic recreation of black dance; it’s a deliberate engagement with the dance (and the camera) by savvy professionals.
I like the way the editing and framing cut the movements into pieces and emphasise the jerky staccato-ness of them, but then slow them doooown, making them smoother and more fluid with the slo-mo. I also like the way the dancers turn around, so we see their backs. All that unrelieved black fabric in a high-contrast black and white film. It’s a relief when they turn around and we see their faces and hands and white shirts and bits of white cuff. Throughout this clip we see so many little bits of their bodies (which emphasises those bits and makes us think about them), I just get so impatient to see their _whole_ bodies. So when we do see them, full-length, framed carefully and completely on the screen, it’s almost a relief. I have to keep watching and rewatching, hoping I’ll see just a bit more of them each time.
I think this is only shot from one side, so the dancers _can_ turn their backs on us. They can choose to look _away_. It’s not quite a fourth wall, because they return our gaze, so levelly and clearly, and breaking the illusion of an on-stage performance.
I don’t mind that the choreography is cut into pieces. Isn’t that how we experience archival film anyway – films are cut up into pieces, the dancing bits excised and put onto youtube? And when I think of the Al and Leon stuff on youtube, it all sort of blurs into a melange of pieces, just like this clip. Editing is about cutting up and gluing together footage to tell a story in a particular way. I think the editing in this allows the dancers to engage with the viewer in a way Al and Leon never could in those television performances.
In this video clip we finally get a chance to see just how _seriously_ these dancers take their work and their craft. Those moments when, in slo-mo, Remy and Ryan gaze into the camera… it’s exciting. It’s intense. It reminds me that the light hearted surface of those Al and Leon clips is really just the very first and most superficial part of what they were doing. All those performances are the product of so much work and practice and training, all of which require an intense, passionate commitment and determination. When they look into the camera their stillness and intensity contrasts with their energised bodies and remind me that the performance _is_ a performance. They are _more_ than just this routine. It also reminds me that this is a _recreation_ of iconic choreographies (and television performances), where two men are recreating or performing something which dancers like us all know, but which the average punter hasn’t a clue about. They are putting on a ‘costume’ when they do those routines (including their literal costumes), but they are – as people and dancers – more than this. I especially like the way their level gazes contrast with the grins (which could be fake!) later on. Returning the gaze is an act of agency and power. It also allows you to connect with the people who inhabit those bodies in a different way.
So far as the song itself goes: booooring. But then, that action is popular with the young people these days, and perhaps it’s a gateway drug. :D To badarse dancing and eventually music. I do think the song is useful, though, because its lighter, simpler structure only emphasises the complexity of the dancing. I guess I see this contrast mostly because I’m so very familiar with the original choreography and musical context for the dancing, and not everyone might see that (especially if they didn’t know anything about jazz dance). But to me it’s kind of thrilling to see such amazing dancing so clearly, and showcased in such an interesting way. For me, the song recedes and becomes a sort of bland background for some really impressive, wonderful dancing.
I’m also fascinated by the presentation and performance of race in this clip, how it compares with footage of black dancers in the 30s/40s/50s, the fact that the Slow Club are white British musicians, but I don’t really want to make this post any longer. Although I bet Stuart Hall would have some really interesting things to say…
NB I’d like to talk about how the long, full-length shot without cuts was used by feminist filmmakers in the 70s to alienate the viewer from the narrative, and also to emphasise the tedium of housework. This is relevant to a discussion of how dancers use footage of dance performances – long, unbroken scenes, full-length shots. The story is deliberately broken down by rewatching as well as framing, so that dancers can figure out dance steps.
NB2 Of course, when I see this post next to the last one, all sorts of other ideas leap into my brain.
(image from the Powerhouse Museum).
Finally!
Years after I was first asked, I’ve finally gotten myself organised and gotten the guts to put together a set for Yehoodi radio. I know, I know, it’s silly to get worked up about these things. But that’s how I roll. Worry, obsessing, all that shit. I’m all over it. But, mostly thanks to Jesse’s patience, I’ve gotten it happening.
During my set (which goes for about four and a half hours), I do a bit of talking and explain why I chose particular songs. I couldn’t put in everything I wanted to say (who’d have thought? I like to talk as much as I like to write!), so I’ve decided to flesh out the radio show here with some details, useful links and references.
The set is on every Thursday in June on Yehoodi radio, from 4-6:30pm 7pm-4am Thursdays, then 5am-3pm, 4-6.30pm Fridays, Sydney time. I think. Maybe check yourself?.
Firstly, Here’s the set:
1. intro2-1:59
2. Davenport Blues – Adrian Rollini and his Orchestra (Jack Teagarden) – Father Of Jazz Trombone – 136 – 1934 – 3:14
3. I Like Pie I Like Cake (but I like you best of all) – The Goofus Five (Bill Moore, Adrian Rollini, Irving Brodsky, Tommy Felline, Stan King) – Goofus Five 1924-1925 – 188 – 1924 – 3:15
4. Let’s Sow A Wild Oat – Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra (Joe Poston, Alex Hill, Junie Cobb, Bill Newton, Johnny Wells, George Mitchell, Fayette Williams) – The Jimmie Noone Collection – 185 – 1928 – 3:03
5. Borneo – Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra (Bix Beiderbecke, Charlie Margulis, Bill Rank, Chet Hazlett, Irving Friedman, Lennie Hayton, Eddie Lang, Min Liebrook, Hal McDonald, Scrappy Lambert, Bill Challis) – The Complete Okeh and Brunswick Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer and Jack Teagarden Sessions (1924-1936) (disc 2) – 184 – 1928 – 3:11
6. A Mug Of Ale – Joe Venuti’s Blue Four – All Star Jazz Quartets (disc 3) – 220 – 1927 – 3:07
7. Never Had A Reason To Believe In You – Mound City Blue Blowers (Jack Teagarden, Red McKenzie, Eddie Condon, Jack Bland, Pops Foster, Josh Billings) – Father Of Jazz Trombone – 180 – 1929 – 3:03
8. 1-backannounce-B – 0:36
9. I Hope Gabriel Likes My Music – Frankie Trumbauer and his Orchestra (Ed Wade, Charlie Teagarden, Jack Teagarden, Johnny Mince, Jack Cordaro, Mutt Hayes, Roy Bargy, George van Eps, Artie Miller, Stan King) – The Complete Okeh and Brunswick Bix Beiderbecke, Frank Trumbauer and Jack Teagarden Sessions (1924-1936) (disc 7) – 190 – 1936 – 3:14
10. I’se A Muggin’ – Le Quintette du Hot Club de France (Stéphane Grappelli, Django Reinhardt, Joseph Reinhardt, Pierre Ferret, Lucien Simoens, Freddy Taylor) – The Complete Django Reinhardt And Quintet Of The Hot Club Of France Swing/HMV Sessions 1936-1948 (disc 1) – 176 – 1936 – 3:08
11. Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone – Glenn Miller’s G.I.s (Peanuts Hucko, Mel Powell, Bernie Priven, Joe Schulman, Ray McKinley, Django Reinhardt) – Glenn Miller’s G.I.s in Paris 1945 – 182 – 1945 – 2:59
12. 2-backannounce 3 – 1:55
13. Benny’s Bugle – Benny Goodman Sextet (Cootie Williams, George Auld, Count Basie, Charlie Christian, Artie Bernstein, Harry Jaeger) – Charlie Christian: The Genius of The Electric Guitar (disc 2) – 203 – 1940 – 3:06
14. Squatty Roo – Johnny Hodges and his Orchestra (Ray Nance, Lawrence Brown, Harry Carney, Duke Ellington, Jimmy Blanton, Sonny Greer) – The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition: Complete RCA Victor Recordings (disc 12) – 202 – 1941 – 2:24
15. Flying Home – Teddy Wilson Sextet (Emmett Berry, Benny Morton, Edmond Hall, Slam Stewart, Big Sid Catlett) – The Complete Associated Transcriptions – 1944 – 198 – 1944 – 4:56
16. 2B-backannounce – 0:22
17. Shortnin’ Bread – Fats Waller and His Rhythm (John Hamilton, Gene Sedric, Al Casey, Cedric Wallace, Slick Jones) – Last Years (1940-1943) (Disc 2) – 195 – 1941 – 2:41
18. Don’t Try Your Jive On Me – Una Mae Carlisle with Dave Wilkins, Bertie King, Alan Ferguson, Len Harrison, Hymie Schneider – Una Mae Carlisle: Complete Jazz Series 1938 – 1941 – 188 – 1938 – 2:52
19. That’s What You Think – Putney Dandridge and his Orchestra (Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Buster Bailey, Teddy Wilson, Lawrence Lucie, John Kirby, Walter Johnson) – Complete Jazz Series 1935 – 1936 – 185 – 1935 – 2:43
20. I’m Gonna Clap My Hands – Gene Krupa’s Swing Band (Chu Berry, Helen Ward) – Classic Chu Berry Columbia And Victor Sessions (Disc 1) – 188 – 1936 – 3:01
21. 3-backannounce 2 – 1:40
22. Warmin’ Up – Teddy Wilson and his Orchestra (Roy Eldridge, Buster Bailey, Chu Berry) – Classic Chu Berry Columbia And Victor Sessions (Disc 2) – 241 – 1936 – 3:20
23. Dancing Dogs – Mills Blue Rhythm Band (Lucky Millinder, Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Buster Bailey) – Mills Blue Rhythm Band: Harlem Heat – 228 – 1934 – 2:49
24. Lafayette – Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra (Count Basie, Ben Webster, Walter Page) – Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra (1929-1932): Basie Beginnings – 296 – 1932 – 2:47
25. Stompy Jones – Duke Ellington and his Orchestra – The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition: Complete RCA Victor Recordings (disc 07) – 200 – 1934 – 3:03
26. Stompin’ At The Savoy – Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra – Swingsation: Charlie Barnet and Jimmy Dorsey – 162 – 1936 – 3:12
27. 4-backannounce – 2:41
28. St. Louis Blues – Ella Fitzgerald and her Famous Orchestra – Ella Fitzgerald In The Groove – 183 – 1939 – 4:46
29. Pound Cake – Count Basie and his Orchestra (Lester Young) – Classic Columbia, Okeh And Vocalion Lester Young With Count Basie (1936-1940) (Disc 2) – 186 – 1939 – 2:46
30. Page Mr. Trumpet 2:53 Pete Johnson Complete Jazz Series 1944 – 1946
31. 627 Stomp – Pete Johnson’s Band (Oran ‘Hot Lips’ Page, Edddie Barefield, Don Stovall, Don Byas, John Collins, Abe Bolar, A. G Godley) – Jazz – Kansas City Style – 153 – 1940 – 3:13
32. Shake It And Break It – Joe Turner with the Varsity Seven (Pete Johnson, Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins) – Complete Jazz Series 1938 – 1941 – 177 – 2:59
33. Some Of These Days – Julia Lee, Clint Weaver, Sam ‘Baby’ Lovett – Kansas City Star (disc 1) – 210 – 1946 – 2:02
34. Baby Heart Blues – Jay McShann and his Orchestra (Walter Brown) – Jumpin’ The Blues (disc 01) – 159 – 1941 – 2:47
35. Jumpin’ Little Woman – Tiny Kennedy – Kansas City Blues 1944-1949 (Disc 3) – 118 – 1949 – 2:37
36. Undecided Blues – Count Basie and his Orchestra (Jimmy Rushing) – Cutting Butter – The Complete Columbia Recordings 1939 – 1942 (disc 03) – 120 – 1941 – 2:56
37. 5-backannounce – 2:01
38. I’m Going To Start A Racket – Lil Green (acc. by Simeon Henry, Jack Dupree, Big Bill Broonzy, Ransom Knowling) – 1940-1941 – 104 – 1941 – 3:00
39. My Man Jumped Salty On Me – James P. Johnson’s Hep Cats (Rosetta Crawford, Mezz Mezzrow) – History of the Blues (disc 02) – 112 – 1939 – 3:23
40. Come Easy Go Easy – Rosetta Howard acc. by the Harlem Blues Serenaders (Charlie Shavers, Buster Bailey, Lil Armstrong, Ulysses Livingston, Wellman Brand, O’Neil Spencer) – Rosetta Howard (1939-1947) – 90 – 1939 – 3:03
41. Moaning The Blues – Victoria Spivey acc by Henry ‘Red’ Allen, JC Higginbotham, Teddy Hill, Luis Russell – Henry Red Allen And His New York Orchestra (disc 1) – 97 – 1929 – 3:07
42. 6-backannounce 2 – 1:29
43. Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl – Janet Klein – Come Into My Parlor – 94 – 1998 – 2:12
44. You Got to Give Me Some – Midnight Serenaders (David Evans, Dee Settlemier, Doug Sammons, Garner Pruitt, Henry Bogdan, Pete Lampe) – Magnolia – 187 – 2007 – 4:02
45. Old Joe’s Hittin’ The Jug – Rhythm Club All Stars – Introducing The Rhythm Club All Stars – 269 – 2008 – 2:43
46. Red Hot Band – Bob Hunt’s Duke Ellington Orchestra – What A Life! – 237 – 1999 – 2:40
47. Looking Good But Feeling Bad – Les Red Hot Reedwarmers – Apex Blues – 272 – 2007 – 3:52
48. 7-backannounce – 3:23
49. I’ll Build A Stairway To Paradise – Rufus Wainwright (I think singing with the Manhattan Rhythm Kings, or perhaps Vince Giordano’s band?) – The Aviator – 142 – 3:12
50. Let’s Do It – Terra Hazelton (feat. Jeff Healey, Marty Grosz, Dan Levinson, Vince Giordano) – Anybody’s Baby – 126 – 2004 – 4:28
51. Some Of These Days – Midnight Serenaders (David Evans, Dee Settlemier, Doug Sammons, Garner Pruitt, Henry Bogdan, Pete Lampe) – Sweet Nothin’s – 255 – 2009 – 3:29
52. Chinatown, My Chinatown – Hot Club Of Cowtown – Swingin’ Stampede – 256 – 1998 – 3:02
53. Stay A Little Longer – Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys – The Tiffany Transcriptions (vol 2) – 232 – 3:07
54. 8-backannounce – 1:14
55. Chimes at the Meeting (feat. Washboard Chaz) – Ophelia Swing Band – Swing Tunes of the 30’s & 40’s – 253 – 1977 – 3:23
56. Digadoo – Firecracker Jazz Band – The Firecracker Jazz Band – 247 – 2005 – 5:20
57. Puttin’ on the Ritz – Mona’s Hot Four (Dennis Lichtman, Gordon Webster, Cassidy Holden, Nick Russo, Jesse Selengut, Dan Levinson, Tamar Korn) – Live at Mona’s – 185 – 2009 – 7:49
58. Better Off Dead – Linnzi Zaorski and Delta Royale (Charlie Fardella, Robert Snow, Matt Rhody, Seva Venet, Chaz Leary) – Hotsy-Totsy – 146 – 2004 – 3:51
59. 9-backannounce – 1:31
60. Do You Call That A Buddy – Chris Tanner’s Virus – With Her Dixie Eyes Blazin’ – 119 – 2001 – 6:17
61. The Love Me Or Die – C.W. Stoneking – Jungle Blues – 153 – 2008 – 3:55
62. Blue Leaf Clover – Firecracker Jazz Band – The Firecracker Jazz Band – 111 – 2005 – 4:59
63. That Too, Do – Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra (Count Basie, Jimmy Rushing) – Moten Swing – 123 – 1930 – 3:20
64. 10-backannounce – 2:59
65. It’s Tight Like That – Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra (Joe Poston, Alex Hill, Junie Cobb, Bill Newton, Johnny Wells, George Mitchell, Fayette Williams) – The Jimmie Noone Collection – 144 – 1928 – 2:49
66. Truckin’ – Henry ‘Red’ Allen and his Orchestra – Henry Red Allen ‘Swing Out’ – 171 – 1935 – 2:54
67. Murder In The Moonlight – Red McKenzie and his Rhythm Kings (Eddie Farley, Mike Riley, Slats Young, Conrad Lanoue, Eddie Condon, George Yorke, Johnny Powell) – Classic Sessions 1927-49 (Volume 2) – 193 – 1935 – 2:55
68. Joe Louis Stomp – Bill Coleman, Edgar Currance, Jean Ferrier, Oscar Aleman, Eugene d’Hellemes, Hurley Diemer – Bill Coleman In Paris 1936-1938 – 213 – 1936 – 3:14
69. Beau Koo Jack – Louis Armstrong and his Savoy Ballroom Five (Fred Robinson, Jimmy Strong, Don Redman, Earl Hines, Mancy Cara, Zutty Singleton, Alex Hill) – Hot Fives and Sevens – Volume 3 – 246 – 1928 – 3:01
70. Blues (My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me) – Wilbur De Paris and his Rampart Street Ramblers – Dr. Jazz Vol. 7 – 153 – 5:35
71. St. Louis Blues – Sidney Bechet and his New Orleans Feetwarmers (Vic Dickenson, Don Donaldson, Wilson Meyers, Wilbert Kirk) – The Sidney Bechet Story (disc 3) – 131 – 1943 – 4:49
72. 11-backannounce – 1:54
73. Reckless Blues – Louis Armstrong and his All Stars (Velma Middleton, Trummy Young Edmund Hall, Billy Kyle, Everett Barksdale, Squire Gersh, Barrett Deems) – The Complete Decca Studio Recordings of Louis Armstrong and the All Stars (disc 06) – 88 – 1957 – 2:30
74. Jealous Hearted Blues – Carol Ralph – Swinging Jazz Portrait – 80 – 2005 – 3:48
75. You Help Your New Woman – Di Anne Price – 88 Steps to the Blues – 87 – 2009 – 4:36
76. What Kind Of Man Is This? – Koko Taylor – South Side Lady (Live in Netherlands 1973) (Blues Reference) – 116 – 1973 – 4:08
77. Sweet Home Chicago – David “Honeyboy” Edwards – Sun Records – The Blues Years, 1950 – 1958 CD4 – 112 – 3:01
78. Blues Stay Away – George Smith – Kansas City – Jumping The Blues From 6 To 6 – 82 – 1955 – 3:10
79. Evil Woman – Lonnie Johnson – The Bluesville Years Volume 11: Blues Is A Heart’s Sorrow – 104 – 2:34
80. Inform Me Baby – Walter Brown – Kansas City Blues 1944-1949 (Disc 2) – 71 – 1949 – 2:59
81. I Ain’t No Ice Man – Cow Cow Davenport with Joe Bishop, Sam Price, Teddy Bunn, Richard Fullbright – History of the Blues (disc 02) – 89 – 1938 – 2:51
82. Hamp’s Salty Blues – Lionel Hampton and his Quartet – Lionel Hampton Story 3: Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop – 86 – 1946 – 3:10
83. 12-backannounce 2 – 1:00
84. Kitchen Blues – Martha Davis – BluesWomen: Girls Play And Sing The Blues – 80 – 1947 – 3:05
85. Fine And Mellow – Mal Waldron and the All-Stars (Billie Holiday, Roy Eldridge, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Milt Hinton) – The Sound Of Jazz – 79 – 1957 – 6:22
86. Rocks In My Bed – Ella Fitzgerald acc. by Ben Webster, Paul Smith, Stuff Smith, Barney Kessel, Joe Mondragon, Alvin Stoller – Ella Fitzgerald Day Dream: Best Of The Duke Ellington Songbook – 68 – 1956 – 3:59
87. 13-backannounce – 1:19
88. Willow Weep For Me – Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis (g), Ray Brown (b), Buddy Rich – Ella And Louis Again – 90 – 1957 – 4:21
89. No Regrets – Cecile Mclorin Salvant and the Jean-Francois Bonnel Paris Quintet – Cecile – 134 – 2010 – 4:05
90. Sweet Lorraine – June Christy and The Kentones – Complete Peggy Lee and June Christy Capitol Transcription Sessions (Disc 1) – 138 – 1945 – 2:34
91. Joog, Joog – Duke Ellington and his Orchestra – Duke Ellington and his Orchestra: 1949-1950 – 146 – 1949 – 3:01
I put together this set with an ear to transitioning smoothly between songs. I planned it as though it was a real set I was playing for dancers. But I also thought about who was in the bands and about grouping particular styles.
1
– Adrian Rollini’s band featuring Jack Teagarden. One of my go-to songs.
– Goofus Five (featuring Adrian Rollini). My preferred version, and one Trev put me onto.
– Jimmy Noone: for whom I have great, towering feelings.
– Trumbauer’s band featuring Bix Beiderbecke and Eddie Lang, doing my FAVOURITE SONG, ‘Borneo’.
– Joe Venuti’s band.
– The Mound City Blue Blowers, featuring Jack Teagarden, and doing ‘St Louis Blues’ on youtube.
– Jack Teagarden. Beautiful voice, gorgeous trombone, not at all beautiful to look at. Would marry.
2
– Trumbauer’s band again, with more Jack Teagarden
small groups:
– Quintette of the Hot Club of France featuring Django Reinhardt.
– Glenn Miller’s G.I.s featuring Django Reinhardt and other Americans, in Paris.
– Bennie Goodman’s sextet (Count Basie, Charlie Christian, Cootie Williams)
-> the importance of Goodman’s small groups lie in their music, but also in the fact that they were mixed-race. Check out this cool clip of one of Goodman’s small groups’ performances.
– Johnny Hodges and his Orchestra – Duke Ellington’s small group, featuring Johnny Hodges. Cootie Williams played in Ellington’s band.
2b
– Teddy Wilson Sextette. Massive love for Teddie Wilson. The iconic song ‘Flying Home’ by Teddie Wilson’s sextette, featuring Slam Stewart, part of Slim and Slam, silly vocal kings.
– Fats Waller doing ‘Shortnin’ Bread’, one of my faves.
3
kicking bands with great vocals:
– Una Mae Carlisle with a small group (Carlisle recorded other songs with Slam Stewart, with Zutty Singleton (who played with Fats Waller a bit) and Lester Young (from Basie’s band!)). The piano intro reminds me of Fats Waller, and the muted trumpet solo is very Waller small band-like.
-> Carlisle as one of the first swing vocalists I liked when I started dancing.
– Putney Dandrige, with a brilliant band featuring Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Buster Bailey, Teddy Wilson, Lawrence Lucie, John Kirby and Walter Johnson. Carlisle also recorded with Buster Bailey and John Kirby. Dandridge is interesting because later in his career he was obviously imitating Fats Waller’s vocal style. And not doing a good job.
– Helen Ward singing with Gene Krupa’s band, which also features Chu Berry.
4
Bigger bands, with musicians in common:
– Teddy Wilson again, with Chu Berry in this band, as well as Buster Bailey and Roy Eldridge
– the Mills Blue Rhythm Band (with Lucky Millinder, Henry ‘Red’ Allen, Buster Bailey), doing hot hot jazz
– Bennie Moten’s band featuring Count Basie, Ben Webster, Walter Page, playing a familiar song ‘Lafayette’. I love this Kansas action.
– A Duke Ellington wonderment – my favourite Ellington song
Big band classic swing WIN:
– Jimmy Dorsey doing the BEST version of ‘Stompin at the Savoy’, my favourite shim sham song. Remember Dorsey was in the Mound City Blue Blowers at one point.
– a brilliant version of another common song, ‘St Louis Blues’, by Ella Fitzgerald (not singing) with what was Chick Webb’s band. Played live at the Savoy (hence the link to ‘Stompin at the Savoy’).
Kansas!
– Basie’s band playing ‘Pound Cake’. A classic example of solid, wickedly good Basie big band lindy hopping win. Basie of course turned up earlier, but this is the classic ‘old testament’ Basie sound, not Moten stuff, and not small Goodman Group stuff. The rhythm section is where it’s at in this song.
– Pete Johnson. YES.
– Pete Jonson AGAIN, this time featuring Hot Lips Page doing ‘627 Stomp’. Read about the 627 Local here.
– Big Joe Turner (with Pete Johnson I think)! doing ‘Shake It and Break It’, a song I love because of this performance
– Julia Lee! Brilliant home-recording session
– Jay McShann! Walter Brown! Kansas city win!
– Tiny Kennedy!
– Count Basie with Jimmy Rushing. Singing waiters. Wonderful.
5
Slower music, possibly for blues dancing. Raggedy, kick your arse vocals, attitudinal singers, excellent bands:
– Lil Green. Getting into crime to fund a better lifestyle.
– James P Johnson’s Hep Cats with Mezz Mezzrow, but more importantly, ROSETTA CRAWFORD. Cut him if he stands still, shoot him if he runs
– Rosetta Howard (!!) with the Harlem Blues Serenaders, band of amazingness: Charlie Shavers, Buster Bailey, Lil Armstrong, Ulysses Livingston, Wellman Brand, O’Neil Spencer. Having money, not having money. Whatevs.
– Victoria Spivvey, who will pwn you. With a brilliant band. Henry Red Allen. And singing a song about getting dirty that feels as though it’s a song about getting dirty.
6
Modern bands, heavy on the high energy fun (after Klein):
– Janet Klein on ukelele, defusing things with the usually-hot ‘Sugar in my bowl’
– Midnight Serenaders. Favourite modern band. Guitarist used to be in Helmet. Yes. Light, bouncing band of fun.
– Old Joe’s Hitting the Jug, not the version we know by Stuff Smith (which features in this clip of Bethany and Stephan, my current favourite lindy hopping couple), a version by Danny Glass’s band of brilliance.
– Bob Hunt. Ellington win. This song is excellently exciting fun.
– Les Red Hot Reedwarmers French. From France. Doing wonderful Jimmie Noone wonderfulness. Exciting!
7
– SQUEEEE Rufus Wainwright Stairway to Paradise. Earworm. Camp. Wonderment. Listening at home, I love to follow this song up with Wainwright doing Cohen, fucking up your gender binaries.
– Terra Hazelton, with a band of OMG GOOD. Singing a silly song with lots of innuendo, written by Cole Porter, who was queer as fuck, so a lovely campy follow up to Wainwright. Vince Giordano plays on this version, and his band was also in the Aviator, where I found the Wainwright song.
– More Midnight Serenaders. I love the first line the most. Male vocals. Lovely. I like comparing this to the Julia Lee version.
– The male singer in the Hot Club of Cowtown has a gorgeously sexy style. I always think of him when I listen to that version of ‘Some of these Days’. I like the HCC a lot. I like this western swing treatment of a hot jazz favourite. This band featured the bass player from Casey McGill’s band.
– Of course I had to follow up with Bob Wills, western swing king. The HCC have a new album out which is all Bob Wills songs. I really love this song ‘Stay a Little Longer’, and this is a great version. But this is a better version.
8
– a band I know nothing about, doing a GREAT version of a song I love, ‘Chimes at the meeting’ by Willie Bryant’s band. Teddie Wilson played with Willie Bryant’s band. Sister Pork Chop. This is a rowdy, fiddle-heavy song that connects nicely to the HCC and Bob Wills.
– Firecracker Jazz Band, who are. This is a top fun version of a very common, famous song. The trumpeter Je Widenhousei was/is in the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Anyway, Katherine Whalen (of the Zippers) reminds me, vocally, of Tamar Korn.
– The Cangelosi Cards (featuring Tamar Korn) do a version of ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’, but I think this rowdy live version is better. It features Gordon Webster on piano, and Jesse Selengut. This song is long and I’ve never played it for dancers. It is really really good.
– the vocals of this next song are interesting, and are a nice link to Korn’s interesting vocal style. ‘Better Off Dead’ is kind of of a tongue-in-cheekly-miserable song about being in a shitty relationship.
9
Australian content! Modern bands! Necrophilia! Darkness!
– Chris Tanner’s Virus. Continuing the theme of rubbish relationships. What a terrible friend.
– C W Stoneking. More awful relationships. Stoneking’s album featured some of the Virus people. They are all Melbourne folk. I love this song, but I don’t play it for dancers. I love the misery of it. See those Virus/Melbourne/Stoneking band people in Stoneking’s video for ‘Jungle Blues’ which has good misery too.
– Firecracker Jazz Band again! Not Australian. A song that feels dark, but gets a bit lighter. This is good dancing fun.
– ‘That Too Do’ is another Moten song featuring Basie, but also Jimmie Rushing. It also feels a bit dark and unhappy, but it a kind of winking-at-the-audience way.
10
silly, older songs, with vocals:
– Moten leads me to Noone. Noone. I love him. This is a brilliant little song. Is it about sex? Is it about being awesome? I’m too clueless to know. This is fun.
– Best version of ‘Truckin’. Back to Henry Red Allen. I really like it for the laconic, really laid back lyrics. They’re singing about a dance craze with very little vocal enthusiasm.
– ‘Murder in the Moonlight’ is silly. Feels like the Mound City Blue Blowers, has some of the same musicians.
Smaller bands, smelling of New Orleans:
– Then Bill Coleman, recording in France, with Oscar Aleman (not Django!). Remember those other French songs?
– Louis Armstrong and his Savoy Ballroom Five. This is hot. Hot. Hot. And this band features Zutty Singleton, Don Redman, of course, and Alex Hill, who was in the Jimmie Noone band.
– a version of ‘Blues My Naughty Sweety Gave to Me’. But by Wilbur de Paris and his Rampart Street Ramblers. It says ‘New Orleans’ to me, and that’s Louis Armstrong. de Paris was in Armstrong’s band, Jelly Roll’s band AND Ellington’s band. He’s glue. This is a good transcript version of a favourite.
– another version of ‘St Louis Blues’. By Bechet. New Orleans, yes.
11
Slower, blues dancing music:
Australian content!
…not really. Here’s what I said about this song in the Yehoodi show:
Well, this next song isn’t by an Australian musician, it’s by Louis Armstrong and his small group, including Velma Middleton, but Louis Armstrong is kind of an interesting example because Louis Armstrong Australia in about the mid-fifties, and between about 1928 and some date in the 50s, black musicians were banned from touring in Australia. And this was partly because Australia was a pretty racist place at the time, and there were fears that black musicians were bringing drugs and sex and misbehaviour to the innocent white folk of Australia. But in actual fact, it was probably more to do with pressures from the local musicians’ union, who didn’t want all these badarse musicians coming from the States and taking all their gigs.
I explore this topic in this post.
– Carol Ralph. Australian. Reminds me of Velma Middleton, from Armstrong’s small groups.
– Di Anne Price. You better help your new woman (get out of town). This is the sort of sentiment I like in my blues dancing music. More hi-fi, modern music.
– Koko Taylor. A little more soul. Assertive, sexually confident. Perhaps a little cranky.
– Sweet Home Chicago. Geetar. A natural progression from the feel of Taylor’s song.
Slower, dirtier male vocal blues:
– George Smith. Harmonica and guitar.
– Lonnie Johnson singing Evil Woman, a song women usually sing. I like the line about being too evil to sleep straight in her bed. I chose this version for the way it links up the the male vocals and sparse piano sound of the next song.
– Walter Brown (excellent voice!). Male vocal blues. More upsetting women.
– Cow Cow Davenport singing a brilliant song. All innuendo.
– Lionel Hampton’s band doing an uncharacteristically slow and mellow number. I like the feel of this one.
12
More blues. Serious. Groovier:
– Martha Davis, doing a wonderfully velvety song about ‘working’ for a man. A sparser style, which links us from the previous song quite well.
– …which sets us up nicely for Billie Holiday’s quite intense, but equally velvety classic live performance. You can see her singing it in this clip.
– Ella singing ‘Rocks in My bed’. I never find her all that convincing when she sings sadder songs – she always sounds like she’s smiling. This recording is interesting because it features Stuff Smith. It’s also really nice and slow and rocking.
13
– A song by Louis Armstrong with a band including Oscar Peterson from an album called ‘Ella and Louis Again’. Feels just like the Ella song. I’m not usually a fan of Armstrong singing, but sometimes he gets it just right. I like the way he lightens things up a bit.
Slightly faster, groovier, velvety stuff:
– Cecil McLorin Salvant, a very young French singer doing a sort-of-Billie-Holiday type performance. She has really cool delivery.
– I love this version of ‘Sweet Lorraine’, a song I love a lot. I like the way it’s often sung by women, and is a love song for a woman. This song is a bit older, and it’s a nice segue to a slightly earlier feel.
– And, finally, Duke Ellington’s band with vocals, doing a song I regularly use to shift gears while DJing, from chillaxed groovy back to chunkier old school.
[EDIT 13/6/13: It makes me very sad that this post is still relevant. It’s been linked up again, by a few different people around the place, because those people are having bad times with arseholes in their dance scenes. So I think it’s worth bumping this post again. This is such heartbreaking stuff to talk about. But we have to. We HAVE to.
Please, if you’re in strife and need some help, call one of the lines I’ve listed below. And if you want to change things in your own scene, start working on constructive plans with women, not for them. We don’t need no white knights, here. And if you’re in a bad way, and need some help, I know that services like Beyond Blue here in Australia can help if you’re having trouble with anxiety and/or depression. And god knows the only sensible response to this issue is sadness.]
[EDIT 4/4/12: I receive emails about this post, or comments on this post every couple of weeks. I published it almost a year ago. It breaks my heart that this issue is still one we need to address.
Please, if you need help, don’t hesitate to call someone. Doesn’t matter whether something happened years ago or this morning – there are people who have got your back. Give them a call.
If you’re in Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore, or somewhere else, please do google ‘rape help line’.]
It was inevitable, really. But my thinking about slutwalk and my thinking about dance have finally gotten together in my brainz and become the Difficult Conversation About Sexual Violence in Swing Dance Communities. Despite my mixed feelings about slutwalk, it has meant that I’ve had more conversations about gender, violence, safety and community since it hit the media than I have in years and years. And most of those conversations have been with dancers who do not openly identify as feminist, or who aren’t otherwise politically engaged. To me, this is a marvellous thing.
Tim linked me up with this article about slutwalk by Jacinda Woodhead and Stephanie Convery, which links in turn to 4523.0 – Sexual Assault in Australia: A Statistical Overview, 2004, a 2004 ABS report on sexual assault in Australia. If you’ve been paying attention, most of the information in the report is depressingly familiar, yet in direct counterpoint to the myths surrounding sexual assault circulated in mainstream discourse. Key points for my post today are summed up on page 13 of this report:
For most victims of sexual assault reported to the police, the perpetrator is likely to be known to them. The most commonly reported location where the offence occurs is a residential setting.
This point is expanded on pg 24:
- All available data sources indicate that over half of perpetrators of sexual assault are known to their victims. NCSS 2002 estimated that 52% of all adult victims knew the offenders in the most recent incident in the previous 12 months; 58% of female victims and 19% of male victims knew the offenders.
- The most commonly reported location of sexual assault is residential, often the victim’s own home.
It’s important to note that these are reported assaults, and that most assaults are not reported to the police at all. The report continues (pg 13-14):
There is evidence that most victims of sexual assault do not report the crime to police, and that many do not access the services available to provide support. Factors affecting the decision to report sexual assault include the closeness of the victim-offender relationship and the victim’s perception of the seriousness of the crime.
Victims are more likely to report sexual assault to police if: the perpetrator was a stranger; the victim was physically injured; or the victim was born in Australia.
The ABS report also points out (on pg 32) that in assaults in the last 12 months, 60% did not involve alcohol, 38% did. The figures don’t indicate where the perpetrator or victim had consumed alcohol.
The following facts are also noted:
In Women’s Safety Survey 1996 data :
- approximately one in six Australian women (16%) reported that they had experienced sexual assault at some time since the age of 15
- one in six Australian women (15%) reported that they had been stalked during their lifetime
- one in four Australian women (27%) reported that they had experienced sexual harassment in the previous 12 months.
It’s important to point out that men are also victims of sexual violence, though at lower rates, and with far smaller numbers of assaults reported.
It’s also important to remember that ‘sexual violence’ and sexually threatening behaviour is broader than the conventionally heterosexual definition of penetrative intercourse (where the p3nis penetrates the vag1na). So ‘rape’ or ‘assault’ leaks out beyond the heterosexual notion of ‘sex’. To talk about sexual assault, we need to expand our definitions of rape, and of sexual activity and of violence. This then allows us to talk about men as victims of assault (as well as perpetrators), and men as the victims of male and female violence. I think it’s also important to remember that the sexual abuse of children constitutes rape.
So, then, a useful point from the slutwalk protests and discussions around the place:
What you (male or female) wear is not the reason you were assaulted.
and
Yes means yes and no means no, whatever we wear, wherever we go.
and
Most assaults happen in the home (or domestic spaces), not darkened alleys, and most people are raped/assaulted by people they know. In most instances there’s no alcohol involved.
How does all this relate to dancing?
Sexual assault and harassment happens in the lindy hop world
Firstly, there have been sexual assaults in dance scenes all over the world. Most are no doubt not reported. I have personally heard of one incidence in Melbourne, where community discussion of the assault was not terribly useful, largely phrased in terms of a woman ‘being violated’. I don’t know if she knew her assailant. Perhaps the most widely discussed (in the United States and online) sex offence was Bill Borgida’s arrest for possession of illegal pornography (specifically pornography featuring children). This was discussed at length in the Yehoodi thread ‘Bill Borgida: Two Counts: Child Porn’. Borgida responded to the issue with a public letter to ‘the dance community’, also posted on Yehoodi, in the thread A letter to the Dance Community from Bill Borgida.
This second issue is particularly disturbing, as Borgida travelled internationally, visiting Australia as well as many other countries. I knew him quite well, and my own feelings about this issue are fraught. I felt furious, upset, sad, hurt, betrayed, guilty, anxious, angry, confused. I want nothing more to do with him, ever. But the responses in the open letter thread on Yehoodi are more complex. Many people feel still support him and forgive him. I cannot.
Most significantly, I’ve been stunned by many people’s regard for the possession of prnography as a relatively victimless crime. There seems to be a vast chasm between consumption and production in this thinking. They cannot seem to grasp the idea that possessing and consuming pornography featuring children is at once supporting a market for the material and endorsing its production. The production is beyond reprehensible: this is sexual assault. Of children. Many, many children, over many years. All recorded and distributed for adults’ pleasure. Possession of this material is equivalent to producing it.
I don’t want to suggest that using prnography is the same as raping, or that using prn leads to raping people. It doesn’t. But the way we use prn and produce prn, and our attitudes towards sexual activities are informed by broader issues of gender and power and identity. So sexual assault becomes a symptom of, or expression of, a perpetrator’s ideas or feelings about power. Having it, not having it, taking it, fighting it. Child abuse, then, is about perpetrators with power harming less powerful people – children. Using child prnography is about finding violent power sexually exciting. These sorts of ideas and feelings about power and other people do not stay safely partitioned in your ‘private life’.
I’ve also been suprised by many dancers’ willingness to separate what happens on the dance floor from what people do off the dance floor, or in their ‘private lives’. I can’t. I increasingly believe that the way we dance reflects our broader ideas about the world, and about the way we feel about other people. For example, the rough or inconsiderate lead is frequently socially inept or clumsy and disrespectful of women off the dance floor. I am unwilling to disassociate dance from cultural context.
But I shouldn’t be surprised. Thinking about people you know – and like – committing acts of sexualised violence on other people you know – and like! – is really difficult. It’s so difficult and horrifying that many of us would just rather not think about it at all. If we make it disappear by defining rape in a way that simply ignores most assaults, the problem become manageable and less frightening. It won’t happen to me if I don’t wear a short skirt, if I drive a car, if I don’t drink, if I don’t talk to strangers. My wife/sister/friend/lover/daughter is safe if I walk her to her car or I fight off an attacker in the street.
Dancers do not challenge sexually inappropriate behaviour often enough.
I also frequently come across the sentiment in dance discourse (online and face to face) that swing dancers are ‘good people’. Yes, many of them are. But I am certain that many of them are also capable of, and do perpetrate, sexual assault. I think this is a difficult idea to talk about in dancing. So much of what we do is dependent upon the idea that we are all ‘good people’ who just want to ‘enjoy themselves’ in ‘harmless dancing’. We also trust the person we are dancing with, who we touch, intimately, and who we work with, creatively. I find it deeply disturbing to think about being in a closed embrace with someone who is capable of sexual violence.
There is very little violence at social dance events. I’ve only ever witnessed one incidence, in extreme circumstances. But I have witnessed many incidences of bullying and sexual harassment. There are endless stories about leads who physically handle women into lifts or air steps in dangerous contexts. Or followers who do not take responsibility for their own balance or kicks. We’ve all got a story about the guy with the tent in his pants who presses too closely to uncomfortable women in the blues room. We’ve all got a story about that guy who always ‘accidentally’ does the boob swipe in class or on the dance floor. Many of us also have stories about women who perpetrate an unwelcome ‘beaver clamp’ in the blues room or spend too much time draped over men off the dance floor. Though it’s difficult to compare men’s and women’s inappropriate behaviour, and they work in different ways within a broader context of patriarchal society.
Most disturbingly, swing dance culture advocates tolerance of these sorts of actions. We are told, repeatedly that we should never say no to a dance. Women in particular are encouraged in most scenes to wait for a man to ask her to dance, and then to be so grateful for the dance she should tolerate all sorts of inappropriate behaviour just to be dancing. Women are also discouraged from dancing with other women, where they might have the opportunity to dance in a clearly nonsexual partnership. And, just as worryingly, it is very, very rare for a man to talk to his friends or other women about women’s inappropriate behaviour. Men are expected a) to enjoy sexual attention, and b) to not feel threatened by women. I mean, when I wrote, explicitly and in detail about particular men in the post Hot Male Bodies, was I crossing a line? Was that inappropriate?
This raises yet another issue in dance. What does sexualised dancing mean? Is this public or private space? Is it appropriate to take something from the dance floor and then decontextualise it, take it away from the dancer themselves? Dancers seem to negotiate this stuff every day in sophisticated ways. I mean, there are millions of amateur clips of performances, but it’s much less common to find footage of social dancing. It is as though most of us have agreed that social dancing is ‘private’, even when it’s conducted in the exact same spaces with the exact same people. If it is regarded as private, then, is that why we have so much difficulty making clear, hardline condemnations of sexual harassment on the dance floor – the tentpants, boobswipes and beaverclamps which make us so uneasy, but are so unlikely to be openly and immediately censured? After all, our broader societies find it so difficult to legislate domestic violence and sexual assault…
There are covert methods for dealing with this sexual harassment and bullying. We tee up a friend to quickly intervene and take us to the dance floor if a ‘dodgy’ person approaches. We learn to physically ‘block’ a partner who wants to get too close. We hide ourselves in a crowd to make approach from ‘undesirables’ difficult.
I’ve also learnt how to deal with men want to bully me in a professional setting. I’ve figured out, for example, how to a) not let male DJs (and they are always male) bully me into letting them DJ when and how they want when I am working to an event coordinator’s brief, b) not feel obliged to hire difficult or bullying DJs, c) make sure everyone pays entry fee when they are required to, regardless of ‘status’, d) not to end up being overworked and exploited by event organisers (either by their design or their incompetence).
It’s important to note that most volunteers at dance events are women. And that we are engaged at all levels in the management and running of events. We have also managed to develop non-confrontational methods for dealing with difficult people. Unfortunately, these methods are usually ‘invisible’, so avoiding the public demonstrations of women’s conflict resolution skills. Their invisibility also maintains the idea that swing scenes are always ‘nice’ and ‘friendly’ and ‘safe’.
I’m framing these ‘everyday’ instances of sexually inappropriate behaviour as sexual harassment and bullying for a reason. Let’s remember those points from the ABS data. Most perpetrators of sexual assault are known to their victims. If we insist that sexual violence only occurs in public places, is only perpetrated by ‘strangers’ with weapons while women risk their safety wear revealing clothes on the street, we make real rapes invisible. We hide the fact that we are more likely to be assaulted by the man who has driven us home, walked us to our door, gone out to dinner with us many times before. We also discourage women from speaking up about inappropriate actions. Don’t make a scene – the Uppity Woman will not get another dance! It’s not sexual harassment if a man continually touches your breasts on the dance floor?! In this context, the sexual assault by a known person in your own home is also disappeared. The perpetrator doesn’t believe he’s raped someone. The victim is left wondering what she did to deserve this. After all, she’s learnt that she’s not to speak up if she’s touched in a way she doesn’t like or want.
So what are we to do?
This is all bloody depressing. It’s fucking horrible to think about my dance community this way. I do not want to think about the idea that people I know and dance with or share a room with, assault or harass people. I hate the thought that I knew and travelled and danced with Bill Borgida. But I’m certain he’s not the only person who has done these sorts of things. It’s not statistically possible. It’s like last night’s episode of 4Corners about live animal trade, A Bloody Business (Mon 30th May 2011). These things are happening in my community. I’m participating in their continuing by not asking about it, by not looking, by not watching. And, awfully, sexual assault and harassment can happen to me or to people I know and care about. Someone I know could do these things to me. Sexual harassment and assault are a real, immediate, visible part of my life.
So, really, what are we to do? What can we do?
Firstly, I think it’s important to think about broader social and cultural context. This is why I bang on about women dancing and the way we think about women dancing. Do we encourage passivity, acceptance, submission in women dancers? I think we do. Do we also encourage, or at least enable, inappropriate behaviour by men? I think we do. I also think we need to talk about these issues. And to do what we can. For me, that’s meant learning to lead. But it’s also meant asking questions about things like unequal divisions of labour in the dance community. Who is always working the door at social events? Do they actually want to be sitting there all night? Who does get paid and who doesn’t? Why don’t people get paid?
Secondly, I think that going on and on and on about the shitty stuff, getting angrier and angrier and feeling more and more upset without doing something is disempowering. It weakens us with despair. So we need to a) pay attention and ask questions, b) talk about this stuff and then, most importantly, c) DO SOMETHING. I’m a big fan of small, localised change and action. A rally was cool for getting us talking. But it’s not enough. We need to saddle up, friends.
There are things we can do.
I want to talk about how we get home from dancing, because it’s about getting from ‘private’ place to ‘public’ places. This is a tricky one. We’re out late at night, usually on public transport or walking to our cars alone. We’re out with a large group of people, some we know well, many we don’t. All sorts of people come to swing dances. Many of them are socially awkward or inept. Many of them already ring our internal discomfort alarms and have us avoid dancing with them. We go out to drinks or meals after dancing with large groups of people, many we only know by first name even though we see them every week. At the end of the night, how do we get to our cars, to our homes?
My usual instinct is to get a ride with someone in a car, or to organise a group to go via public transport, and then to call Dave so he can meet me at the station. But is it really such a good idea to get a ride with someone from dancing? Even if you’ve seen them every week for a year, what do you really know about them? This is where it gets really tricky. I don’t want to advocate mistrusting every man just because they’re a man. This is why it’s attractive to think ‘only strangers are a threat’. It’s impossible to be wary all the time. And being wary all the time is disempowering. If we’re spending all our time being angry or worrying about being raped, we don’t have time to be excellently powerful and strong. But it also makes sense to think about safety and to be safe. To be aware of our surroundings.
Perhaps a solution is to organise groups of women to travel home together, and to have clear sets of rules for how you get home. No one walks to the station or their car alone. Send a text message to keep in contact. Or to get help. I’m not sure how this should work, but I think we should organise these sorts of things! Sometimes it’s hard to get to know other women at dancing well enough to develop these sorts of support networks and practices. We dance mostly with men in class and socially, we women don’t develop solid peer networks of trust and confidence in each other. Although I have always found that leading, and doing solo stuff with women socially is a key part of developing creative and personal relationships with other women in dancing.
But this talk about ‘getting home’ is still accepting that myth that sexual assault is only done by strangers, only happens in public places, late at night. We should think about the idea that sexual assaults happen at dance events. When we walk to the toilets through the gardens to the toilets at the back of the hall. In the toilets. In the carpark. In dressing rooms. In empty ‘breakout’ rooms at late night dances. At the reception desk while everyone is in dance classes.
These thoughts are far, far more frightening than the idea that we’re only at risk for that 40 minutes on our way from dance to home.
We need to think about safety at dances. And, much more importantly, about dance culture.
So here is what I do.
I could go on and on and on with this. But I think it’s important to figure out ways of making this work in your own life, and own social context. But, mostly, we need to be Excellent To Each Other.
We also need to be aware of the fact that dance scenes are not all flowers and ponies. Bad shit does happen, and we should do something about it.
I began this as a post where I’d just link up some badass solo comp clips from Lithuania. But it has become a sort of hardcore manual for feminist activism. Geez, bloody feminists. With the raging and the ranting. And the badass fall-off-the-logs. These are the things I say to myself; where I say ‘you’, I’m talking to myself. I’m encouraging myself to be more awesome. If this is too much for you, go back to the post full of clips. Or you can keep reading about how I love jazz dances because they’re built for feminist badassery.
A year or so ago, after I came back from about nine months off dancing with a shitful plantar fascia injury, I discovered the thing I’d missed most about dancing was the solo stuff. I love lindy hop. I love it so much. But I think, ultimately, I want to dance alone.
I like dancing alone, as in, not with a partner in a formal lindy hop dance (I do like dancing with other people on my own) for lots of reasons. One of the things that pushes many women in particular into solo dance is the lack of leads in their local scene. I use the word ‘push’ deliberately, because I suppose most women in a lindy hop scene approach social dancing looking for some partner dancing. Dancing alone is not always taught as a staple in regular classes, so most new dancers don’t feel as comfortable dancing alone as they do with a partner.
I like dancing alone because I’m often frustrated by leads who don’t listen to what I’m bringing, or more often, I’m frustrated by leads who just roll us through a series of fairly set combinations of moves without listening to the music. That drives me NUTS. For me, it’s the music that makes me dance. So I like to explore everything a song has got. If I’m being rushed through swingouts one after another, bang-bang-bang, there’s no time to explore the delaaaay that’s so central to swung rhythms, let alone all the other lovely layers in a song.
I do a lot of leading when I social dance. I get asked to dance by followers a lot, I ask other women to dance, and I also follow myself a lot. But I do like solo dancing most. I could WILL! make arguments about how women leading and solo dancing fuck up gender and power dynamics. In fact, I’ve done so, many times. And if you go out dancing in a scene where there are women leading, you can actually see how this shifts the social dynamics. Women aren’t just standing about on the side of the dance floor waiting for a dance, wondering if they’re not being asked because they’re a crap dancer/too fat/too old/too uncool/too weird/too horrible/wearing the wrong clothes, etc. Women aren’t rushing at male leads, competing for a dance. Women aren’t basking in the attention of a lead on the dance floor, grasping at a moment of confidence and self worth.
When women lead and solo dance in a scene, you see a shift away from bloke-centred social dancing dynamics. Suddenly all those women standing about on the side of the dance floor have moved onto the floor, experimenting with movements and rhythm, becoming better dancers, enjoying each other’s company and generally having a bloody good time. The blokes are no longer the centre of their universe.
I’m sure you can see how I then get particularly shitted off when a bloke wades in and drags a woman out of that sort of setting to dance with him. Back off, motherfucker! The hot shit is being brung!
How do you get to the point where you have lots of people (male female and inbetween) solo dancing as well as partner dancing at a ‘swing dance event’? Well, firstly, it’s worth pointing out that there’s next to no solo dance in rock and roll and the RnR type ‘swing’ dancing, at least not here in Sydney. When you go to those dances, most people only dance with people they know or even with just their own partner. Because that scene tends to be a bit older, a lot more conservative, and also rooted in a different dancing culture. I think that if you ground your lindy scene in vernacular jazz dance, then you’re setting yourself up with some nice conditions for solo dance as well as partner dance peppered with wonderful improvisation.
So how do you do that? Despite what you might think, reading this blog, I’m not actually a big fan of preaching at people. I like to work out my thinking and ideas in word-form, especially in places like this blog. But I firmly believe that if you want to initiate cultural change in a dance scene, you need to get your bad self out there on the dance floor and do it. Talk means nothing when you’re making a point about dance. Dancers are very much influenced by what they see on the dance floor. Duh. So if you want to see more solo dance in your scene, you need to get yourself out on that dance floor and do that solo dance. You need to do it with confidence, and with as much skill as you can. Work on that shit and be as good as you possibly can be. And if you can’t get any better, enjoy what you do badly and let that pleasure show.
In other words, you need to model the behaviour you want to see.
Same goes for women leading. If you’re a woman tired of the bullshit gender dynamics in your scene, get your fine self out there on the dance floor and model the shit you want to see. And do it well and with confidence. Own it. Work on it in your own time or in classes and improve. Don’t let your leading be a novelty. Let it be a legitimate act. Don’t enter comps hoping to get noticed just because you’re different. Go in comps and bring the best shit you’ve got. The novelty will wear off; you’re going to need to back up your claims with some pretty good stuff.
And I also think it’s important to say positive, encouraging things to people who are doing awesome stuff. Or, really, if you see the awesome, applaud it! Rather than getting shitty and snarky about something that shits you (eg not getting asked to dance by blokes), get positive and supportive. There’s no point continuing the nastiness of dodgy culture by making yourself unhappy. After all, that’s how patriarchy works: women and men collude in their own oppression. Seek out the unusual and the wonderful. If someone has a brilliant idea, tell them it’s brilliant! Don’t get jealous and resentful! Sometimes being an audience – the response to the call – is more important than being the performer. In practical terms, if you see someone do a rockhardawesome boogie back, cheer them, loudly! And then tell them, later, that you thought that was totally cool.
I think of this as a very nice approach to all sorts of social activism. Just talking about this stuff is fairly useless. This is why I think that we shouldn’t just be doing scholarly writing and talking about gender and power. We also need to get out there and do feminist stuff. To be feminists, with our bodies as well as with our brains. I know a lot of academics feel that theorising activism and culture is how they contribute to feminism, but I feel very strongly that this only touches a small proportion of our community directly. No, writing newspaper articles isn’t a way to ‘engage’ with the wider community. It’s too safe, yo, and too distant. Take a risk. Let yourself be changed.
I think that we need to bloody well open our eyes and engage with the everyday places in our lives where we can make a difference. On the bus. At the shops. In cafes. On the dance floor. Make eye contact, hold doors open, step in when someone needs a hand, ask your employer if they do maternity leave, even if you don’t need it yourself. And I also think it’s a good idea to make it as fun as you can. Getting angry is useful. But in and of itself, it’s not productive. You need to be an agent for positive, constructive change, as well as a mighty smashing force of rage. Find small ways, everyday, where you can fuck shit up. Or at least vibrate at very low frequencies until you rattle that patriarchal bedrock to bits.
That’s why I like dance. Fucking up the patriarchy, smashing gender binaries and generally being difficult can be super fun. It can also be positive, friendly and engaging. You won’t win friends to your cause by being rude and aggressive. But you will by making jokes, being kind and friendly, and by being sneaky. Jazz dance is built for this stuff. As the public discourse of an oppressed people, African American vernacular jazz dance has all the tools you need for misbehaving.
Ok, so yes, modelling stuff in a social setting is important. What if you’re a teacher and you want to see more solo dance in your scene, regardless of gender? Same goes. Get out there and do it. Do it in a social setting, but also get out there and do performances. You need people to see what makes solo dance so awesome. And then you need to make them want to do it too. It’s no good you just getting out there on your own every week if you want to see new stuff in your scene. Other people have got to want to do it too.
Running classes in solo dance is the next obvious step. I’m a big fan of classes devoted to solo dance. But I’m even more a fan of classes which work on combining solo and partner dance. How do you fit a shorty george into your swingout? Why is the shim sham an absolute gold mine for steps to add into your lindy hop? I don’t like to use the phrase ‘variations in a swing out’ because it suggests that the swing out is still the centre of the dance and the jazz steps are ‘variations’ on that single step.
Yes, swing outs are central to lindy hop. But this isn’t a one note song. I think that jazz steps – dancing alone – is just as, if not more important than, the swing out. So when you use jazz steps – things like shorty george, suzy Qs, kick-ball-changes, broken-legs, crazy-legs, and so on – think of the swing out as a framing device for your hot shit jazz step. Or better yet, deliberately choreograph sequences that break partners apart and require some sort of solo bling. I think that if you’re teaching solo jazz steps – jazz steps – as an integral part of your lindy hop, and as key part of your classes, you’re setting up students with the skills and materials for dancing alone on the social dance floor. You’re creating the expectation of improvisation. You’re provoking creativity.
So, to sum up, this is what I say to myself when I’m going dancing or working on dance:
I don’t know if this is a useful approach for everyone. It can be tiring, being so determined. Sometimes it is nice to just sink into following, and to become the extension of some bloke’s creative vision. But I figure, that’s ok. Just don’t make everything you are the result of someone else’s ideas. Do misbehave. Do be that Difficult Woman, if only in a little way, sometimes.
Another reminder that green/feminist movements are as marked by gender and class as right wing politics…
I’m seeing correlations between slutwalk discourse and this little trail of articles dealing with race/food politics/gardening/environmentalism/cycling. While I’m fascinated by discussions of food and health and environmentalism as a socialist project, for a while now I’ve had a little voice in the back of my brain saying “Dood, where’s race in all this? Can we talk about ethnicity a little bit more? And not in a ‘Mysteries of the Orient’ Food Safari way?” I stumbled over The Doree Chronicles’ post ‘The Unbearable Whiteness of Eating: How the Food Culture War Affects Black America’ on Tumblr, then traced its references back. This post read as a sort of snippet of idea, in the context of a general Tumblr blog dealing with all sorts of things the author found interesting. Tumblr shits me a bit as this sort of backtracking is unnecessarily complex, but I guess that’s a consequence of personal sites which encourage a ‘collector’ approach rather than a ‘writerly’ approach.
From that little post linking food politics, race, ethnicity and the bike movement, I found Erika Nicole Kendall’s post ‘The Unbearable Whiteness of Eating: How The Food Culture War Affects Black America’ on the Black Girls Guide To Weight Loss site. This post framed the discussion within a broader discussion of race and gender and weight loss as a health issue.
This post led me to Janani Balasubramanian’s piece ‘Sustainable Food and Privilege: Why is Green Always White (and Male and Upper-Class)’ which linked the bike movement talk to race and gender and environmentalism and food politics. I like this piece for the way it links gender to food production, and I like the question:
Can Pollan not drive home the point that Americans need to cook more often without guilting American feminists?
I’m really not up to speed with food politics’ talk, but I feel as though all this talk is echoing some of my reservations about slutwalk, and some of my thoughts about food politics. It also reminds me of some things I’ve read about the civil rights movement in America in the 60s, where the peace movement in particular was also quite sexist. In that context, the ‘free love’ discourse was a double-edge sword. While the pill gave women contraceptive control of their sexuality and bodies, there was also an attendant shift in the way many men began thinking about these women as ‘sexually available’. I wonder if we should perhaps be a little sceptical of a new women’s movement (or new stream in a broader feminism) that lauds heterosexual freedom in such uncomplicated ways. Because of course the pill didn’t function the same way, ideologically, for lesbian women that it did for straight women.
I feel as though we’re also revisiting issues raised (and continually raised) by women of colour from that period and recently. For those women race was a far more pressing concern, organising their activism in a way that gender did not. And these women were very critical of ‘mainstream’ feminists for not interrogating their own privilege. Or, more simply, for not noticing that everyone signing books in the wimminz bookshops was white.
I’m of course thinking about bell hooks and Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, but I’ve also heard Australian Aboriginal women like Marcia Langton make similar arguments. I haven’t found it, but I’d be certain there’d be some cool stuff written about ‘bush tucker’, the Northern Territory intervention (where government pensions are ‘retained’ specifically for buying food), gender and equity. I’m also certain that there’d be some really interesting stuff by migrant women writers in Australia (and elsewhere) about food, gender, class and social (as well as bodily) ‘health’. Someone has to have taken the bike movement to task as well? I mean, if I’m banging on about it on Faceplant when people say stupid things like “There is no excuse not to ride distances under 10km”, then surely someone else has made the same points more cleverly?
I’ve just had a quick look but I CAN’T find that interesting study a Victorian university group did recently where they found that if women felt safe cycling in a city, then the numbers of cyclists in that city over all were higher. I was telling this story to some hardcore environmentalist/sustainable energy types at a party the other week, and they were all “Oh shit, I’d never thought of that!” And I was thinking ‘That’s because you’re over-achieving, able bodied, young, male engineers living in well-serviced cities who dismiss feminism as ‘something for women’.’ But I didn’t say that out loud. Instead I laboured through a gentle (and brief) point that environmental movements have to be socially sustainable as well as environmentally sustainable. I wanted to talk about how birth control for women in developing countries is directly related to environmentally sustainable development in those same countries, but I didn’t.
I think there are also some really important points to be made about ‘food security’ for children in poor communities and families in big cities, and how food security is directly related to educational and social achievements, and how getting enough to eat (let alone eating ‘well’) is directly related to justice and equity in relation to gender and race and all those other lovely identity markers. I don’t know much about this at all, but I heard an interesting Health Report podcast about this and started thinking about the relationships between organic gardening, social justice, ethnicity and economic power. And goddamn bicycles.
To sum up this messy, ill-informed, poorly researched and unsubstantiated introduction to my mess of thoughts, I direct your attention to Tammi Jonas, who’s trekking through the American wilds with the Jonai clan in glorious 70s campervanning style, writing and thinking about food and family as she goes. Her progress is written up at Crikey, but I quite like the posts on her blog. Tammi is all over these issues.
I’d also suggest some time with Cristy Clark who’s exploring ecotarianism in real-family settings (ie, her own), and of course do drop in at Progressive Dinner Party to see related issues taken up. If you’re especially interested in kids and food, then PDP’s Head Cook Zoe is a good source, not to mention the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, which is all about kids, food and well-being.
