Category Archives: black lindy hop matters

Lindy hop is a street dance. And those streets were full of political rallies, protests, and speeches

First, who am I speaking to?

To Black American dancers reading along:
It is insufferable of me to say all this to you. I apologise for whitesplaining your own history.
I am still figuring this all out in my head, so I’m going to write it out.
To everyone else reading along (especially white lindy hoppers and people who are part of a socially powerful group):
We can do better.

Nor am I speaking specifically to teachers with this post. I’m talking to my friends (and strangers) about the way we use history, and specifically Frankie Manning, in lindy hop culture today. More particularly, the way people who are not Black Americans use Black history.
I am endlessly, perpetually enraged and just plain shat off by white ‘dance historians’ who reduce history to a list of dates and ‘events’ they found in a newspaper or journal produced by white businesses for white readers. I am not a historian by trade or training (though I seem to have produced and published a heap of articles and dissertations that look at history and how we ‘make’ it), but I know that if we want to understand what happened in the past, we need to do more than read the accounts of history written by the victors. The victors, in the case of the USA, are white, able bodied cismen. And fuck knows I’m thoroughly sick of reading about them.

Second, I am 100% coming at this issue with an agenda, and that agenda is ‘place Frankie Manning in social and cultural context’. I have that agenda because most of the current ‘talk’ (ie classes, lectures, social media posts, pages on websites, etc etc) present Frankie Manning the way the Ken Burns would: as a singular genius who created great art alone. This is the ‘Great Man’ approach to history.

This approach is a product of 19th Century Angle-Celtic imperialism: the idea that great social and political events (and scientific and cultural and artistic…) are the product of ‘great men’. Heroes. It’s also total bullshit. Creative and scientific and political changes and events are always the product (or one step in a process) of a whole community. You know the line ‘behind every great man is a great woman’? We’ll, it’s more that ‘every great man is embedded in a community that makes his work possible’.

In the case of Frankie Manning, yes he was a talented artist. But he was also the child of a woman called Lucille, who moved north from Florida to New York in the Great Migration. So his world growing up in Harlem was made up of the thousands of other Black Americans who’d moved away from the violence and unemployment of the south. This whole world made him who he was. His work as a professional dancer was shaped by his ‘colleagues’ (other dancers, managers, venue owners, film directors and producers, competition organisers, band leaders, musicians, etc etc etc). His domestic life was shaped by the people he lived with (his single mother, his wives and lovers, his friends), his social life was shaped by his neighbours (a crowd of people living cheek-by-jowl in urban Harlem), his friends’ and friends’ families’ experiences at work, in social clubs, in churches, and in the neighbourhood.

People lived really close together in the overcrowded area, and people came from all over the country with experiences with horrible injustice. They were often the first free people in their family, or even were enslaved in their own life time. To be alive, to travel independently, to make choices about where to live, to be paid for their labour was political. They were political people.

So this is the important bit: you couldn’t live in Harlem in the 20s and 30s without seeing political rallies on the street, hearing speeches on the street about New Negro issues, hearing people (especially women) organising tenant rallies and actions… and so on (this is a good article to learn about how everyday and ordinary politics was in Harlem in the 1910s-40s). The people who moved out of the south had come from places where they couldn’t speak loudly on the street, couldn’t make eye contact with a white person, had no legal recourse when their families were lynched by whites. But in Harlem, the whole philosophy of the ‘New Negro’ was to find a new way of being Black. And that identity was founded absolutely in community.

Politics wasn’t just about joining a political party and voting in elections (though voting rights were at the core of the New Negro movement). It was about neighbours in a building getting together to make their landlord treat them fairly. Or it was about getting WPA funding for a community arts center. Or it was about going to a church meeting and being organised to bring meals to the needy.

You can see the roots of the Black Panthers in all this: political activism was centered absolutely on the community, and on social justice.

Third why teach this in a lindy hop dance class or in a lecture to dancers, or write it on a blog about dance, or in a social media post? Why should modern day lindy hoppers think about Frankie Manning as a man who is part of the Harlem Renaissance?

1. If we tell a story of Frankie Manning as a ‘Great Man’, he becomes a sort of ‘touched by god’ larger-than-life superhero.

2. But if we tell a story of Frankie Manning as part of a community, specifically, the community of the Harlem Renaissance, then we can teach the fact that Black Americans in Harlem (and elsewhere) weren’t just passively accepting slavery or segregation or white oppression. They were actively working to resist oppression. And activism like this has to be collective.

3. This is important for understanding history, but it also provides a model for political action today. The Civil Rights/Freedom movement of the 50s was a product of revolutionary New Negro politics, and reworking of their practices. The Black Panthers were a decentralised community organisation that explicitly drew on the politics of the New Negro that centered education and community care. The Black Lives Matter movement is the next step in that long political and intellectual and community legacy.

Some of the key features of this political heritage are:
– the role of women is centered and acknowledged (women are always present in actions, but not acknowledged in patriarchal movements eg white peace protest in the USA)
– grassroots activism holds everything together. These politics happen in community spaces including homes, church halls, beauty parlours, cafes. Spaces where women and children have power (unlike, for example, a law court)
– when politics and action happen in everyday spaces, everyone is exposed to it everyday
– the ‘street economy’ (eg drug dealers and users, sex workers and consumers, organised crime, etc) becomes an acknowledged part of the process. eg Black trans women during the AIDS crisis (1980s USA) were essential in organising community care and support, and gangsters like Casper Holstein became involved in funding community works.

This all means that we can look at the Harlem Renaissance as a way to understand how we can resist and be politically active today. So instead of thinking ‘oh, I can’t run for a senate seat, I don’t have the money, so I can’t change anything,’ we can think ‘I can organise a fundraiser in my local scene and raise money for the local women’s shelter’ or ‘When I go to the weekend dance event, I can choose the class taught by a Black teacher instead of a white teacher’… and so on.

Frankie as part of the Harlem Renaissance gives us a model for understanding how we can be part of a politicised community today.

I especially like it because it’s a good alternative to the political model offered by white patriarchy in Australia. I don’t want to join a major political party. I want to teach lindy hop in my local club’s games room, and show people a photo of the Silent Parade taken by a Black photographer, to show how the streets of Harlem were literally filled with political actions taken by ordinary people to challenge white violence in other states.

4. It can also show how, even if a person like Frankie Manning didn’t tell stories about politics when he was teaching white people in the 1980s, he was part of a politicised community. If we think of him as a product of the Harlem Renaissance, the short anecdote in his bio where he describes traveling to see Martin Luther King speak as an ordinary thing colleagues in a unionised workplace did makes perfect sense.

It also shows modern, white lindy hoppers that you can be a great artist, or a hardcore adrenaline junky lindy hopper AND go to a political rally with your workmates.

And to address Damon’s point on my fb post:

it seems very much of filling an agenda that doesn’t serve the point of most Lindy Hop related lectures.

Color struck! Telling history in lindy hop classes should be radical

I’m always very annoyed when people begin stories about lindy hop or Frankie Manning with ‘and the Savoy was unsegregated heaven’ or ‘he came out of retirement to …’

We should begin with “Lucille Manning left Florida and the violent racism of the south in 1917, moving north to Harlem, New York. She found a Harlem in the grip of social and creative revolution, as six million Black Americans just like her left the south for the promise of northern cities.”

And then there should be a bit about the Harlem Renaissance, and what it was like to be living in Harlem between the 1910s and 1940s. Not the stuff about how heavenly the Savoy was. The stuff about the exciting political activism, floods of books and magazines and journals, weekly public speeches on modern issues in the street, the importance of libraries and community arts centers, and the way a small part of a big city was stuffed full of creative people inspired by the New Negro movement. And how the drugs and drink and queer sex and cross dressing and sex work were as important to the street economy and community as the women who held it all together. The stuff about the Savoy can come after all that. The five thousand people who came through its doors each night were also book sellers and activists and librarians and teachers and truck drivers and unionists.

Let’s stop telling bullshit stories about Great Men. That’s white man kenburns bullshit. Black history is about matriarchal communities, collective action, and thousands of silent Black Americans walking down Fifth Avenue to protest white racial violence. It is fierce political activism, and Zora Neal Hurston tossing a red feather boa over her shoulder and declaiming “Color struck!” as she swanned into a room.

James van der Zee’s portrait ‘Beau of the Ball’ 1926. van der Zee was a prolific and very famous photographer of the Harlem Renaissance (and following decades).


The magazine ‘Fire!!: Devoted to Younger Negro Artists’ included the (super gay) story “Smoke, Lilies, and Jade, A Novel, Part I,” by out queer author Richard Bruce Nugent in its only issue (1926). Wallace Thurman, another out queer man also published a piece in the magazine. As did Langston Hughs (who was sexually ambiguous). This magazine featured the hot and the new of the younger generation of Harlem Renassaisance artists, who called themselves the ‘Niggerati’. The name was designed to shock. You can read the magazine here.

Sid Grossman 1939 Harlem News stand

Footage of the Silent Parade, 28 March 1917.
The protest was a collaboration between a number of civic and political groups including NAACP, church groups, etc, and it was explicitly designed to call attention to the lynchings in the south.
This is the important part: Black southerners didn’t just ‘flee north’. They went north, got organised, and got out on the fucking street in the thousands.
Lynching was not criminalised in the US until 2022. Lynchings of Black Americans continue today.

Harlem Community Arts Center 1939

The Harlem Community Arts Center was founded in 1937, and funded by the WPA. It was run by Augusta Savage and then Gwendolyn Bennett. 70,592 people attended activities at the center in its first 16 months. Why so many? I haven’t looked up the facts on that yet (some of the links are broken and I’m worried the sources have been purged by the Trump govt). But it’s no doubt a combination of a very crowded neighbourhood, the high profile of the center and its members, a multicultural staff and membership, services for kids and adults, and just a big old interest in the arts and culture in Harlem itself. Harlem folk like a show, I guess.

I am excited about Harlem Renaissance again because I’ve just listened to this podcast: Harlem is Everywhere. It’s very accessible, and gives lots of good info, all in shortish episodes.

I also saw this film, ‘once upon a time in harlem’ at the SFF this weekend.
I spent quite a bit of that film with my mouth hanging open. The photographs I’d shown in my film talk the other day were taken by the man on the screen, James van der Zee, talking about living in Harlem in the 20s and 30s.
And there’s Eubie Blake talking about writing Shuffle Along with Noble Sissle. And there’s NOBLE SISSLE TALKING ABOUT WRITING THE PLAY AND I NEARLY EXPLODE.
This film made it clear how important women and collectivism were to Harlem in the 20s-40s. Black women librarians managing the building where writers like Langston Hughes wrote. Black women organising the parties and dinners and salons where these people got together and talked and argued and thought. Augusta Savage running the Harlem Community Art Center. Iolanthe Sydney, a Black woman renting the ‘Niggerati Manor’ to young radical artists very cheaply because she wanted to support the arts.

African diaspora and language in lindy hop

Odysseus Bailer has recently posted an interesting request on a number of facebook pages and groups. His piece begins”The Phrase “Black Dance”, “Black music and dance”, “Black Culture” is not the same as “Black American Music and Dance”, “Black American Culture”” and continues to make some interesting points.
His key argument (to paraphrase clumsily) is that we should stop staying ‘Black dance’ and start saying ‘Black American dance’ because the dances from African American communities are unique and distinct from the dances created by and in other communities in the African diaspora.

I agree with this.

There have been some really interesting comments by other Black dancers, DJs, and organisers, and I do recommend taking the time to read through all these discussions. Some of the comments are very, very clever. Kenneth Shipp asks us why do we need to specify Black American?

I mean sure, you can make this distinction, but the etymology and history of Black / Negro in Western culture directly points to Black American culture as a direct line to enslavement (to mark a difference from African nations and parts of the diaspora) and marks cultural progress (like when Washington and DuBois argued for capitalizing Negro, and various popular changes through the centuries, like Afro vs African).
…
My question, given this history: what would functionally change if we explicitly said Black American?

One of the other really interesting comments is along the lines of ‘I don’t think of myself as African American… I am Black, or Black American’. A few people made this comment. I thought this was super interesting to see. And it’s a sentiment I’ve heard echoed in the Teaching Hard History podcast: the speakers are very much invested in the idea of a United States of America that is their country as well. It’s quite different to the discussions by Aboriginal Australians who actively reject the idea of a single country ‘Australia’. But I guess that’s one of the key differences between First Nations people’s sense of nation and belonging and Black American sense of nation. And my own racism is indubitably coming out there, if I just assume that these two very different groups of people would think about nation in the same way! Shame on me!

A lot of white lindy hoppers really like to draw that ‘lindy hop family tree’ as rooted in Africa, and to insist on that connection with Africa. I say ‘Africa’ deliberately, as I’ve seen white dancers argue for learning all sorts of dances from different African countries and traditions, rather than from the West African nations that lost people to white kidnappers and slavery. It seems odd to me to imply that ‘any African dance’ will do. It makes the cultural distinctions between African countries disappear; it makes Africa that ‘dark continent’ all over again.
But I’m not 100% sure what I think about this right now. I need to think more about it. Especially since we can definitely argue that lindy hop might have more in common with dances of…. say, Uganda, than the folk dances of Scotland!

Anyway, of course I chimed in. One thing I saw in some white people’s comments was what seems to be a misunderstanding of the concept of the African diaspora. So I wrote a stupid long comment. I’ve put it here, because writing it helped me put together what I’ve learn listening to the excellent Teaching Hard History Podcast, reading up about 70s and 80s lindy hop, and thinking about the different experiences of Black American and Black British lindy hoppers in that period. And how the Black women on both sides of the Atlantic have been quietly erased from modern lindy hop history.

I’m going to preface this comment with explaining who I am. When we pretend we are writing objectively, we make our own privilege disappear. It’s important that I always remember the privilege I was born with, and to some extent recreate every day. Despite my best efforts.

I am a white, middle class, able bodied woman living in a big city (Sydney/Warane) in Australia. I was born in England, and emigrated here with my family in 1982, after living in Fiji. I chose to become an Australian citizen in the mid 1990s, and have dual British/Australian citizenship. I think I’m the only one in my family who is (my brother and parents are permanent residents with British citizenship). My family chose to come to Australia, and our emigration was relatively easy because we are white, middle class, and British. You could say that we are part of a British diaspora, though we have always lived in British colonies (my father is Welsh and lived in Gibraltar and Kenya as a child and teen).

Friends (especially white people like me) reading along who aren’t familiar with the phrase ‘African diaspora’:
In really simple terms, it means people who are from or descended from people born in Africa. It’s usually applied to these people who no longer live in Africa. So those people can live anywhere in the world.

First important thing: there are 54 African countries, each has distinct languages and cultures. They were/are politically and culturally sophisticated with impressive architecture, systems of mathematics and philosophy, complex crafts and technologies, some of the oldest libraries in the world, etc etc. In many cases colonisation by European nations fucked shit up real bad.

Second important thing: people of African descent living outside Africa
a) may have chosen to emigrate,
b) may be refugees who didn’t want to leave but had to flee,
c) my be or have been enslaved people who were kidnapped and transported to another country,
d) may be the descended from enslaved people.

Third important thing: We can’t talk about the African diaspora without talking about European colonialism and slavery.

The empires of countries like England, Spain, Netherlands, etc were dependent on the labour of enslaved people. Slavery still happens today in many countries. The economic power of countries like England today were built on slavery. White people like me, who were born in England and live in Australia still benefit from the enslaving, trafficking, and labour of African people during the past few centuries. My country is rich because of slavery in the British empire.

Slavery involves:
a) humans being treated as objects to be bought and sold;
b) the labour of these people (ie unpaid work);
c) and usually involves racism: believing that humans can be divided up into ‘races’, and that some of these races are less advanced than others. Sometimes people are enslaved because they belong to a different caste, religion, or ethnic group. Note: the idea of ‘race’ is a white concept. The idea of being ‘half-caste’, etc, is a white concept invented to justify enslaving some people and not others.

When we talk about the USA (where lindy hop began), we have to talk about the way people from mostly west African countries were kidnapped and transported to then North American colon(ies) by white traders. The USA was built on the labour of enslaved people and the oppression (and enslaving) of Indigenous people who were there first. After emancipation (the ‘ending’ of slavery in the USA), there were African Americans in the Freedom Movement who explored the idea of ‘returning’ to Africa. That’s a whole other topic, and worth researching.

But the USA is also home to Africans who came to the country voluntarily in the last century or so. Things get more complicated when we talk about people of African descent who migrated to the USA voluntarily, but were descended from Africans who were enslaved in other countries. eg Haitians. If you’re a fan of hip hop, the Fugees are a good example of artists of Haitian descent who were born in Haiti, or born in the USA to Haitian parents. Haiti was a Spanish colony, and African people were kidnapped and transported to Haiti as a source of labour.

There are also people of African descent living throughout Europe (eg France is home to the largest population of people of African descent). Some of them are the descendants of free Africans who travelled to Europe at some point in the last few centuries. Some are descendants of Africans enslaved by Europeans and transported to Europe.
Some of them migrated to Europe during the 20th century from European colonies which had enslaved populations of African people.
When we talk about the ‘Windrush generation’ of Black British people, we are talking about a generation of people who emigrated to the UK on boats like the Windrush from the 1940s. As citizens of the British colonies in the Caribbean (called the ‘British West Indies’ at the time), they were entitled to British citizenship, and came to the UK for work. They were often descendants of African people enslaved by the British and transported to the Caribbean.

And of course, there are African migrants in lots of other countries. eg Australia has more African migrants than African American migrants. Some of these are refugees who’d like to return to their homelands, some are migrants who’d like to stay. My country has always been really shit in the way it treats non-white migrants.
Australia is also home to people who are descended from people who were enslaved in other countries (eg Indians who were enslaved in Fiji by the British), Pacific Islanders who were kidnapped by white men and transported to Australia to work on farms, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were enslaved by white farmers and families in towns.

As you can see, people of the African diaspora have some things in common, but the African experience in France in the 1980s is not the same as the African experience in the USA in the 1700s. It’s important to know and remember these differences. Just as Europe is made up of lots of cultures and people, Africa, and the African diaspora is made of of lots of cultures and people.

Lindy hop is the product of African American cultures and experiences.

The word ‘Black’ became a word of power for African Americans in the Freedom Movement in the 1960s. It is a word of pride and political identity.
It’s also used by people of African descent in other countries in the same way: a political and cultural identity.
It’s also used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia (though spelt ‘Blak’), in much the same way.
And it’s used by people of other cultures as a physical descriptor (eg having black skin) or political identity. This is where things get more complicated and culturally specific, so I’ll leave it there.

I think that Odysseus is asking that when we teach lindy hop (a Black American/African American dance) we refine our use of the phrase ‘Black’ with the word ‘American’, to distinguish the African American experience from the experience of people of the African diaspora in other countries.

The term ‘Black’ has been problematic in the past, and it has been a word of power in other moments. When I speak to dance friends today, I try to use the term they prefer. African American, Black, Black American. It’s just polite.

NB I say ‘Freedom Movement’ instead of ‘Civil Rights Movement’ after hearing Ruby Sales explaining the difference.

I’ve just listened to this episode of Teaching Hard History, “Listen, Look and Learn: Using Primary Sources to Teach the Freedom Struggle” and it’s fantastic.

If you follow the SNCC Digital Gateway to the Black Power entry, you can learn about the way the word ‘Black’ was used during the 1960s in an empowering way.

If you’re researching dance and music history of your local area, this ep of Teaching Hard History is an invaluable resource. They talk about how to use primary sources (eg oral histories and interviews), how to record them, how to archive them.

It’s been really cool to listen to this podcast, then think about the discussions people are having about the role of Frankie Manning in lindy hop history this week. I have been thinking more lately that the latest generation of white lindy hoppers (eg people who started in the last ten years) haven’t been exposed to all the oral histories (ie stories told by OGs) that I have through the last 30 years. Oral histories are really powerful because they personalise history. And a story well told is particularly powerful.

NB I use the word ‘white’ rather than ‘European’, because whiteness is a political and ideological concept, and ‘European’ has more to do with geography. I also think that ‘European’ is problematic because there are plenty of European peoples who experience extreme disadvantage and oppression (hello, Ukraine).

When we talk about whiteness in the context of slavery and racism, we give ourselves a pathway to deconstructing the power and privilege of people who may have pale skin, but more importantly, have economic and social power.

Saturday is class squee day!

Today was week 1 of our lindy hop class block, and we had a lovely time doing swing outs and break steps and jazz and stuff. I squeed when they did their first swing outs. Does it ever get old? No. They always feel the feelings when they get out there.

After the class I did a little show and tell with photos and videos. The goal was to explain who Frankie Manning was, and what it was like in Harlem in the 20s and 30s.
I really wanted to position Frankie and the other lindy hoppers as part of that Harlem community. Not individual superheroes. People who were part of a neighbourhood.
So I had photos and vids of dancing and music and community activism and poetry and theatre and art and the New Negro movement and renters’ unions and Harlem Renaissance and clubs and rent parties. I used a mix of photos of people and of huge bright paintings, videos, and gifs.

And videos of people doing mad air steps and swinging out.

Things that were cool:

  • we did it straight after week 1 class of the new beginner lindy hop block. Peeps were tired, but also relaxed and feeling happy and friendly.
  • we got to sit down and see the stuff we’d learnt in class done by the kings and queens
  • we all got to chat and get to know each other in a less formal environment. I used a script with some bits I’d read out (eg quotes from Frankie’s book), but mostly I used a casual chatty style. Because of the crew (my old friends, a bunch of rowdy friends, relaxed happy people) they interrupted to ask questions and point stuff out. PERFECT.

I strongly recommend doing a little film session like this with your students, in their class space. Helped develop cohort, really let them see what lindy hop was like danced by people like Frankie Manning, let them see who the people we talk about look like, etc etc.
I’d keep it to a shorter length (we took about 40 minutes), and I’d aim for a chatty relaxed style that keeps them engaged, rather than a long formal lecture where they fall asleep.

My favourite part was their reactions to the videos!
They’d laugh at stuff I’ve seen other people laugh at – pecking, weird crazy leg stuff, etc. They’d ooh and aaah at aerials.

And a really cool thing – I showed them footage of Frankie teaching a lindy hop class, because I wanted them to see how he taught, and the effect it had on people in the room. They all reacted the same way the people in the class in the video reacted! Laughing, oohing and ahhing, engaging. It was really cool to see.

Anyway, there’s a pic of some of the crew at the top of this post. After this session I found a HUGE projection screen in the storage room. Better buy a projector, aye?

Community vibes – how do you grow a crew?

Ah, that most perennial of questions.

I’ve recently started teaching lindy hop again, and while mostly it’s been a lot easier than when I first set up a business and class, there are the same usual challenges: how to get students to stay for the whole block, how to be welcoming without making it weird, how to balance the work with the fun for me.
I actually feel ok about the teaching itself, and the marketing and promotion side of things. The interesting bit for me is figuring out where I, my class, and the peeps in my class fit into the bigger local scene. How and when do I look at running social dancing? How do I stop my social dancing being some weird stand alone thing instead of a natural progression from classes? How do I make the right conditions for community?

Or as I said to my friend, it’s like I’m asking myself, “How do I make friends?!” I am not a shy person. I should know this. But I’m curious to see how other people do this.

What are the things about your club/class/party/crew that make it fun and somewhere people want to be?

I know from experience that the way to build a cohort and a little group of peeps is to use my social skills so they can make friends. Welcome everyone individually. Learn names. Ask them about themselves. Drinks and snacks after classes, time to talk and make friends in class. Spend more time on making connections with the students who come to class than with trying to sell classes to people who haven’t come.

Ideally, I’d like to just have them all get into trying out ‘social dancing’ ie, just dancing, in the space right after class. And also taking time to eat snacks (the snack table is where people chat), have a drink, get to know each other. The dancing part is lovely, but the getting to know each other part is essential.

Anyway, Julia Loving just put me onto this fantastic panel session they did in NY in 2019. They spend a bunch of time in the question time talking about how to get young folk, especially young Black folk into lindy hop. Once again, white girl me should be listening to Black elders to learn. The things I see and hear them say:

  • Providing food, Ronald Jones says. A basket of chicken for some kids in a basement. A buffet dinner in the room where the panel is held. This makes complete cultural sense to me from my family and background.
  • Respect the young people, Ronald says. Don’t treat them like babies or fools. Treat them like thinking, responsible people.
  • If you’re a young person, sit with the elders, Mickey Davidson demonstrates. Listen to them, learn from them, earn their respect. ie show respect. And you’ll be gradually included.
  • Play music at the party.
  • Make your gig physically accessible (ie not way over the outside of town).
  • Make some jokes, laugh at some jokes.
  • If someone’s talking to you (whether it’s in a mic on a stage or at the snack table), make the active listening noises: hello! Oh yeah! Whaat? The Black audience listening to the panel session demonstrate. We don’t like a silent, stiff crowd, right?

Black women in lindy hop: getting shit done

After doing a bunch of reading and digging, these are some of the important things I’ve learnt about lindy hop in the 1970s and 1980s.

The New York Swing Dance Society doesn’t get the props it deserves for running parties that got people out and dancing (including Frankie and Norma and other OGs).

Community spaces – bars, clubs, church halls, social clubs, basements – were where lindy hop lived during these decades. It didn’t die. It was busy.

Norma Miller wearing her Menton Buck Clayton Hat, Photograph by Nancy Miller Elliot, Courtesy Norma Miller

Norma Miller was really important. She was the sort of person who’d make sure people like Frankie went out to dance to a band (1983), and got a whole gang of OGs together for a party at Sandra Cameron’s studio (1983).

“In April 1983, at Norma’s suggestion, Larry Schultz and his wife, Sandra Cameron, had invited about thirty Savoy Lindy Hoppers to a little get-together at their dance studio. It was wonderful to see everybody, and we had a ball catching up and dancing with each other. We were all out there clowinging around, trying to remember our old routines.” (p225 Frankie Bio)

She put on shows with OGs starring in the early to mid 80s, she trained up new Black dancers. She did that thing that still holds lindy hop (and communities!) together today: she introduced people to each other.

Mama Lu Parks was another of those important women, putting on gigs, running performance groups, getting shit done.

The stories I’ve heard in the past about the 1980s were mostly about white men ‘discovering’ Frankie or Al Minns or Norma and convincing them to ‘come out of retirement’. But it was Black women who were keeping relationships alive, bringing people together, and getting shit done. AS PER USUAL.

Frankie Manning and politics

I’m checking some details in Frankie Manning’s biography, and there’s a section where he writes:

I always agreed with Martin Luther King’s point of view. In 1963, a whole group of us from the Postal Workers Union went down by bus to the rally in Washington, D.C. to support him. When I heard him give his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, I was very moved.” (pg 218)

I’ve heard white lindy hoppers argue that Frankie wasn’t political*. That’s patently bullshit. He was a union member. He went to Washington to support King. It’s also really important to remember that the US Postal Service was (and is) an important site for Black organising and grassroots politics. Margot Lee Shetterly talks about this in her book Hidden Figures, noting the path from postal service to aeronautics for Black workers and thinkers.

And of course he choreographed and performed in A BIOGRAPHCICAL FILM ABOUT MALCOLM X. A film that directly visually referenced multiple films that starred Manning and his peers.**

I also want to point out that Frankie didn’t ‘stop dancing’ in the 1950s. He mostly retired from professional dancing, but of course he kept on dancing! Parties, dances, band gigs… all the usual places where vernacular dance lives.

References

*What do I mean by ‘political’?
On one level, it’s referring to the mechanics and institutions of a political systems – parties, voting, electoral systems, unions, politicians.
But that’s the very simplest level.
If we define ‘politics’ as being the relationships of power between people, things get a lot more interesting. This is the sort of definition used by feminist and anti-racist activists and scholars.
So ‘politics’ can expand to include the social relationships between adults and children, the collectivist philosophies of unions, the uses of power between men and women, and so on.
Every time Frankie said ‘Think of your partner as a queen’, he was making a political statement: treat your partner like royalty. Show your respect by bowing. Obviously he didn’t think they were actually a member of a royal family; this was about defining relationships between men and women as one of mutual respect, where men invite women to be powerful and love it.

** If you compare the soundie/short film Keep Punchin’ with the scenes in the ballroom in Malcolm X you’ll see characters and narrative elements from the soundie in Spike Lee’s film. This is one of the clever things about Lee’s films: he uses archival material as inspiration, but often also shows them on-screen during the films. I am a huge fan of his films.

I-go, you-go!

Irina in the Teaching Swing Dance group on facebook just asked:

Hey folks! I have a question I’d like to crowd source for. How do you teach rhythm to folks who don’t inherently understand it? As in those who can’t stay on beat and don’t know they’re off beat even after months or sometimes years of classes. I’m teaching a group class focused on this topic this month and I’d love to hear some tactics and success stories from y’all!

And since I’ve been teaching 30 minute drop in classes for the monthly Blue Rhythm Band gig, I’m full of excitement about teaching again. This is what I wrote:

Oooh! My favourite thing!

So I actually think that keeping time (ie finding the beat) and rhythm are the most important things in lindy hop. It’s how we connect with the music and our partners.
So when I’m teaching brand new dancers (heck, any dancers), I begin with a big apple style jazz warm up, where one teacher leads the group through a series of jazz steps, changing step on the phrase. This teaches students:
– to be present (ie they have to concentrate, so they stop thinking about work, etc)
– about phrasing (but with no obligation to find it themselves; if they’re not ready to hear it, then that’s ok, the teacher’s go it)
– about the beat (the teacher demos how to dance in time)
– to dance on their own before touching another human (much easier than partner dancing)
– to move on from mistakes rather than stressing about them; have to move on – the next step’s coming
– some basic jazz repertoire.

The teacher should be mindful about the rhythms they use. eg using simpler rhythms (single time or half time) first, then adding complexity. eg I might begin with walking on the spot, then walking + a clap on 8, then it becomes fall off the log with some shape.
It’s also good to give students some small victories in the first few seconds, so they feel confident. So start simple, then get more complex later.
-> this is 3-5 minutes. If they’re loving it, do another song!

After this we play i-go, you-go. I intro this by saying ‘now we’re going to play a game to learn the rhythm we’ll use all class.’

Then we play:
– I clap the basic rhythm (if it’s for lindy hop, it’s ‘slow slow, slow quick slow’, if it’s charleston it’s 8-1, 3-4 or however you think of charleston, etc).
It’s 8 counts (2 bars) in a moderate tempo (not too fast), swinging.
– They immediately repeat it back to me
– I clap the same rhythm….

This goes on in real time, with the same tempo. I move from clapping it to tapping it with different parts of my feet, with different feet, then step it out, then move it around. You can also scat it.
The other teacher is ‘on their team’ so they have a model for what to do.
As the ‘caller’ (they’re the responders), you pay attention to how they’re going. If they’re struggling, make it a bit simpler. Repeat something. If they’re all over it, add in elements like the shape of your body, where you place your feet, etc. The great thing about this is that if they’re not ready to work on these ‘extra’ things, they won’t see them because they’re too focussed on the basic stuff. Don’t stop and articulate this; just let it be there for the students to see when they’re ready.
Do not stop and explain things or correct or ‘break things down’. This is essential. This teaches them how to keep time _in real time_. It also teaches them how to learn-by-seeing and learn-by-doing. Just as we would on the social floor. This is one way you might think about building Black street dance tradition into your classes. But defs not the definitive or final way!

You don’t have to say ‘rhythm is the most important part of lindy hop’. By having it right up front as the first thing, you’re showing them that rhythm is important.
It’s ok to say ‘yes!’ or positive comments and noises when they really do stuff that impresses you. Show them how to be a receptive, appreciative audience.
The goals:
– learn how to learn without having a move ‘broken down’ for them verbally. They learn how to ‘break it down’ themselves, into the parts that matter to them – eg they might be ready for foot tapping, but not ready to see which foot it is; they might be ready for hitting the last 4 beats, but keep missing the first 4.
– get them used to moving on from mistakes without stopping to stress
– feeling confident trying instead of stopping to think before trying
– starting simple (clapping), then getting more complex (stepping the rhythm through space)
– they make a few mistake at first as people figure out how to play, but keep going. This teaches people that it’s ok to stumble through until you figure out what you’re doing. This teaches you to feel confident in mistakes. No one stops to correct you (and tell you you’re doing it wrong), no one judges.
– saying it’s a game is essential: game connotes fun, no pressure, play. ‘exercise’ or ‘rudiments’ feels like more pressure. Also, it’s fun.
– we start with this simple version so that they can learn how to play before we move onto more complex or challenging games later.
– they are all on one team (rather than one person clapping in front of the whole group).
By the end of this, 99% of them will be keeping good time and will have mastered the rhythm. They’ll also be a bit fatigued (brain wise), so change tasks.
-> this takes about 5 minutes max.

If it’s a normal class, I then have them play the same game with a partner, one-on-one. They take turns being the ‘caller’ and ‘responder’. You can have them do exactly the same thing (clapping the same rhythm with different shapes) or you can have them do different stuff (eg jazz steps, different rhythms, etc).
Goals:
– they learn to watch their partner and figure out rhythms from watching
– they start learning (from being a caller) that the goal isn’t to be best rhythm-composer, but best communicator of rhythm
– their weight changes and clarity of shape get really really good; it has to be super clear so their partner can figure it out. They’re not always aware of this.
– they learn to keep time and recognise and then reproduce rhythms
– Most amazing (and I only realised this after observing them carefully) they actually start orienting their bodies _towards_ their partners, with that lovely active balance (weight forwards, core engaged), the ‘perfect’ distance apart. So when they partner up in closed THEY ALREADY KNOW HOW TO HAVE ‘LINDY HOP BODY’ !!!!
-> this takes about 5 minutes.

From here they go on to partnering up.
I find that they are 100% ok with doing the nice rhythm (step step triple step), they keep lovely time, and if you play a nice song, they SWING IT. They also don’t need to be counted in, and can find ‘1’ easily.
All this takes about 15 minutes. I find that this investment in time gives them the skills to really _learn_. If you then move on to teach ‘moves’ by saying ‘please observe us, then reproduce it as best you can’ they are happy to just give it a go. You don’t need to break it down, they learn faster (and dance more), and they actually learn better and retain more.

Important things:
– never ‘correct’. Every time you correct a student (‘just one tip’ is a correction), you’re essentially telling them that they’re doing it wrong. This lowers self esteem and confidence, and actually makes it harder to learn. Happy people learn faster, retain more, and are braver and more confident.
– if you want to praise, make it process-oriented. ie don’t say ‘that was amazing!’ say stuff like ‘I saw X and Y get into a mess, then stop, laugh, take a breath, then restart. This was really effective’. This will give X and Y positive vibes, but it will also give the rest of the group info on what they might try, and it generally makes YOU feel fantastic, because you’re looking at your students to find good things, rather than looking at them to find bad things.
I have one hundred million things to say about this, and have posted about it a million times in this group (you can find it if you search for ‘i-go’, etc), and a lot of clever teachers have made suggestions and helped me learn about this stuff. It’s SO MUCH FUN!

Props:
I learnt this approach from taking classes with tappers Josette and Joseph Wiggan, and with Thomas Moon. Ramona Staffeld’s kind-but-clear approach to teaching helped us refine the approach. Classes with OGs like Chazz Young taught me that I can learn and do ok if I just keep trying and don’t have a teacher hold my hand. Josette taught me to not ask questions when I was confused, but to just have a go instead.

Our Swing Dance Sydney teaching group developed this approach together; I was just one person in the 6 person team.
The students themselves offered lots of feedback and suggestions on these things. We’d ask them ‘what did you think about this game?’ and they’d give us useful answers

How do you tell the difference between an 8 count move and a 6 count move?

[edit: This post Key Skills also addresses this topic]

Well, how?
This is one of those questions that comes up in the Teaching Lindy Hop fb group over and over again. I hear people asking it in classes and workshops all over the world. It’s like asking ‘can I take knitting needles on a plane?’ It will always get a lot of social media traction. It’s a good idea for a banging post.

But I think it’s also a good case study for examining some of the problems with out lindy hop is taught these days. So let’s go there.

I’ve taken a number of workshops where the best teachers in the world teach 6 count and 8 count moves, and explain how a follow might know which is which, and how a lead might lead the difference. But I’ve figured out that it’s also a bit of a straw man question. Why?

It begins with the premise that lindy hop is a series of moves. And to paraphrase Adrian Warnock-Graham from Montreal, lindy hop is movement, not moves. It can take any number of beats to move from point A to point B, and in any rhythmic combination. We tend to favour blocks of 4 beats because swinging jazz is in 4/4 time (4 beats to the bar), and 2 beats because we have two feet, and swinging jazz usually has the emphasis on every second beat. But even a fairly canonical figure like the swing out needn’t be restrained by an 8-count (two bar) timing. It can be as many or as few beats as you like (or can make happen).

So why are people obsessed with this question of knowing the difference between 6 and 8 count versions of a figure?

Because that’s the way they’re taught. It is routine to see lindy hop classes all over the world marketed as ‘8 count swing’. Teachers talk a lot about ‘8-count swing’ in class, distinguishing it from ‘6-count’. There are a range of reasons for this, some rooted in the 1990s, some to do with the wider modern-day partner dance community.

Kenny Nelson has written a very good blog post about it, Social Dances Have Names, where he points out that white dance teacher repackage and market lindy hop (in the USA) as ‘jitterbug’ and ‘East Coast Swing’ as a way of explaining a dance product (lindy hop). Gaby Cook argues in a facebook post that ‘east coast swing’ is a product of the Arthur Murray company (she provides references in that post).
What is East Coast Swing?

  • A dance product created by Arthur Murray, a white American male dance businessman;
  • A repackaging of Black dance (lindy hop) to make it palatable for white sensibilities (an issue I’ve taken up in this blog a million times before, and which is the topic of a chapter of my PhD dissertation);
  • Predominantly 6-count;
  • Marketed to newer dancers.

The history is a little different in Australia. Yes, all the above holds true for this country. But the link to Arthur Murray and even the phrase ‘east coast swing’ has largely fallen out of use. It was definitely how I was sold lindy hop in my very first classes in Brisbane in 1998. But you rarely hear it used today.
Instead, the emphasis on 6-count figures is tied to the popularity of 1950s rock n roll dancing, which was huge in Australia in the 1980s, heavily promoted by large dance associations (like the VRRDA), and provided teachers for the very first lindy hop classes in the country.

In Sydney in particular, rock n roll classes (and rockabilly) are very popular, bolstered by a healthy (and very fun) 50s live music scene and vintage/goth culture. So it’s not uncommon for a new dancer to take beginner lindy hop classes and beginner rock n roll classes at the same time. The two dances are further conflated by:

  • The same types of music used on both classes (or at least a lack of real swinging jazz in lindy hop classes);
  • A lack of attention to timing and rhythm in swinging jazz, and how that affects the way lindy hop works;
  • A lack of distinction between 6-count rock n roll figures and 6-count lindy hop figures in these classes;
  • Teaching mostly 6-count figures in beginner lindy hop classes, which then leads to the idea that rock n roll is ‘easier’ than lindy hop, and lindy hop is therefore ‘much harder’ than rock n roll;
  • An almost uniform belief that the swing out is ‘a really hard move’ in Sydney lindy hop teachers, and consequently a reluctance to teach it to beginner lindy hoppers.

So you can see how newer dancers, dancers who aren’t plugged into an international lindy hop community, or dancers who don’t know much about the history and music of lindy hop draw a very deep line between 6-count and 8-count moves in lindy hop.

Other factors contributing to this strange way of thinking about lindy hop include:

  • An emphasis on teaching figures in classes;
  • Class content composed entirely of set sequences of figures (ie ‘mini routines’);
  • Teacher-centered classes, where these set sequences of figures are called by the teacher, students are ‘counted in’ by the teacher, and the music treated largely as a metronome for marking out ‘the beat’.

In this class environment a ‘successful’ dance is one where the follow gets all of the figures correctly, and the lead leads all those figures correctly. There is no room for improvisation, no room for counting yourself in or experimenting with different timing for a figure, and a very strong emphasis on the leader and leading. We also see language like “What is the lead for this move?” as though there is only one, fixed way for a lead to move a follow through a figure, and only one figure matched to each set ‘lead’. This approach tends to create an anxiety in follows about ‘following properly’ (ie executing a figure perfectly, and exactly as the leader wishes), and a complete inability for students to count themselves in, understand or predict musical structure (like phrases, choruses, bridges, intros and outros, etc etc), swung timing, or improvise with shape and timing.

One of the most annoying consequences of this approach to teaching (for me, anyway), is men who usually lead all the time wanting me to dance with them, so they can ‘try following’. I’m generally not a fan of this, and often say no. I’m not a fairground ride. But the part that really fricking irritates me, is the way these men don’t actually ‘follow’. They feel what they assume is ‘the lead’ for a figure, then execute that figure, completely independently from me. You feel it most in a circle (where it feels like they’re running backwards, pushing your right hand around), swing outs, where they send themselves waaaay out past the limit of my arm, execute a made version of a swivel, and then run back at me, and of course as they move themselves through under arm turns with no reference to me.
I do try to be sympathetic to these men who just want to try something new, and only feel comfortable dancing with women because GAYPANIC. But I don’t. I’d really rather dance with someone who only follows, or who has never danced at all. Sorry not sorry.

But this approach to ‘following’ makes very clear the way these dancers understand lindy hop: as a series of moves (not movement), with set ‘triggers’ or leads for those figures that are performed at set times. There is no understanding of leading and following as a mutual process, where both dancers are communicating all the time, not only through those ‘leads’, but through every point where they touch, through looking at each other, laughing, smiling, talking, calling out, demonstrating jazz steps or rhythms, adjusting the way they move or groove in response to the music, and so on.

Surely you can see how all this sets dancers up for the idea that 6-count moves and 8-count moves are completely different things. And when they ask “How do you know the difference between 6 and 8 count moves?” they’re really saying “Give me a fail-safe, objectively neutral and fixed list of indicators so I can always follow/lead this move perfectly.”

So what do we do when students ask this?
I’d like to channel Sylvia Sykes here, who famously responded to the question “How do you dance lindy fast?” with “You do the same thing, only faster!” If Sylvia was asked “How do you know the difference between a 6-count and an 8-count version of this move?” I like to imagine her saying “The 6 count finishes earlier because the 8-count takes two extra beats.”

Because honestly, that’s the difference: one figure takes 6 beats, one takes 8 beats (and is therefore 2 beats longer). The 6-count figure is faster.
The follow up question, then, is ‘How do you know if it’s going to be a 6-count move or an 8-count move?” Because that’s really what people mean when they ask about knowing the difference between the two.
And my answer is: you don’t.

All sorts of things can change the length of a figure on the floor. A drunken random careering into your pass. Your partner losing their balance. A sudden urge to dance an iconic jazz step halfway through a bar. Random choice.
As a follow, you can’t ever know what a lead will do. And if it’s me leading, there’s no way I’ve planned any further ahead than the next beat.

As a follow, I just try to be mostly present in the moment. I feel that physical contact with my partner – their hand holding mine, my arm resting across their arm and my hand touching their shoulder, their arm around my side and back, their hand on my back. I look at their body and face to see how they’re feeling, whether they have a fun jazz to show me. I listen to the music and let it take me from point to point. I take care of the rhythm I’m doing (which is usually what the lead has suggested, but not always). I try not to fall over or run into anyone. I don’t know if this move is going to be 6 or 8 or 10 or 20 beats long.

But I do know if the lead is accelerating our movement, and I try to stay in contact with them so it can happen. Unless I don’t want to. Or can’t. So they may have aimed at a 6-count move, but it might become an 8-count move because I’m just too fucking tired to make it happen that quickly. Or because I need to add a couple of beats to make my logical-awesome jazz step work. Or because I missed the build up of energy. Maybe the lead thinks they’re increasing energy, but they’re just yanking me about? Who knows. And that’s why we can’t really know ahead of time whether a figure will be 6 or 8 count. Not if we’re actually dancing.

As a leader, I can choose to lead a 6 count version of a figure instead of an 8 count version. Maybe the music is telling me it needs a nice sharp BAM at the end of a phrase. Maybe I’m full of beans and dancing like a manic crazy person. If I do happen to be moving towards a shorter, faster shape, I need to start getting my shit together well before that point. I need to be properly connected to my partner, knowing exactly where their weight is, whether their torso and limbs and everything are safely under control. I have to have enough room on the dance floor, and be aware of the directions and speed other people are moving. You know, social dancing skills.
The magic thing about lindy hop and improvised social partner dances, is that all that stuff is happening usually outside your conscious awareness. If I had to consciously measure all these things, I’d die of stress and mental fatigue. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy dancing. When I’m dancing, there’s no planning. No thinking. Only feels. Which is why I need to practice if I’m going to dance on a busy dance floor in Seoul :D

There are lots of things that tell you, as a follow, if the lead wants to change the figure you’re doing at a certain point in time. They might have their hand over your head as you turn, and then bring that hand down in a comfortable arc to suggest and ending to your turn. Of course, you don’t have to do this; you can spin on forever. Or not spin at all. You are an independent, free and capable human being.
Or you might be in closed, and the lead uses the triple step after a step-step to make a send out from closed to open a faster movement, where that triple step is followed by another triple step. That’s a very standard way of feeding energy into a 6-count figure. Triple steps are, as you know, a very useful way of adding energy to movement, because you are adding an extra step, and you’re playing with the timing (making the rhythm slow slow slow quick slow) which makes it feel snappier and also swingier. This is, incidentally, why I RAGE OUT when I hear teachers tell students that they should drop the triple step when they lindy hop to faster music. What the actual fuck? That’s something a lead would say. A follow knows they need that extra step to haul arse. And we know that the triple step is the part of a swing out where we feed energy into the movement.

But I digress.

In sum, then, if you are asking ‘how do you teach the difference between 6 and 8 count moves?’, perhaps you should stop and look at your teaching, and consciously move away from focussing on moves, and towards movement. Move away from set sequences of figures, and towards ‘Try it in your own time’ sessions in class. And for the goddess’ sake, stop counting them in. Let them start ‘when the music tells you it is the right time’.

Could you just fuck off? Being a professional DJ when the DJ bros will NOT fucking leave you alone to do your job.

Hello!
As you may or may not know, I had some issues with a DJ bro pulling acts of Massive Sexism in my work place at Herrang this year. Despite our managers’ best intentions, the Herrang DJ team is still home to extremely bro bros. It’s also home to some of the very nicest reconstructed men in DJing, but let’s put them aside for a minute.

What about these DJ bros? Why don’t we just ditch them completely?
Mates, if it was up to me (and it has been in the past), I would. You hassle a sister? You’re out. That’s it. And all the time and energy we put into dealing with these jerks can be put into fostering new DJs and new DJ cultures.

Anyway, because I’m me, and I can’t stop thinking about things (ruminations are us), I started working on a way to develop a healthy DJing culture at a big event like Herrang that also draws on cultures from all over the world. Now, local DJing in many countries is not male dominated. Godddess bless the young man whose response to my story about being told ‘Women DJs can’t handle the pressure’ was honest befuddlement. He’d grown up lindy hopping in the Melbourne scene, where almost all the organisers are women, and most of the highest profile DJs are women. This generation of young people (ie the 20 somethings) is doing quite well. And we DJs in Australia have put a LOT of effort into getting rid of rapists and misogynists, and pushing women into DJing. As a result, we have some truly excellent (and definitely world standard) DJs.
But it seems the rest of the world needs to do some catching up. In my week as staff DJ in Herrang, I was the only woman on staff. Which SUCKS BUTTS. I love men, I really do, but I also really need to NOT WORK WITH JUST MEN. Because I need someone who can do the proper in-depth chitchat that non-bros do as a matter of fact. I don’t know want to know who broke up with who, I want to know the when, where, why, what, and how of it. I want anecdata. I want speculation. I want personal commentary. I want backstory. I also want at least one other person who’d shout “THAT’S BULLSHIT” when told women can’t handle the pressure of DJing.

Anyway, if Herrang has a safe space policy, and a general (though not terribly well articulated or publicised) anti-racist policy, how is it enacted at a departmental level within this sprawling organisation (that has about 300 people on staff each week)?
In the DJing team: not very well.
There are:
– no posters on the walls about it in the DJ office
– no paper flyers on it
– no social media campaigns or content
– one or two somewhat unexcellent pages in the DJ handbook
– a passing comment in one meeting.

No practical tips for:
– not raping or harassing or disrespecting people
– making reports
– trusting your own judgement if you think a bro just disrespected you
– dealing with unsafe situations
– making spaces safer
– intervening if you’re a bro watching a fellow bro go fully dodgy.

So of course, I decided to make some. Because fucking hell, mate, this is not brain surgery, and the rest of the world has been doing this for ten years now.

I also think that a good safety policy should involve:

1. an organisation-wide policy
That is publicly available (that’s usually a mission statement or set of values that says things like ‘We are trying to be anti-racist. And we don’t tolerate racism or sexual assault.”) This big picture policy guides the decisions individuals and managers make at lower levels or other places in the organisation.

2. A transparent reporting process
So you know what’s going to happen if you make a report. NB this is my example from Jazz BANG, and it’s out of date. We need to update it. But since we haven’t run an event since 2019… we are behind. This lets people know what will happen if they make a report. Most people make reports because they don’t want to be near the offender again, and want to know if he’ll be at the event. The other common reason is that they want to protect other people from him. I’ve never heard anyone say they want him punished. Except me. I FUCKING WANT THEM PUNISHED.

3. Visible safety staff, with photos in public place everywhere uniforms or badges, contact phone numbers, emails, and social media addresses, as well as physical offices!
this one is super important, as most people eye off the safety staff before making a decision to speak to them. They might even save reporting til well after the event (for safety’s sake), when they’re sure the safety people are actually safe.

4. A clear guide to what is considered sexual assault, racism, etc.
This one is especially important for letting everyone know what the event’s policies and ideologies are, and whether they take this seriously or are just cutting and pasting a random document. It’s very important for newer dancers who aren’t familiar with the way these issues play out in the dance world, and it’s essential as information for potential offenders, so they know what we count as harassment or assault or racism.

This info also plays a key role in dealing with offenders: if you kick them out of your event, you can say ‘you broke the code’, they can look at the code and see ‘oh, touching boobs is not permitted’, and they learn not to touch boobs if they want to go dancing. Well, that’s the goal. I don’t think it works that way. In fact, I know 99% of offenders know they shouldn’t touch boobs without permission, but they do anyway because they legit think they can do whatever they like because MAN.

I do know that it’s more likely to go: person has boobs touched by man, person sees the code on the website and thinks ‘fuck that; i was RIGHT to be shitty that he touched my boobs’; person speaks to safety person, saying ‘i saw on your website that boob touching in lindy hop is not ok!’, and the safety person says ‘you are CORRECT’; and then that unsafe creep gets kicked out.

5. A solid policy communication strategy.
This is basically a strategy for telling everyone – attendees, staff, randoms reading on the internet – all about your policy. It should also outline processes (eg how to make a report), identify safety staff, etc etc. It should be practical, and on-brand for your event (eg it should sound like you and the voice of your event, if you want it to sound authentic and real and trustworthy, not just cut and pasted and a token effort).
I like this stuff to be super simple, engaging and possibly funny, positive and empowering, normalising this stuff (eg the tone should be ‘of course we kick rapists out’ not ‘omg rapists?! how even? what ?!’), using photos and images rather than words. Fewer words. A catchy slogan or mnemonic is helpful.

It’s worth noting that the way you communicate your policy to staff is not always the same as the way you communicate to punters. eg staff will need to know exactly what to do if a banned man comes to the door, but customers don’t.
So you might divide your communication strategy between internal communication and external communication.

6. A solid process.
You have great ideas and policies, but what will you actually do? So, in my case, a guy spent a week pushing me about, challenging all my actions and thinking, making very sexist comments, and ultimately making me feel like shit. So I spoke to my managers. Who…. didn’t know what to do.

In this case, they clearly weren’t trained, and there was no internal documentation for practical responses to a report. I wasn’t sexually assaulted, so we didn’t need the cops or a doctor. All my managers and the rest of the team were men, and they hadn’t experienced or even noticed any of this shitty behaviour, so they didn’t really understand, or even know what I meant.
Because I’m experienced, and I am so fucking DONE WITH THIS SHIT. I refused to just leave it with my managers so they could quietly ignore it and move on. I spoke to the camp’s safety officer. Who also didn’t know how to deal with this. And now I am bloody well developing documentation, because if I’m dealing with this, imagine what it’s like for a new DJ who doesn’t speak English, in Herrang for the first time, dealing with a bossy white man (who isn’t a boss, but likes power) who keeps telling them what to play and that they aren’t actually capable of DJing under pressure?! Somebody needs to fucking well get this shit done.

I JUST WISH THE OTHER DJ MEN WOULD DO THIS WORK SO I COULD GET ON WITH BEING AWESOME.

Anyway.

7. Solid documentation.
Processes have to be recorded somehow. How do we handle reports? What’s the process for dealing with a rape versus a week of sexist harassment? What happens when the DJ managers change over at the end of the week, or resign from Herrang forever? Where are the reports stored? How do we measure the success of our response? And for me, specifically, how do I know this man won’t be on staff again next year the same week I am? Can I be sure he hasn’t read the report and correspondence? Will I be safe from his reactions? What if it happens again? At this point, neither Herrang nor I can answer any of these questions.

8. Retraining and retention or kick that fucker out?
You can see my position on this. I don’t think they’re worth the effort. These men know their behaviour is fucked up. But they keep doing it, because they think they’re fine. And retraining them takes SO MUCH WORK. So much time. And who’ll do that retraining? PLEASE don’t tell me it’s a woman (it’s always a woman). What are the metrics for gauging his ‘retrainedness’? What’s the time line? Where will he be trained? How do we deal with the effects of his mistakes (he will make mistakes)?

I would much rather spend all these resources on supporting those young women from China or Korea, that young Black man from the US, that clever and attractive middle aged feminist from Australia WHO JUST WANTS TO DJ FUCKING MUSIC AND NOT HAVE TO FEND OFF UNWANTED MANSPLAINING AND OTHER PEOPLE TOUCHING THE FUCKING SOUND DESK.

But that’s not the end!
What else do I look for in an event, to be sure its safety policy is both legit and 4real?

Other stuff:

  • A diverse staff cohort. eg if it’s all straight white bros, shit will not be safe there;
  • The organisation communicates about safety stuff. eg they have social media posts on the regular, talking about what they’re doing, introducing safety staff, marking milestones, etc;
  • Responding staff are trained in practical responses;
  • Staff making responses can access help and make reports quickly and easily;
  • Staff know how to make reports and are happy with the responses they get;
  • Workers feel safe enough to make reports;
  • Data is collected and used to improve policy and practice.

[all this stuff is from this pdf called ‘Good Practice Indicators Framework for Preventing and Responding to Workplace Sexual Harassment’ from Respect at Work.

So here we are. I’ve been at an event, had a moderately good time, dealing with the irritation and stress of making a report. And I’m going to make bloody sure no one else has to go through this again. I go through the DJ handbook (which the most excellent Yana developed in previous years), and I see some room for improvement, specifically in terms of safety stuff. So I write up some recommendations.

Here is a… probably third draft? It is just in what I call the ‘raw script’ form. From here it needs to be written and simplified, changed into pictures and photos, translated into at least Korean, Mandarin, and French, and then inserted into the relevant documents. To make this really work, it needs to be:

– In the official handbook in a ‘serious’ official form (that is still on-brand for Herrang);
– Made into a funny and accessible comic on a paper flyer to hang out in the DJ office, and in each of the four DJ booths;
– Made into a funny and accessible poster to be stuck up in the DJ office, in the DJ booths, in the staff lounge, the tech lounge, and music department offices (with extras for replacing them);
– Actually printed, then stuck up everywhere;
– Monitored for vandalism and graffiti (this tells what people are thinking about the issue and initiative) and replaced when it’s torn down or damaged.

All this, and it also needs:
– A script for managers to present it in meetings and revisit during the week;
– A script for DJs who are responding to harassment;
– A script for DJs who are intervening in bros’ behaviour.

And this is just one document that basically says ‘DON’T BE A FUCKING ARSEHOLE, ARSEHOLE.’
Anyhoo, here is the first draft.

Additions for DJ Handbook

Being a good colleague
DJs come from all around the world, and are all different ages, ethnicities, genders, sexual identities, and personalities. Hoorah! But this means we can occasionally miscommunicate or confuse each other. Here are some tips to make your work week extra smooth and fun.

Respect your colleagues. 

  • Assume every DJ is as capable as you are. That means you treat every DJ (even brand new ones!) as your equal. They will know things you don’t!
  • Don’t lecture or offer advice without first having enthusiastic permission (“Yes please!”) Had permission before? You need to ask every time.
  • They don’t need to tell you what song they’re playing now, what song they’re playing next, or what song they played last night. But if you’re a good colleague, they’d probably love to tell you!
  • Don’t like a DJ’s song choice? Keep it to yourself.
  • Love a DJ’s song choice? Tell them! Tell everyone!

Don’t twiddle someone else’s knobs.

  • Don’t adjust the mixing desk or sound gear unless you are DJing, or the current DJ has asked you to. Exceptions: the booth will catch on fire if you don’t.
  • Don’t tell another DJ what to play, or what to do with their set. They’re DJing, not you. Yes, even if they’re a brand new DJ. Step back.

Sex and the Herrang DJ.
Attracted to your colleague and want to take it further? Stop and think a minute.

  • They’re working, asleep, drunk, high, or injured: The answer is no. Nope. No way. Someone in this position cannot give you consent.
  • You’ve asked once, and they did not say “yes please!”: Back off. They’ll tell you if they’re interested.
  • You’ve had sex with someone once, and you’re keen for more: Use your words, ask respectfully, and if they don’t say “Yes please!” it’s time to back off. If they do say “Yes please”? Wonderful news – enjoy!
  • You want to ask someone about their sex life, relationships, body, sexual preferences: Not while we’re working, buddy. You might get to ask once, politely, and if they don’t want to answer, you stop! And don’t ask again.
  • No touchy! Don’t touch another DJ’s breasts, bottom, groin, genitals… without enthusiastic permission (“Yes please!”) And not while you’re working, please.
  • What about touching the rest of their body? If you have power in this situation (eg you’re a cisman, straight, white, an experienced DJ, on staff, older, and they’re not), you need to back off. If you’re equals and friends, maybe it’s ok? Remember that different cultures have different rules about touching other people, and always use your words if you’re not sure. It’s ok to say “Hey, I just patted your shoulder. Are you ok with that, or should I use my words next time?”
  • You’re a manager and you’re hot for a staff DJ or guest DJ: Think carefully about this. Let the person with less power (not you) make the first move. Check in with the Safety Boss Daphna to get clarification.
  • You’re a staff DJ or guest DJ and you’re hot for a DJ manager: Think carefully about this. Check in with the Safety Boss Daphna to get clarification. But if you make a move and they don’t say “Yes please!” say “No problem!” and back off.
  • Someone touched you/said something sexy/showed you sexy pictures or video/asked you about your sex life or sexuality, or did something that made you feel ‘urk! No! Unsafe!’: If you feel safe, say “Stop! I don’t like that”, holding up your hand like a stop sign. If you don’t feel safe to do that, leave the room straight away. Find or call Daphna and the Safety team straight away, even if you don’t think it’s important enough.
  • Someone said “Stop! I don’t like that!” to you, and held up their hand like a stop sign: Stop what you’re doing immediately! And you need to back up so that person can leave. Then you need to go to Daphne and the Safety Team and figure out what you did. If you’re not sure, they’ll help you figure it out! 

Be helpful.

  • Your colleague’s forgotten their record, the DJ phone, a bottle of water, a power cord, an adaptor: Offer to fetch it or find it. Team DJ: activate!
  • Finished your set (and your beers, dinner, and snacks)? Take all your junk with you. The only thing a DJ should leave in the booth is a bad smell.

———————————————–

You can see as you read through this that the beginnings of catch phrases are emerging: “Yes please!” is a good example. Here we’re trying to get people thinking about and practicing enthusiastic consent. So we practice saying ‘yes please!’ and ‘no thanks’ long before we get to the sex stuff. Hopefully. It’s important to practice these little scripts in non-stressful (safe) spaces, so when it comes to a stressful situation (300 dancers high on adrenaline staring up at you at 3am), you can say ‘no thanks’ and that DJ bro will FUCK OFF BACK TO THE DJ OFFICE and quit asking you what you’ll play next, and you can get on with being fucking awesome.

You should know that while I’m typing this up, I’m also assisting my male partner in making dinner (how could he not read the recipe? I don’t know. We will have a little fucking talk after this), booking a physio appointment for that goddamm sore hip, planning a balboa party, corresponding on this incident, asking a music friend to trust me with his CDs the way I trust him with mine, and trying to get it all done before I do my weights workout.

References:
This document ’Sexual harassment: practical resources and tools’ from Disrupting the System (a pdf https://championsofchangecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Disrupting-the-System_Sexual-Harassment-Practical-resources-and-tools.pdf) gives a good overview of things to look for to see if your workplace is enabling sexual harassment and sexism. Much of it applies to assessing workplaces for racism as well.

This document ‘Everyday Respect: it starts with understanding’ from Champions of Change (a pdf https://championsofchangecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Champions-of-Change-Consult-Australia-Everyday-Respect-Report.pdf) gives a good overview of understanding exclusionary behaviour in a workplace (including sexism and racism).

And the Champions of Change coalition also have this guide ‘Building confidence and trust in workplace responses to sexual harassment’ (pdf https://championsofchangecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Building-confidence-and-trust-in-workplace-responses-to-sexual-harassment-1.pdf) which is very helpful.

This document ‘good practice indicators framework for preventing and responding to workplace sexual harassment’ from the Aus gov body Respect At Work is also useful (pdf https://www.respectatwork.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-12/Attachment%20B%20-%20Good%20Practice%20Indicators%20Framework%20for%20Preventing%20and%20Responding%20to%20Workplace%20Sexual.pdf)