Autumn in Seoul is glorious, and while daytime is warm and mild, the light coat comes into its own in the evening cool. This season trench coats and light rain coats hang straight and comfortable to the mid calf. Worn without belts, we see longer versions of the softer shoulder and bulkier silhouette. Classic colours range from timeless camel to dove grey. Even in perpetually noir Gangnam.
Seoul fashion report:
Man bags. What gentleman of fashion would ruin the line of a good suit by filling his pockets? Think leather, slim-line, and elegantly simple.
Seoul fashion report:
A city that sees snow in winter and scorches in summer, Seoul revels in the more moderate seasons. Cooling weather sees young women and men adopting softer, boxier silhouettes. We’re seeing bulky knits, raglan-sleeved sweaters that are definitely sloppy joes, and dropped shoulders everywhere. These comfortable shapes end at the hip, bottomed with slim pedal pushers for both sexes. But we don’t think gentlemen will be revealing those elegant ankles once winter comes.
Seoul fashion report Oct 20, 2017
A city that sees snow in winter and scorches in summer, Seoul revels in the more moderate seasons. Cooling weather sees young women and men adopting softer, boxier silhouettes. We’re seeing bulky knits, raglan-sleeved sweaters that are definitely sloppy joes, and dropped shoulders everywhere. These comfortable shapes end at the hip, bottomed with slim pedal pushers for both sexes. But we don’t think gentlemen will be revealing those elegant ankles once winter comes.
Things male lindy hoppers have done this year in Australia
- Sexually assaulted women, girls, boys, and men;
- Sexually harassed women, girls, boys, and men;
- Deliberately derailed OH&S processes;
- Discouraged societies or committees from developing codes of conduct;
- Actively argued against the introduction of codes of conduct in their local scene;
- Covered up for offenders;
- Defended offenders in public and private;
- Witnessed assault and harassment in person, but failed to prevent or act on it;
- Failed to support women stepping in to stop harassment as it happens;
- Deliberately attacked and discredited women reporting assault;
- Deliberately attacked and discredited women and men reporting assault on behalf of others;
- Hired known offenders for teaching and management roles in large scale events;
- Discredited individuals and groups working on safe space policies;
- Used their power and status as international teachers, DJs, and organisers to discredit women reporting offences, and derail the development of safe space policies;
- Verbally, legally, physically threatened women who are discussing these issues (let alone working on them actively);
- Taken credit for the work of women in their organisation who have improved safety at their events;
- Failed to assist in a material or organisational way to improve conditions at their own events or in their own businesses;
I wish this was a hypothetical list. But I could give you names and dates for all of these.
Can you just fucking step up and do something GOOD, for once, lindy hopping men?
So, we’re continuing to wade on with the work on sexual assault and harassment in the dance world. There have been great strides made. By women. At this point, men are continuing to offend at the same rate as before, men are covering up and enabling other offenders, whether deliberately or by neglect, and almost all of the work on codes of conduct, safety committees and cultural change is done by women.
Even more significantly, women are doing all the emotional labour of convincing men we need these things. There are still plenty of men in the international dance scene who don’t think we need codes of conduct (when your mates stop raping us, we won’t need a list of rules that say ‘don’t rape us’), think we should leave all this to the police (when the cops and legal system actually prosecute and punish offenders, we won’t need to police this shit ourselves), and think we should just leave all this to ‘common sense’ (when men actually have the sense to see that raping and harassing women isn’t ok, we’ll actually accept that they have any sense at all).
At this point, years after Bill Borghida was jailed for possession of child pornography, two years or more after some very brave women outed Steven Mitchell as a violent sexual offender and pedophile, a year after more brave women outed Max Pitruzella as a violent rapist and offender, and as every day we see more and more women reach out for help from anyone who shows even the smallest hint of empathy, women are still doing all the goddamm work.
And here’s the deal: men are still doing all the goddamm raping and assault. Yes, there are some women who offend. But at this point, I’ve come across dozens of male offenders in the past two years, and only two women. And those women’s offences were far, far less severe than the things men have been doing to women dancers.
Yes, all men. All men are responsible for their own behaviour and for the behaviour of their male friends. But they aren’t stepping up and taking on that responsibility. In this sense, men are failing to do community, and women are doing all the labour. Maybe we should just ban all men from lindy hop events. At this point, that seems the only way to put a stop to all the sexual violence.
But some people actually quite like having men around. So, men, if you want to prove that you actually deserve a place in our communities, you’re going to need to step up.
Yes, there is some emotional labour for YOU to do.
We’ve done a pretty good job of getting women up and engaged with safe space policy to deal with sexual harassment and assault. And they’re engaged as agents of prevention and response, rather than as ‘potential victims modifying their behaviour so they don’t provoke men into raping them’.
But we don’t have many men involved.
We’ve tried a range of strategies, from the ‘most offenders are male, so you need to step up’ offence, to the ‘we need you to be there for us’ to …. well, all sorts of things.
Getting organised as allies, and as actively engaged in preventing sexual assault is straight up emotional labour: thinking and planning, using empathy, working to discourage other men from offending, reducing micro-aggressions, dismantling less overt elements of rape culture.
And we’re just having no luck.
I don’t want to micromanage …work. I want a partner with equal initiative (ref).
So now we need real strategies for getting men to get involved. Because the women on committees and so on are bloody tired of this shit. We’re basically now 100% responsible for responding to and preventing men from raping women.
Things I’m having some luck with:
– pushing the ‘we are looking out for each other’ line, and having short examples in our PR copy, our speeches, etc etc (eg ‘see someone looking crook? Offer to sub in for them for a break’).
– coming at it indirectly in class by having all students learn and practice asking their partner ‘does this feel ok?’ and then being constructive (rather than defensive) with responses.
But this is not moving fast enough. And I’m just too tired and busy fielding emails from frightened women, producing documentation, and looking after my own health to actually do all the work for men too. Can you just fucking step up and do something GOOD, for once, lindy hopping men? Because I’m beginning to despair of you.
What are some useful suggestions for getting men to do this sort of emotional labour? Because unlike neglected house work, neglected violence kills people.
Why is it important to say that lindy hop is a black dance?
The mighty Anaïs asked on fb today:
the statement of the “African-American” quality of Jazz dance and Lindy hop has disappeared from the front page and main description of what was taught and celebrated at the Herräng Dance Camp…Why?
Here is what I think.
Herräng is a white-run and European-based business which gains much of its status from the idea that it is offering an ‘authentic’ jazz/swing dance experience. This idea of authenticity or ‘realness’ is really developed by the focus on and use of the idea of ‘vernacular.’ Vernacular, in this sense, means everyday, ordinary, ‘of the people,’ rather than concert or performance or formal or prepackaged. A significant part of the camp’s appeal lies in the immersion style experience campers have: there is music and dance everywhere, every day, all the time.
This is all well and good. But if white organisers leave out the black part of this ‘vernacular’, we’re left with the implication that this ‘vernacular’ has nothing to do with race. Or class.
This is the bit that makes me very uncomfortable. That’s straight up appropriation: taking something that belongs to someone else and repackaging it for your own gain.
It’s difficult to get around this issue, because we are talking about relatively wealthy, middle class, socially and culturally powerful people using a dance which is really appealing. And fun.
One of the solutions suggested by scholars and activists of colour is to name check the people who developed and own this stuff. I like to compare it to recognising the traditional owners of country (ie Aboriginal Australians). It’s a way of saying, “Hello, I saw what you did. I recognise your power and work. I want to apologise for the past. I give you the chance to forbid me use of this dance and music. This is yours.”
When we say, “this is a black dance” we are saying “I do not own, nor did I create this dance.” We are recognising the traditional custodians of this creative land.
So, when Herräng leaves off the words ‘African American’, they’re essentially obscuring the black roots of this dance. The focus on authenticity in camp is likely to leave punters with the idea that this white version of black dance is the ‘real’ or most ‘authentic’ version of this dance and history.
This is cultural appropriation, but it is also colonisation.
Without name checks, without reference to and discussion of real history, Frankie’s face becomes an appropriated icon as much as the swing out.
This is why it’s important that people like Anaïs and others publicly ask, “Hey, where did the words go?” because she is also saying, “Hey, where is the recognition of the custodians of this traditional knowledge?”
why the black kids sit together
I was just watching this video ‘Why the Black Kids Still Sit Together’ feat. Beverly Daniel Tatum and thinking about how important it was to have critical mass of black dancers at Herrang this year in week 4.
There was a moment after the meeting when I was watching the OGs hanging out with the Frankie ambassador peeps, with teacher, dancers from all over the world. They were just hanging, talking, dancing a bit while staff tidied the hall for the dance, the DJ (me) set up for the gig, and the hall emptied out.
Watching these peeps of colour from all over the world hang out, I was struck by just how white Herrang is, and how there’s this insistence in the camp that we only listen to black music from no later than the 50s in common areas. No hip hop. No rap. No reggae. No modern rnb. None of the music that these young people listen to, own in their everyday lives.
And I thought, ‘This is some pretty fucked up shit. That white, middle class people are gate keepers for what counts as ‘legit’ black culture. And it’s the black culture that’s back there in another time, out of reach of these young people.’ And it makes me want to laugh as much as cry that the camp was stretching as far back as the 1600s to an ‘authentic’ black dance from Africa for classes, rather than just reaching out its hand to the kids who were right there in the camp, a living part – owners! – of black culture today.
That’s why the black kids sit together in the cafeteria, lindy hop.
[edit: these same points apply to why we need more women in DJing, why we need to queer it up in lindy hop, etc etc etc]
How gentle classes can fight the power
I was thinking about this this week. When it’s hard for peeps to get to class, if our classes are extra welcoming and embracing diversity, we make it easier for marginalised peeps to get to class and learn to dance.
I think it’s important for us, in this political climate, to do what we can to counter the horrible sadness and anger we feel about injustice. And I think we can do that by doing positive, excellent stuff that makes people feel good and happy. Including us. And lindy hop is just perfect for this.
This is my back story:
Our country is currently embroiled in a very nasty public shitstorm about a survey asking whether or not the laws should be changed to include same sex marriage. It’s not a referendum or a binding vote. It’s just a huge, expensive, shit-stirring survey intended to stir up distress and foment conflict. All because our spineless government didn’t want to allow members of parliament to vote on a new bill according to conscience (rather than party lines).
Last week in class we had a few same-sex couples come to class for the first time. Our door person was wearing her excellent ‘YES’ tshirt*, and I’d reposted this the previous week:
The couples felt a bit nervous about class (usually first time beginner stuff). And today I was thinking, ‘I’m so glad we were making it clear that anyone can lead or follow. I’m so glad we had a same sex teaching couple that week. I’m so glad we have a friendly class that focuses on looking after each other. I’m so glad our usual students are so welcoming and nice to each other.’
It’s hard enough coming to class for the first time as a shy noob. But if you’re someone who’s used to be marginalised, it’s even more important that you’re met with a welcoming class environment.
Because I believe, so strongly, that happy students do better learning. And we can do very good, important things for the world just in teaching dance. It’s not ‘just dancing’. It’s important.
*meaning ‘vote ‘yes’, let’s change the laws.
Why teaching is important to feminism
James recently made this comment in response to some interesting comments by Kathleen in the fb teaching group:
I would do anything for them to let me teach lessons in my scene the way you do up there! When I tried I encountered surprising resistance. People are weirdly attached to their 6 count triple step highly gendered rotation classes.
I think my response pretty much sums up my ideas about the relationship between teaching (which is so central to contemporary lindy hop culture – for better or worse) and the broader cultural and social power structures in our community. I believe that we build cultures of exploitation or empowerment in our classes.
Traditional class models are very easy to teach (because you teach to that imaginary ‘average’, rather than to different students’ needs); very easy to promote (this is exactly what you get *lists moves in sequence*); and are a very powerful ‘add on’ promotional model, where students start at level 1 and then add 2, 3, 4, 5. You keep adding levels/products to retain that market.
As you’d expect, you end up retaining your ‘average’, losing diversity in your cohort, and churn out students who all dance the same way, and can’t count themselves in. Which is ok if you want to build a very big scene very quickly. Not so good if you’re looking for diversity. This sort of approach to ‘scene building’ promotes/builds very clear hierarchies of power and status, and consequently enables sexual harassment, exploitation of labour, and other status-related bullshit.
Also it’s boring to teach.
In contrast the ‘full hippy‘ teaching culture (which draws a lot from things like Montessori thinking and other independent pedagogic practice), hopefully enables personal empowerment and fights the fucking patriarchy. And gives us more interesting dancing and teaching :D