clapping, slapping, scatting, and dancing

The other week in Herrang at the Bad Taste party, I was given permission to go off-piste. I’m usually very reluctant to go the stunt DJing route, but I’d spent the hour before my set in the DJ office listening to all the types of music that comes from New Orleans, but never gets played in the New Orleans parties.
It had gotten me thinking about the other rhythms that were part of African American vernacular dance in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, yet are carefully avoided by places like Herrang. Not to mention hip hop and street dances of today, which have much closer roots with black dance history than the contemporary lindy hop community.

I’d also spent most of the weekend tapping in one tent, while drummers and dancers from Ghana Guinea (thanks for the heads up, Bert) banged out insistent rhythms in the neighbouring tent. And scatting. And learning to understand, remember, and reproduce complex rhythms.

There’s a very interesting book called The Games Black Girls Play by Kyra Gaunt.
If I cut down the blurb for the book, we can summarise it as a book about skipping, clapping, and rhythmic games that black girls play in America.

More generally:

…the games black girls play — handclapping songs, cheers, and double-dutch jump rope—both reflect and inspire the principles of black popular musicmaking…

…these games contain the DNA of black music…black girls’ games …teach vital musical and social lessons that are carried into adulthood. In this celebration of playground poetry and childhood choreography, she uncovers the surprisingly rich contributions of girls’ play to black popular culture.

I’ve written about this book before in a post about double dutch skipping and gender.

One of the points Gaunt makes in that book, is that clapping, skipping, and rhythmic girls’ games teaches black girls complex rhythm recognition, reproduction, and improvisation skills. Both with their brains and their bodies.

When I was DJing that party, I had songs like this in my head:

Big Chief by Donald Harrison featuring Dr John.

Bechet’s Ti Ralph.

And

Step, Clap, Go! from Opening Ceremony on Vimeo.

Step Clap Go ad for clothes for teenaged girls from Target featuring Bad News From the Bronx steppers.

I’d also gotten a little angry in a history talk that failed to name or mention most of the women in the lindy hop partnerships, and also did some serious racefail that a couple of the Frankie Manning ambassador kids picked up. I know Herrang may like to talk about black dance and history, but it’s a very white place. And also quite a patriarchal one. So when women, girls, black kids, black women, and especially black girls speak up, they’re usually very quickly silenced.

With all this swirling through my brain and muscles, it’s inevitable that I ended up playing the clapping song:


Shirley Ellis’ “Clapping Song”.

I actually played it three times. And got into trouble for it from Lennart. But it felt quite wondefully cathartic to break the rules like that, to be openly defiant, and to say FUCK YOU to all the stifling genderfail, safespace fail, patriarchal white washing of black dance history that was going on. If we’re going to valorise lindy hop as a black vernacular dance, we are doing a very bad thing if ignore all the history of black dance after lindy hop. All the black culture after lindy hop that living generations of black kids and adults participate in and own. I’m absolutely not ok with being part of the strange exoticism of some white lindy hop culture that deliberately places this culture well beyond contemporary black cultural practice. A white woman playing a song for a bunch of white european lindy hoppers isn’t really revolutionary, but I was playing a song by a black woman, a song which is an adaption of a black girls’ rhythm game. And I was repeating it.

As a DJ, I think the stunt worked well. I played the song three times, but in between each playing, there was a stack of solid, hardcore swinging jazz. All upenergy, and all solidly within the ‘will make you dance the lindy hop’ genre.

What happened with the crowd? The first time they were quizzical, but tolerant. The second time they started losing their shit. The third time they were out of control, and I could see them literally leaping into the air all over the room, jamming, rocking out, even swinging out.
It was a punt, and three times was definitely enough (even in a week where playing the same song multiple times was the stunt de jour), but it did what I wanted it to do. It was in ‘bad taste’, it played on the crowd’s crazy/nervous masquerade night costume vibes, and it definitely took advantage of the hilarity of that night’s cabaret performances. The burlesque cleaning show in particular.

I would never do this on an ‘ordinary’ night of dancing at Herrang. It did remind me a lot of the crazed Twist party from a few years ago. Particularly a few songs later when they all formed a caterpillar, as my french friend called a congo line. I didn’t plan it, I didn’t encourage it, and I was a bit scared when my boss turned up halfway through the second song and asked what was going on. I definitely didn’t plan for the whole room to turn into one looping snake of chanting, dancing, scatting congo line dancers. But what I do think happened is that the perfect storm of conditions led to the sort of natural chaos that happens in Herrang sometimes:
– over-excited dancers wearing costumes that make them feel crazy
– the uptempo fun swing songs let them feel relaxed
– the clapping song said ‘the rules may be broken’ and was also exciting
– the repetition of the clapping song said ‘unexpected things will happen’
– the burlesque act with its mix of sexual and off-kilter humour stimulated people’s excitement
– it’s a _masquerade_ party, which means that people are masked/feeling permission to be other than their usual selves
– it was mid-week, when people are tired and also very relaxed.

Anyway, it was a very interesting moment. Me, I’m now obsessed with rhythm dances in a whole new way. Yes, it’s possible to get even crazier about this stuff.

Key skills: rhythm, timing, jamming and FOLLOWING

With some key skills of rhythm, timing, and jamming in mind, how does a follow communicate to a lead that they would like to extend a 6 count send out into an 8 or 10 or 16 count send out?
How does a lead communicate the same thing?
We looked at this in Jenny and Rikard’s class (Herrang teachers’ track 2017). I’ve done this a few times, but I’ve been tired each time, so I always forget details.
Ok, so a good option is for the follow, on being ‘sent out’ (eg after count 2) to simply not move so far or so fast. They just take a longer time getting out into open. If the lead is paying attention, then they figure it out.
How can you take longer?

  • Change the rhythm of the step from step step triple step triple step to something longer.
  • Orient your body in a different way. eg if you turn to face your partner more, and make it clear with your body that you’re staying on the spot, the lead will figure it out and not try to ‘push’ you out.
  • It helps if you have something to do when you’re not moving so far in space. I suggest jazz. aka dancing. Which then implies: if you don’t feel the music suggesting you take longer on this move, then why take longer? Just need a break? Want to change the pattern? It’s all good. But have a good reason to do what you do.

How do you then signal to your partner that you’re ready to ‘start’ the shapes again?

  • You can just hold out your hand and smile up at your partner in a ‘What now?!’ face. But that’s weird.
  • Another way is to use a triple step to create a finish point or some other sort of rhythmic ‘full stop’ to say ‘hello, I’m done!’
  • Jenny also talked about creating stretch to say ‘hello, here is the connection again, would you like to suggest another shape?’

This is where my brain was blown:

  • You can create stretch in A MILLION DIFFERENT WAYS.
  • The easiest way is just to back away from your partner until your arms are literally stretched. BUT you are a flexible jointed creature of great ingenuity!
  • You can create a stretch by getting really loooow, so your arms are drawn a little more stretched.
  • You can create a stretch by getting really hiiiiigh, so your arms are stretched.
  • You can turn into your own arm, so your arm gets ‘shorter’ to create stretch (think about Al Minns doing worms on 7-8,1-2 of a swing out, where he crosses into his own arm and it creates a stretch that then sprongs you back together from open into closed).
  • I think the key thing is that this change in connection says to your partner, “Hello, friend, something is changing!”

Note:
I knew this about stretch already. But I hadn’t thought consciously about applying it this way. I know I play with the concept a lot when I’m social dancing (eg as a follow I extend the time I spend in open during a swing out by allowing the stretch to develop until I’m ready to sprong in; as a lead I may keep the connection more relaxed until I have a clear vision for the next few counts).
But I hadn’t thought about applying it this way in a teaching context.

Note:
I would never ever ever start the class with this point: “hello, let’s talk about stretch.” Because I think that technical exercises or theory in space are useless. I’m very function-first. So in this case I’d come in with the question, “Let’s see how we can extend a 6 count move to an 8 count one,” and then gradually build up the dancing from an ordinary 6 count send out, then adding in each element as we went.

As Jenny and Rikard pointed out, both leads and follows can do this stuff.
In my brain, I think that I signal the approaching end of a ‘shape’ (as a lead esp) by: reorienting my body (towards, away, whatevs; it creates a stretch or changes the connection or just plain makes it easier for me to look my partner in the eye); by doing a triple step or another step that feeds some energy into the connection/my body and gets me prepared for leading or initiating something different; etc.

Teaching this stuff:

  • Check in with your partner:
    As a teacher, I tell my students to “Check in with your partner.” They are looking to see if their partner is ready to do something new (or still jazzing out), are checking to see if their partner is ‘getting’ the rhythm they’re doing, checking to see if the call-and-response stuff is working, etc etc etc. This establishes a visual connection, but the act of looking at your partner also reorients your posture and body – by turning to face your partner with even just your head, you change the way your body and muscles are working.
  • As a very simple example, I have the leads remember to ALWAYS look at the queen of the world when you’re bowing to the follow. Because as soon as they drop their heads, the connection is broken, because they tend to hyper-extend their arms out of the shoulder, and different muscles are engaged. By looking up, they engage different muscles.
  • But that’s too much to say to noobs. Just say “Look at those mighty swivels!” or “Check in with your partner” and they get the picture.

I find this approach much more sophisticated than other stuff I heard during the classes I did that week and the next.
Following is more than just choosing to follow or not to follow. This is a limited paradigm. I want to completely revise the framework we use for thinking about leading and following.
eg I heard one teacher explain a follow’s contribution to a move as being ‘choosing triple steps instead of step steps’. But this choice was dictated by how much energy the lead was asking for in a particular turn. This was simply a matter of a follow working within this paradigm of a follow’s options being ‘follow or not follow’.
This is such a boring, overly-simple and limiting way of thinking about what follows can do.
I think a follow should always be choosing what footwork they do, and their choices should be guided by:

  1. Function (eg a triple step feeds in energy and can be faster than a step step in a turn),
  2. Aesthetics (what they want to look like),
  3. The rhythms they feel,
  4. The rhythms they hear in the music,
  5. Adding texture and contrast to what the lead is doing,
  6. The way they feel at the time, and the things they want to express.

If my only choice, as a follow, is to do what a leader is doing (and ‘asking for’) or not then what is the actual point of being a person with a brain and creativity. Why not just be a copying robot. BORING.

Key skills: rhythm, timing, jamming

Rethinking lindy hop via tap and African dance.

Some of the skills I think are essential for lindy hop:

  1. Having a sense of time.
  2. Having a sense of swung timing and straight timing.
  3. Being able to hear a rhythm once and then repeat it immediately.
  4. Jamming: Being able to communicate very clearly your sense of time in order to improvise.
  5. Jamming: Being able to keep track of where bars and phrases are so as to improvise.
  6. Jamming: improvising in real time with other people.
  7. In summary…

1. Having a sense of time.
Knowing where ‘1’ or ‘4’ is, or where a phrase ends or begins.

  • In a tap jam, this means being able to clap on 1 of the beginning of a 2-bar sequence (or 4-bar sequence), as well as tapping lightly on the even counts all the time, and tapping an improvised rhythm on top when it’s our turn.
  • ie knowing how long a bar (4 counts) is in a particular time. Without counting in your head or out loud, really.
  • I now find thinking in bars more useful than thinking in 8s. In my head, a ‘swing out’ is 4 counts of a rhythm on one foot, then that same 4 count rhythm on the other foot).
  • For lindy hop, this means that both partners understand which beats to emphasise (eg not making a rock step really huge/long on 1, or kicking on 8 for a fall off the log); both partners are carrying the beat in their bodies, but also a sense of the whole song as hear it (eg a ‘groove’); and both partners trust each other to come back to those basic structures after improvising.

2. Having a sense of swung timing and straight timing.
Knowing a rhythm or step (like a stomp off or a shuffle), but being able to dance it straight or swinging.

  • In lindy hop that might mean the difference between doing a triple step as 1-2-3 (as in cha cha) and 3 &4. Both of these are legit, but only if you choose the one you’re dancing. Being able to control this then means you are better able to stop it being a hoppy-uppy feeling when you want downy-groundedy feeling.
  • In lindy it also means trusting your partner to be able to dance swung and straight rhythms, and to have a sense of the basic beat while experimenting with syncopation, swinging, straight etc etc timing. Both of you doing different things at the same time!

3. Being able to hear a rhythm once and then repeat it immediately.
For example, as in the game I-go, you-go.

  • Being able to hear a rhythm and repeat it immediately, in time.
  • Being able to see a rhythm and reproduce it with the same part of the body/foot immediately.
  • The better a dancer, the longer a sequence they can repeat immediately. So memory, understanding, reproduction, and recognition skills are all key. And then of course being able to hear and then reproduce two rhythms at once is the next step.
  • In Herrang 2017, we did this in lindy hop classes as solo dancers, in tap classes, in african dance classes, and in solo jazz classes, but it has clear applications to lindy hop.
  • This means scatting, clapping, tapping our feet, flexing our muscles, patting our bodies, turning our bodies, nodding our heads, all of these are ways of communicating a rhythm.
  • => It takes practice to get good at doing this, and at reading this in a partner’s body.
  • A lot of people talk about this in terms of following, where a follow recognises a lead’s rhythm, then joins in immediately. But that’s a very simple, boring way of thinking about leading and following. And these skills are absolutely essential for tap and solo dance. ie dancing. If you can’t do this, you can’t pick up a time step for a tap jam.
  • I think that this skill is severely under-emphasised in lindy hop. It’s not about ‘footwork’ per se, but as understanding a rhythm, then being able to reproduce it with your body. Any and all parts of your body.
  • I don’t think enough leaders can do this. They see themselves as dancing rhythms at follows, which a follow then dances back or not. Or rather, they don’t even get that far: they think ‘I am swinging us out’ and just assume the follow will do the shape they want. And they think of ‘swing outs’ as having one fixed basic rhythm unless it has a ‘variation’. And if the follow doesn’t magically join in, they see it as ‘not following’ or ‘hijacking’.
    This ‘magic following’ is often discussed as ‘just following’. When I think it’s really ‘just copying’. And as we all know, copying is legit, but it is just the very first step in creative work and joy.
  • Instead, I think of leading and following as sharing rhythms with a partner, where you can dance a rhythm over the basic, which your partner then joins in or echoes, or you can both dance rhythms at the same time which are complementary. And the best thing of all things ever.
  • I do this with my tap friends. I’m a bubb tapper, so I lay down a basic rhythm, which I have to keep steady and consistent while they improvise on top. We both find it immensely satisfying, creative, and challenging. Even though one of us is a bub, and one of us is a ninja.
  • In lindy hop, this communication of rhythm isn’t just about footwork (which is where I see a lot of modern lindy hop thinking about rhythm). The timing of a tuck turn, for example, is also a rhythm. The use of stretch from a cross-hand hold where you turn your body into your own crossed arm affects timing and can create a delay that then is followed by a faster sequence as you ‘unwind’ into something faster. And so on. All this on top of footwork.
  • Footwork is functional: yes it can have fancy rhythm, but it really is just a way of getting from A to B. So a follow doesn’t need a magic spidey sense to know whether it’s a 6 or 8 count shape. They just do the steps that get them from A to B. And in a 6 count shape we just get from A to B in less time – 2 fewer counts – than in an 8 count shape.
  • I tend to think of ‘styling’ as always coming from the rhythm.
    eg when I jump up REALLY high, it takes a longer time than if I jump low, and my arms may want to fly up higher, creating a ‘flying’ shape. So my ‘eagle slide’ arm shape (styling) may come from how high I move the scoop/side part of the eagle slide. As an extremely fashionable and cool person, I might want to add some sweet 45* angles to my wrists and some nice flat planes to my hands. Boom. Styling.
    And I always, really think that the best styling is just your own personality pouring out of you. Which is why beginners are the best: they just feel feels and don’t know how to ‘style’ their feels yet.

4. Jamming: Being able to communicate very clearly your sense of time in order to improvise.
What and where is ‘the beat’.

  • Being able to work within a specific structure.
  • In a tap jam or a band, you all agree what the time is. In lindy hop, you take a few breaths to find a shared sense of time and ‘groove’ before you start swinging out or whatevs.
  • In lindy hop you need to use your body and the way you touch someone to add to this communication. So we often talk about relaxed muscles, energised muscles, arms touching backs, backs touching arms, ‘returning connection’, etc etc etc. I think we do a lot of that ‘naturally’ as humans holding hands or embracing someone. But obviously we refine these lines of communication as we do more dancing.
  • => even though a beginner may not have a nuanced sense of physical connection/touch, they have a very good visual communication skill set (they can see when someone is happy or excited or whatevs), and they can hear the music, and they can scat. They’re also good at recognising patterns. So we don’t start from ‘nothing’ when we do lindy hop.

5. Jamming: Being able to keep track of where bars and phrases are so as to improvise.

  • These are traditionally places to pass a turn in a jam to someone else, or a place to begin or end, or a place that frames a rhythmic sequence.
  • I have since started thinking of leading as laying down a time step (eg step step triple step, or step step kick step, kick kick -> lindy hop, or charleston) which the follow then says ‘Ok, yeah, i’m into it’, or not, depending on how they feel.
  • We share that time step with our bodies, but also visually, and verbally with scatting. I strongly believe that we should use all our senses in lindy hop. And we should all signal to our partner that we dig it, hear it, are into it: nodding, saying “Yeah!”, picking it up and repeating, it etc. So a follow is saying, “Yeah!” when they pick up the leader’s lead for a move, and a leader is saying “Yeah!” when they work with what a follow is putting down.
  • Then we use that same rhythm to move through space. When we have that rhythm established as our time step (or ‘basic’), we are free to improvise on top of it. Or jam together. As a lead, I suggest shapes and rhythmic variations to the follow. As a follow, I may or may not choose to do those shapes or rhythms. But both of us need to be very clear in what we are suggesting.
  • I think of lindy hop as jamming, now. That means we touch, don’t touch, stand close together, stand far apart – all that stuff – just like in any other creative communication. Sometimes we synchronise rhythms, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we’re both swinging, sometimes we’re not. We watch each other, we listen to each other, we pay attention and try to pick up the rhythm. And try to keep in time with each other, and give the music our love.
  • => if we focus on our dancing as an attempt to show someone/teach someone a rhythm, we get really clear with it.

6. Jamming: Social dancing = improvisation; jamming = improvisation = social dancing.
You do it with friends because it’s more fun. More inspiring, more invigorating, more challenging. And you can make bigger things.

7. In summary…

  • These are obviously all skills leads and follows need.
  • If you focus on rhythm and timing and music, you tend to focus less on shapes and moves. I’m personally a strong advocate of simple shapes with varying rhythms. eg a circle, dancing on the spot and moving around the floor in closed, then letting go and being in open, dancing in open facing a partner holding one hand, dancing with a partner without touching very close, moving towards and away from a partner without touching. And so on.
  • But then there is also a joy in a complex shape with a complex rhythm pulled off in just the right part of the music with a live band. Right? It’s just a bit boring if that’s all you do. Because swinging jazz is sometimes a very simple, lovely thing. A 32 bar chorus with a bit of improvisation in the bridge, all in a nice swinging timing.
  • In shifting my focus from moves-based teaching and dancing, I found I was a better dancer, and a better teacher. We will never learn all the lindy hop moves. But we can start dancing day one of classes, or the first time we hear a song.
  • If we don’t think of lindy hop in terms of figures, we change the way we think of leading and following. In a moves-based paradigm, the lead suggests moves which the follow may or may not do/complete. Booooring and limited.

If, however, we think of lindy hop as rhythms, music, and partnership first, partners have similar roles, but the skills are still quite specific. I think that leading and following are different but I don’t hold any truck with the unnecessary verbiage and danceplaining we see in a lot of classes. Lindy hop is really simple: you and I dance together to some good music. We improvise when we feel like it. We touch or we don’t. But we are dancing together so we interact. Sometimes we hold each other real close because we love it.
Anyhoo, so if I think like this, I’m not left thinking “But what can I teach follows?” because this is what we teach every student, lead or follow.
That’s the ideal, anyway.

 

In the next post, Key skills: rhythm, timing, jamming and FOLLOWING I’ll work through how I might use these ideas while teaching follows lindy hop.

Good peeps are doing good work

I’m back from Herräng 2017, and feeling a bit better about the dancing world’s response to sexual harassment.

Just a reminder that there are a whole heap of organisers, DJs, volunteers, and generally good peeps who are watching and acting on information about men who’ve been reported as sexual offenders. Most of them aren’t famous or big names. Almost all of them are quietly squirrelling away on this issue.
Each time I travel I meet people who have incredibly good, well-thought out processes and plans. The international lindy hop community has leapt onto this issue.
They work hard to protect and maintain the anonymity of the women and men who report offenders. They’ll receive threats (physical, legal, emotional, financial), and will be snowed under with paper work and processes.
Almost all of the men who’ve been reported aren’t famous teachers or even well known dancers. There won’t be blog posts or well-trafficked posts about these men. Very few other men will even have noticed them, and it’s unlikely famous teachers will boycott events if these offenders attend. They’re all ages, all ethnicities, all classes, and all over the world. I have not come across a single incident in the last two years where the report has been unfounded. In most cases women are _under_ reporting or playing down the behaviour of these men. And there have been a lot of reports.
These men are almost comically similar in their behaviour and patterns. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so shitty. So offenders are relatively easy to spot. And people are watching, keeping an eye on each other.
These reports trickle in every week, all over the world, and the that network of organisers, DJs, volunteers, and good peeps will be keeping each other in the loop about their movements. Facebook has never been busier with messages organising meet ups and conversations, keeping people aware of which offenders are moving where and doing what.
You can bet your bottom dollar all the people who are working on these reports will get them out their dances and parties.
So if you do report once, and you don’t get a good result, please do try again. There are plenty of good peeps who have your back.
Men: stop that jerky sexist shit. Those sexist objectifying ‘jokes’ in dance contests, the jokes about ‘boob swipes’ in class, the laughing ‘games’ between higher profile men. All of that sends messages to other men that this behaviour is ok, and to women that they need to just tolerate this. Don’t offer to walk us to our cars. Just stop encouraging other men to treat women like jokes.
And all those people working on this issue don’t need your bullshitly immature behaviour muddying the water. Stop being jerks; get your shit together.

Patterns to watch out for. ie stuff I’ve seen or had reported as part of a report of assault or harassment. So many times it’s getting stupidly obvious:

Overly controlling, rough, or sexualised dancing on the dance floor.
– unwanted/non-consensual dips or movements where women are forced into positions;
– ‘blues dance’ moves/styles/steps in a lindy hop context. When women complain about these movements, these men almost always describe them as ‘blues dance’ moves, hence justifying their behaviour and delegitimising women’s complaints;
– ‘teaching’ or ‘telling’ newer or younger women dancers how or what to do during a dance or between a dance. This usually means these women are isolated from other people on the floor between dances as these men mansplain their rough or controlling behaviour.
– targeting younger or less experienced women (of all types of appearance) and asking them to dance repeatedly – they literally comb the room with their eyes.

Stalking:
– constant facebook messages, comments, emojis, photos, tagging in other people’s photos, requests for friending
– repeated requests for phone numbers relatively early in a friendship (eg the day they meet a woman), in person and via social media. Usually for an ostensibly legit reason – to clarify details of an event, find out where the party is, etc)
– constant text messages, phone calls, and pics via phone at all hours and times. Often with emotionally ‘sincere’ or ‘confessional’ tones – eg stories about their emotional vulnerability, their past relationships, etc. Basically, stories about _them_.
– repeated and intrusive invitations to dance – interrupting women’s conversations with other women (to isolate them) cutting in after one dance with another partner, multiple dances in a row at a single party, followed by invitations to ‘private parties
– invitations to ‘private parties’ or events that are presented as group events, but turn out to be just him. These are usually ‘blues’ parties at someone’s house or a secluded venue. The man is usually the only person with the details, and they may collect the woman in their car.
– dropping the woman home after a dance (so they know where she lives), then ‘dropping in’ repeatedly, or making sure they’re the only person who drops her home after a dance. And then keeping her in the car or coming up to her house with long ‘deep and meaningful’ conversations. Mostly about him.

Targets:
– younger, less experienced women dancers
– women with less confidence.
– often have younger girlfriends and keep the relationship secret ‘for privacy’. When other dancers discover the relationship, they are frequently surprised that such a ‘shy’ or ‘quiet’ woman is with such a socially outgoing or spontaneous man.

These men:
– all nationalities and ethnicities
– not incredibly handsome or attractive, but usually quite ‘ordinary’ or ‘inoffensive’ – ie strangers probably won’t remember them.
– not usually super fashionable, but often reasonably well dressed. This can really vary between scenes and dance styles, though. They tend to ‘fit in’.
– very rarely very high profile teachers or performers
– may describe themselves as ‘teaching’, but only teach privates or smaller events – usually blues or another niche dance (eg fusion, or another blended dance) which doesn’t have a big presence in that city
– may teach at smaller events, but don’t have a high profile, and aren’t terribly well regarded. May eventually become a standard face in a teaching cohort, but never at a highly respected level. May teach interstate or even internationally at very small scale ‘intimate’ events run by less experienced organisers.
– if they don’t have actual teaching gigs, they frequently teach on the dance floor, or offer to ‘work with’ or ‘practice’ with newer women dancers privately, and present themselves as specialists who like to dance ‘their own style’ and have no patience with formal workshops.

These men work the long game. They put in a lot of ‘ground work’ to groom a woman which they eventually sexually assault, or enter a relationship with where they assault their partner repeatedly. Within a relationship they gradually escalate the assaults, as they gain greater control of these women and isolate them. Women may begin by feeling a bit ‘pushed’ to do deep kissing at a party with other people near by, to ‘mess about’ with this man and another partner (often another woman), to have unprotected sex in otherwise consensual situations. But the sexualised coercion escalates and happen in concert with other controlling behaviours – belittling comments in public, isolation, etc. And then they become more clearly assault and often very violent. The women become ‘quieter’ and more withdrawn at social events.

These men:
isolate
(dominating women at dances, taking them out after dances)
doubt (degrade or critique until women question their own minds and decisions)

dominate
(stalking online with constant fb messages, text messages; dancing in ways that showcase his status and ability and allow her zero creative space)

avoid
(more confident women, figures of authority, and legit events)

It’s very unlikely you’ll ever see them offend at a public event. Even if you’re watching closely. If you do call them on a dodgy hand position, they’ll either make excuses or apologise profusely. Then avoid you.

Please note: it’s the relationship between these behaviours that make patterns. So there’s nothing wrong with asking for someone’s phone number, calling them up, having a D&M then getting together and having gloriously consensual sex. All within a weekend.

But the combination of factors is what we should be watching for.

So you can see why it’s important for us to address seemingly ‘small’ issues like non-consensual dips on the social dance floor, right?

Does everyone see that sexual assault isn’t just a random dood attacking a woman on the street, that we can prevent by having a famous dancer walk a woman to a car? Or by carrying bear repellant?

(This post and its comments brought to you by arriving home to yet another assault report, depressing in its familiarity. It’s as though these men have a manual and just follow it. PUA-style.)

In response to a comment from the ever-thoughtful Byron:

I’d like to find a way for that list of yellow and red flags to become something that’s shared readily within the dance scenes at large, maybe edited in a way that highlights what the dance scene SHOULD be like, and how to tell if someone is violating community standards in weird ways.

This is the sticking point at the moment. Most of the people I know are doing this very carefully, and mostly in person. Which of course is a challenge for scenes divided by geography.
But there is the risk of exposing yourself to legal action for defamation if you do share information publicly (even by email).

Yet it is possible: you just need to get good, solid legal advice. Which is what I’m currently doing. Costs a fair bit of money, and the laws are different between Australian states (let alone countries), so you need real, legit legal advice (not internet legal advice). And I certainly won’t advise on it. But lawyers specialising in defamation can simply and easily write up a template letter and advise you on how to send letters or emails to other organisers warning them about these people.

A very very important step: all events and organisers need a policy, a code of conduct (ie a list of rules posted publicly), and a practical process, and then a reporting process. If these are in place before communicating info about known offenders, then organisers can prove that their actions weren’t personal malice, but professional process (hence avoiding some legal action). It’s also important because it helps organisers develop a clear sense of their own values, and become confident in their thoughts and actions. And most offenders rely on a lack of confidence or clarity in people’s thinking.

This is also why it’s essential that we drum it into all dancers that we all have a right to a freedom from sexual harassment and assault, and that we are all the best judges of our own limits and personal space and liberty. Dance classes _must_ prioritise this.

I am becoming more and more certain that a student-centred approach to teaching lindy hop is central to this – we have to encourage students to trust their own decisions and thinking. Not just tell them ‘here is the answer’ and then demand they do things one single way (our way). The next teacher who starts a workshop saying “there are lots of ways of doing things, but this is _our_ way” gets a punch: there are lots of different ways of dancing. And they are all worth thinking about. Similarly, I am now 100% absolutely totally angry with teachers who forbid students ‘giving each other feedback’ or discussing how their bodies and they are feeling with their dance partners. It breeds a culture of silence and self-doubt in women.

Seoul fashion report:

Young women are snapping up oxford collared shirts by the dozen, and we’ve seen them in every colour and stripe. Worn traditionally, tucked into short shorts, open over a small dress, or deconstructed with collars and buttons repositioned for interest. Still a little dull to our eye, we suspect the deconstruction will lead us in more adventurous directions soon.

Korean safe space policies

One of the things I like most about Seoul is the culture of visual information. ie signs with pictures. It draws on comic book culture, but also reflects, content-wise, Korean communitarian ethos and values. So informational signs like this one from the subway focus on individuals doing the right thing not for their own safety, but for the safety and comfort of others. Many of the signs also emphasise on younger people’s responsibilities to older people. It’s a really great discursive tool for peeps to have at hand.

Another thing I really like is the way the Dance Safe peeps in Seoul have used these practices to do some pretty impressive stuff. Here is one of the posters I saw stuck up outside SwingTime Bar in Seoul, above one of the benches where everyone sits to change their shoes (Seoul dancers change shoes before they enter the studio space). So, perfect placement.

The poster itself is solid gold. It has a light hearted, charming feel very much in keeping with Korean visual educational media texts. It uses animals rather than ‘women’ or ‘men’ symbols, which means it avoids gender binaries and norms. Even though I don’t read Korean, I can still get the message.

Dance Safe are a group of Korean peeps (men and women!) who’re working super hard to raise awareness about personal safety, sexual harassment, and mutual respect in the biggest lindy hop scene in the world. This is no mean feat, as the sheer scale of the scene means they need a zillion posters, pamphlets, and people involved. They’re doing some fund raising (with the support of various local organisers) to get $$ together to cover their printing costs.

My media studies/cultural studies brain is super interested in this project. This is almost exactly the sort of work I did in my Phd: how do dancers use media texts within a community so focussed on the body?

These guys are doing things that fascinate my academic brain, but also my activist brain and event organiser brain. How, _how_ are they pulling off this stuff?! I see some racist bullshit coming out of the English speaking lindy hop world about ‘Asian’, and ‘Russian’, and ‘French’ dancers, accusing them of not understanding ‘safe space’ ideology ‘because of culture’. But in my experience with dancers from these countries and other NES scenes, the activism is as exciting and engaged – if not more so – than the English speaking world.

Part of me thinks we need a conference to get all of the safe space activists in dance together to share this sort of information. How exciting!

Seoul fashion report:

Shoulder bags and hand bags are de rigeur in this crowded city, and we still see plenty of neutral hues and conservative shades. Printed calico totes are (finally) on their way out, but Seoulsiders specialise in the well-designed fabric carry bag. These soft, practical accessories are perfect with the relaxed silhouette of this warm season.

Seoul Fashion Report:

The younger set are living in their very short shorts, particularly cut off denim in white, blue, and black. But for a softer, dressier warm-evening look, they’re topping them with knee length open shirts in flowing floral cotton. A simple white sleeveless undershirt and sandals complete the look. We aren’t convinced this style will stay, but it’s perfect for summer.

Seoul fashion report:

The simple shift dress in linen or cotton is perfect for summer in Seoul. Matched with sandals of all descriptions, but most pleasingly those with a thicker soul and interesting straps. Features: asymmetrical buttons or a ruffled hem. We still see plenty of raglan sleeves and drop shoulders, and the silhouette is chicly androgynous.