Sue Katz: Consenting Adult

Masking is a Diversity Issue: A Letter to the Dance Community

I am 75 and it has been nearly three years since I’ve been able to dance my beloved West Coast Swing regularly and freely. All of us have lost time and great dances, but when you are 35 or 45, you have time to catch up.

Allow me to establish two points:

1. Covid is out to kill older people:
Out of more than 1,000,000 US Covid deaths between January 2020 and January 2023, over 90% were people over 50. If you just look at people over 65, it is about 75%
2. Vaccinations and boosters help you protect yourself. Masks help protect others.

And it is not just old people who are vulnerable. People with compromised health may also be excluded from maskless dance. Then there are the younger or healthier people who are caretakers for the vulnerable. They don’t want to take risks either.

Why are instructors and event organizers happy to exclude us? Masking should be part of everyone’s diversity toolkit. If your goal is to make West Coast Swing as available as possible to as wide a range of dancers as possible, require masking, at least for the early part of the evening. You may not have noticed, but you’ve lost the income and the company of many vulnerable dancers who are not attending dances. I know this horse has left the barn, but I feel devastated that I have to follow.

I’ve made every effort to keep myself well, but the reality of the statistics hovers over me. I’ve been doing partner dance since the 1960s. I cannot imagine life without dance, but first there has to be life.

Boston Ballet dances a masterpiece

My review of a quite astounding Boston Ballet program, including a masterpiece, Vertical Road. I experienced one of those epiphanies great art gifts us. Click here to read about it.

Here is a taste of Vertical Road.

Vancouver West Coast Swing Celebrates Pride

Even though my legs are still injured from the ebike assault I suffered a few days ago (see previous blog), there was no way I was going to miss the Vancouver Pride West Coast Swing dance which the organizer, Dalynne Roberts (at left), had invited me to weeks ago. We have been Facebook friends for some time and were looking forward to meeting in real time when it turned out that my vacation overlapped with her event.

The studio belongs to well-known professionals Tessa Cunningham Munroe (at left below) and Myles Munroe. I’ve met these champions pre-Covid at Summer Hummer, a weekend dance event that used to be organized by my former teachers.

I arrived at their gorgeous air-conditioned studio (although it involved a difficult staircase to the second floor) in time to see the end of the special Pride workshop for beginners. What a crowd! The many dozen students totally jammed the beautiful studio with its sprung wooden floor as Dalynne and Tessa taught basic figures.

When social dancing began, I popped a couple of acetaminophens, put my cane aside, and started to dance. There were many contrasts with my home dance base in Boston, but three things stuck out:
1. Myles was the evening’s DJ and he played real swing music – every song had an actual beat.
2. Not a single other dancer questioned why/how/if I was a leader.
3. And finally, and most amazingly, the upper-level dancers danced with everyone. No one seemed to sit out a single dance. It was astonishing to watch the seamless integration of beginners, intermediates, and high-ranking dancers, the mix and match, the enjoyment the better dancers got from encouraging the newbies. Almost all the top dancers asked me to dance. Likewise, many beginners, even people after their first lesson, asked me to dance.

West Coast Swing gives a lot of lip service to the principle of mixed level dancing, but I see very little of it in practice. I have danced in the same room for years without a single dance with those (mostly young) dancers who are coming up the competitive ranks. They don’t even say hello to me, unless they’re at the door taking money, let alone consider dancing with me. Some have even turned down repeated invitations. It’s not personal – although yes, I’m an elder dyke – because every other non-competing but committed dancer I know tells the same story. The exceptions are young, beautiful newcomers – often welcomed warmly by their hetero advanced counterparts. These ambitious dancers colonize the front of the dance floor and dance exclusively with each other. Three-quarters of the floor is left to us plebeians – an area these top dancers never deign to traverse or visit.

Another Boston venue has instituted a fresh, new tradition in which some advanced dancers volunteer to spend the first period of the social dance asking newbies to dance. Alli Reese deserves congratulations for attempting to change the culture and foster cross-level introductions. But many of the advanced dancers have a corner of that space where they congregate all night to emphasize their exclusivity.

Congratulations to Tessa, Myles, and Dalynne for creating such a democratic dance culture, for living up to the principle of cross-level dancing, and for having such a grand Pride dance just when I am visiting Vancouver for the first time! As I have seen throughout my time here, people are simply nice. Especially to strangers.

Last night I dreamed that I was dancing with Bruno Mars

Last night I dreamed that I was dancing with Bruno Mars. For real. I was at a live performance and he plucked me out of the crowd. The problem was that I can’t follow and so I immediately forced a switch. Bruno understood and surrendered the lead to me. The backup dancers dug it and joined the party. I felt the beat deep in my inner organs. Don’t care what others say about him, there I was dancing with the movement heir of Michael Jackson. For me, Bruno Mars can nod his head and I feel like I’m watching a genius (as he does in Lazy Song). Luckily, I was dancing with the pre-mustache pretty Bruno.

I woke up a happy woman. Until I remembered that I haven’t hardly danced a step for two years. Covid has reduced me to a dreamer: I want to return to being a doer.

Here's a video with a selection of clips of Bruno Mars dancing. Not the smoothest compilation, but gives good tidbit.

 

Only Two Micro-Aggressions and One Irritation over a Whole Dance Weekend!

 

I think I’m going to start keeping a count of the micro-aggressions I receive at various dance events. Summer Hummer is my “home” event: it is local, it is run by my own dear teachers, and I know many of the other dancers and teachers, so they’re used to me. As the only 70+ out-dyke leader, this event is as “safe” and fantabulous as any I attend all year.

Here’s the count.

1^st Micro-aggression: At my very first workshop this weekend, one woman follower who rotated to me (we change partners every minute or so) flashed me a big, condescending smile and said, “It’s just adorable that you’re trying to lead.” I didn’t respond – didn’t give my usual answer that I’ve been leading partner dance since the late 80s. After we did the exercise, in which she realized that I was an experienced leader, she got completely uncomfortable and the smile was gone. I suspect she was furious that she felt ridiculous in her own eyes.

I would estimate that this same thing, more or less, has happened to me 150+ times in West Coast Swing, but somehow it still drives me mad.

2^nd Micro-aggression: We are lined up in the room off the ballroom waiting for our competition to begin. The followers are in one line; we leaders are in another. There are four more followers than leaders – generally the case. Some stranger man standing behind me pushes me sideways, saying, “Get over there and follow. The numbers aren’t equal.” I brush his hand off me (restraining myself from breaking it) and say, “Why don’t you follow, if it concerns you?” He can’t even comprehend what I am saying, and replies, “I just think you’ll have a better chance that way in the competition.” I’m starting to boil. “How long have you been leading partner dance?” I ask him. He refuses to answer. Just then we are led out on the competition dance floor where I am expected to do my best. Which I don’t.

What can allies do while I’m dealing with these things alone? Ask me to dance. So many dance friends purport to care about me but never ask me to dance. It’s all about the opportunities to dance, no?

Irritation: I have written about this before. Some male leaders experiment on me. They ask me to lead them. These guys do not ask male leaders. Are they repressed homophobes with secret desires to submit on the dance floor? Are they unwilling to publicly expose this desire by dancing with another guy? With me, it’s safe. I’m a woman. Inevitably for me it is like leading a truck with flat tires. They don’t know which hand to give me; they don’t know which foot to step out with; they don’t follow. Sometimes they’ve never followed before. They waste my time. They think I’m there to serve them. Afterwards, they’re just as pleased with themselves as can be: “Hey, I didn’t do half bad!” This happens most nights at least once or twice or thrice when I’m in a venue with strangers.

I shouldn’t have to add this disclaimer, but I will: There are many men who enjoy following and who also follow other leaders – and they are great to dance with. Some of my fave followers are men – because their aim is to improve their following and to enjoy the dance. They’re not acting out a subtext on my dime.

I shouldn’t have to add this disclaimer either, but I will: Summer Hummer was a major blast!

Now I have to ice my knee, soak my feet, and catch up on sleep after dancing until about 3:00am Friday and Saturday nights. I have another dance weekend coming up on Friday, this time in DC and focusing on queer dancers!!!

The Experience of Feeling Normal at Dance

 My dance friends are now used to having a lefty fat old dyke leader in their midst.

There are weekend-long dance retreats with workshops and competitions and social dancing somewhere in the country every weekend. On Saturday, I went to an evening of West Coast Swing (WCS) hosted by a teacher I respect and admire named Angel Figueroa (photo on left). The last time I competed was when I won 2^nd place in the Newcomer division on New Year’s, moving me up to the swollen Novice division – where many dancers get stuck for ages.

When I made the finals on Saturday, my friends all cheered and I was matched with a lovely friend named Brooke. We have studied together with our splendid teachers Bill and Yuna (photo left below) on Tuesday nights for a couple of years. Although we didn’t place – and hadn’t expected to – we had a grand time.

Because it was a local event, I knew many of the attendees. They are used to having a lefty fat old dyke leader in their midst. They no longer make me feel like a freak. Angel, the head judge and host, is a professional who has always encouraged me. Afterwards, two different judges – both pros I work with – gave me private feedback on where I should improve. I was honored to receive it.

When I am with strangers, I have to put up with endless micro-aggressions, from followers and others. People cannot get their heads around the idea that I lead exclusively. They think it is (choose one of the following): cute, creepy, adorable, impressive, brave, odd, repulsive, unusual – the whole gamut. I know this because they tell me so. They think they have the right to question me about why I don’t follow. Because they might have cross-role danced at a lesson or two, some folks lecture me about how I’ll never be a decent dancer until I learn to follow as well. One man in the crowd on Saturday gave me a condescending nod and a thumbs-up. If he was closer, perhaps he would have patted me on my head. Men often feel qualified to judge me because they believe that having a penis automatically makes them an authority on leading, even if they’ve been dancing all of three months. They do not point their thumbs at other men. Once I objected to a professional teacher telling us leaders in an expensive class to “Man up!” and to “Stop with the limp noodle.” Another student in that class gave me a dirty look over my objection and hissed: "Chill! Relax!" He has never walked in my shoes.

Here’s a secret I may be the only one to know. Many male leaders long to follow. They ask me to lead them and I always wonder why I don’t see most of them asking another (ie, a male) leader. Is there a fear of being in the arms of another man?

As my evening passes without aggro, I remember that I’m at an event that just a few years ago would not have allowed me to compete as a leader. On Saturday I felt normal, one of the crowd, just another dancer. Thank you to all my WCS friends who made that happen – especially Brooke, Yuna, Marcus (smiling in center of photo on left), and Angel.

Lysistrata Directed by Sheriden Thomas: Degendered and Delightful!

Tonight I saw a sassy, utterly entertaining adaptation of Lysistrata, directed by the always innovative Sheriden Thomas of the Tufts University Department of Drama and Dance. Every time I see a fabulous production at a university or regional theatre, I wonder why Boston media persist in ignoring the amazing (often affordable) work being done.

Thomas calls this her “regendered Lysistrata,” but I would call it degendered. Casting seems to have been done with no regard for gender at all. I’ve never seen anything quite like it on stage – so up-to-date (including the use of pronouns), but based on an ancient tale. Played for intelligent laughs and passionate sizzle, this version, which uses Ellen McLaughlin’s adaptation, is bawdy and brilliant.

Unabashedly building parallels between ancient Athens and 2018 USA, the spouses decide on a sex strike until their soldier spouses stop the wars and live in peace. The peaceable “crones” occupy the Treasury and use glitter bombs to repel the attacking soldier spouses, who are “geezers” that haven’t been taken to the killing fields. The blustery Athenian King turns up with a red tie down to his knees, while his soldiers all sport four foot long erections (long balloons) due to months of sexual deprivation. The King talks an arrogant line of Athenian exceptionalism, but his spouse Lysistrata, the leader of the strike, replies, “If you’re sick of self-abuse, you can just make a truce.” Noting the condition of the moaning soldiers, she reminds them, “You always let your crotches lead you in the past. Listen to them now.”

There’s a droll Olympics reference when the Spartan Queen enters to announce an alliance with the striking Athenian women, and two of her servants sweep frantically in front of her (curling) as she walks. Lysistrata reminds them all, “Don’t give them a piece of ass until they give us peace at last.”

The set is fabulous, including a huge Statue of Liberty on which is engraved: Send me your tired, your poor, your angry.” The costumes are clever eye candy. The band members double as actors. The singing, especially from the multi-talented actor playing Lysistrata, Jacquie Bonnet, is terrific. The audience is completely engaged and the 80 minutes fly by. Congratulations to all who contributed to this witty, wild production, with particular kudos to the director, Sheriden Thomas, who never fails to deliver.

Fabulous! Wings of Wax: Boston Ballet @Opera House until April 2

Gallop, don’t saunter, to see Boston’s Ballet magnificent three-piece production “Wings Of Wax”, featuring works by Balanchine, Kylián, and Ekman, running at the Boston Opera House until April 2.

The show opens with a luminous plain blue background that showcases 11 dancers in the sweetest pink and blue costumes (courtesy of the Miami City Ballet).  George Balanchine’s pleasing choreography to the music – romantic excerpts from Gaetano Donizetti’s final opera, Donizetti Variations – provides a sense of innocent joy touched with comedic moments. We are served a mix of playful trios and duets, the highlight of which is the delicate grace of principal dancer Misa Kuranaga with her outstanding duet partner soloist Junxiong Zhao. Interesting postscript: Donizetti Variations is one of the first pieces the Boston Ballet ever performed back in the ‘60s. It remains a delightful confection.

The second piece is Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián’s Wings of Wax. In contrast to the plain stage in the opening performance, the curtain opens on a large upside-down leafless tree hanging from the rafters by its roots and circled in never-ending rotations by a huge spotlight. The 8 dancers are all in black and the lighting comes from piercing spotlights, mostly from above. The score – a passionate quilt of selections from Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, John Cage, Philip Glass, and J.S. Bach – showcases the stunning musicality of Kylián’s choreography.

The movements of the dancers are odd and beautiful and often it is hard to distinguish among the limbs of those who are dancing together. In one section, the women move in almost imperceptible slow motion while the men weave among them with a desperate energy. In another the women are like marionettes as the strings of the instruments are plucked. When the dancers speed up, the circling spotlight circles more quickly. The choreography uses unique angles and unusual balance, but the end result has a startling and fresh lyricism.

Following the second intermission, we are treated to Cacti, the giggle-out-loud 2010 work of Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman. A hilarious if deprecating voice-over combines with selections from Joseph Haydn, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Andy Stein, and Gustav Mahler. Our very thoughts are cleverly ridiculed just as we think them – from our impressions of the gender-erasing costumes to any post-modern deconstruction we might be tempted to apply. There are pompous words of wisdom as well: “We are not dancers, nor musicians, but members of the human orchestra.”

With individual platforms as their props, the 16 dancers use them as a stage, a percussion instrument, and then later as building blocks. Dressed like topless samurai, the dancers laugh as they slap themselves squatting on the platforms. At one point they bring in pots of cacti which are brightly lit until they tumble. The dancers have removed their dark sashed pants and now appear naked in leotards that match their skin colors. It is a disconcerting “look” – and utterly unique. The evening ends in wit and wonder.

Kudos to Principal Guest Conductor Beatrice Jona Affron and the Boston Ballet Orchestra for their superb performance of this broad range of selections, including the onstage presence of a string quartet during Cacti. The entire evening is delectable, and its accessibility makes me hope that the Boston Ballet will use it as an opportunity to reach out to those who don’t get to see much ballet, including the younger generation.

Photos from Rosalie O'Connor

Ramadan in Worcester

I am teaching Latin dance to a group of elders in Worcester, MA, who live in subsidized housing. Many of them are Chinese immigrants who speak no English, but just adore dancing and by the end of the class were very physically affectionate to me. Others are eastern Europeans with decent English and a good sense of fun.

It was a hot day and I structured in several breaks to drink. Their activities director had laid on cold water and lemonade. One woman did not get up to drink. I asked her if she’d like me to bring some water to her and she shook her head. “It’s important to stay hydrated,” I insisted.

“I am fasting,” she told me with an accent.

“Oh,” I answered. “Of course, it’s Ramadan.”

“You know Ramadan?” she looked up with excitement and smiled. “How?”

“I know Muslim people, I know Palestinians. Where are you from?”

“Syria,” she said.

I felt my eyes tearing up. Imagine being this far away from Syria in such a nightmarish time for your country. Imagine leaving friends and relatives in that horror show of violence and destruction and probably not knowing from day to day how they are doing.

I opened my arms. She stood and came into them and we hugged. Clearly she was isolated among people who had no clue what she was going through. I sat down next to her for a minute or two until she could bear to let go of my hand, and then we all continued dancing.

Four Nights in the Berkshires – June/July 2015

New England offers many groovy summer destinations, but few places in the world concentrate so many top-notch cultural opportunities as the Berkshires. These include the internationally-famous classical music festival at Tanglewood; perhaps the country’s most interesting dance village, Jacob’s Pillow (vintage photo on left); arts festivals, theaters, and dead writers/artists homes. And the landscape is phenomenal. You can get to the Berkshires from Boston in two to three hours. I love vacations I can drive to, but still feel that I’ve entered new ether. The Berkshires is creative and visual catnip, with its well-preserved old homes, dazzling landscaping everywhere, broad emerald lawns, rivers, and lakes. Just driving around the well-kept roads (compared to Boston’s pock-marked streets) is a vacation in and of itself.

This report covers a four-night stay in the Berkshires and gives you the flavor, if not a blueprint, of how to experience cultural immersion without exhaustion. I tried to include one daytime and one evening experience each day, with a few food and accommodation tips as well.

Monday, June 29
Despite the 10-mile backup on the Mass Pike due to road works that delay me by an hour or so, and a GPS that seems to believe that the longest possible route is the only choice, I arrive at my Airbnb condo in Housatonic with delight at how spacious, modern, handsome, and comfortable it is. If you’re headed this way and you’re looking for a two-bedroom rental, I recommend Alicia’s place. Check it out here.

I cruise to the nearby working class town of Great Barrington only to find my favorite second-hand and vintage stores are no more. I window-shop past a real estate office and even go scope out a couple of nearby, affordable ($200,000-ish) riverside condos. I skip the Monterey (nearby and fancy) listings that all hover close to $2 million. I return to Housatonic, stopping for dinner at the Brick House Pub (don’t miss the seductive sweet potato fries.)

Tuesday, June 30
BERKSHIRE CANOE TOURS
I start the cloudy day on the Housatonic River with Hilary Bashara of Berkshire Canoe Tours. My podiatrist had recommended her. Hilary is gregarious, knowledgeable, and besotted with the Housatonic River, which she’s lived close to her entire life. Bring a hat and sunglasses and she’ll supply you with a kayak or canoe and escort you through this exquisite part of the river. The water is like a mirror and because it is late June after a rainstorm, the banks are a palate of greens dotted with copious wildflowers. Hilary can spot turtles from across the water; she can name every bird and tell you how they organize their lives; and she knows more about beavers than beavers themselves. This is a unique Berkshires opportunity, and, rain or shine, it’s the perfect day-time foreplay to an evening of music, theater, or dance.

SHAKESPEARE AND CO
There are a ton of wonderful theatres to visit in the Berkshires area, but the one I try never to miss is Shakespeare and Co in Lenox. Like their famous cousins - Jacob’s Pillow and Tanglewood – this company sits on a large campus with multiple buildings and provides both performance and educational programs, as well as Intensives for professional actors. Founded in 1978 by Tina Packer, they now have over 30 staff, 150 artists, and serve 60,000 theatre-goers every year. Their robust youth educational effort includes kids known to the juvenile justice system.

Tonight I’m seeing their Henry V, in which eight talented actors play all the roles of Henry V in a style this company calls “bare Bard” – no scenery or elaborate sets. The director Jenna Ware’s staging is impressively rich considering that she only employs chairs, cloths, chests, and the actors’ costumes on an otherwise empty stage. From that she creates a fire, a fence, gallows, and a castle. Henry V is about war and class, and about how marriage between enemy aristocratic families is used as political glue.

In an interesting twist from Shakespeare’s day when men used to play all roles, here we have women playing men’s roles. The intimacy of the small theatre amplifies the emotional impact of this Henry V, not the least the scene of a gallows hanging that delivers a disturbing jolt to the audience.

The rest of this year’s season at Shakespeare and Co is varied, for not only do they mount Shakespearean plays and other classic work, they also present contemporary works with social relevance for a casual and hip audience.

Wednesday, July 1
ARROWHEAD
Many writers’ homes have been turned into museums in the Berkshires, an area so naturally beautiful that it attracts bundles of creative people. Edith Wharton’s home, The Mount, is perhaps the best known author’s residence. But Herman Melville’s home, Arrowhead, in Pittsfield is truly a gem. The hourly tours are full of the inside dope on the life of Melville.

My erudite tour guide, Barbara, outlines Melville’s lifelong connection to the Pittsfield area and then hones in on the 13 years of 1850-1863 – before and in the early years of the Civil War – that Melville spent in this fairly simple farm house. Melville built a piazza (porch) on the north side for its view of Monument Mountain. The house was originally built on 150 acres in the 1780s and has been in the hands of the Historical Society for 40 years, serving about 5,000 visitors each season, according to Peter Bergman, head of their public relations, and a writer himself.

Using a quill pen, Melville finished Moby Dick and several other books in his study by keeping to a strict writing schedule, but was never able to make a living from his writing. Despite financial help from his father-in-law, a Revolutionary patriot and the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Melville had to leave the Berkshires for a Customs House job in NYC. (His friend and mentor Nathaniel Hawthorne also did a stint in a Customs House.)

Of the four children he had with his wife Lizzie, Melville outlived both sons, and only one daughter married and had children. He turned the details of his life experience into literature and, for his readers, a visit to his home gives added layers to his work.

TAFT FARMS
A girl has got to eat and luckily Taft Farms is just down the road in Great Barrington. Founded in 1961, it has remained a Tawczynski family endeavor for generations. Besides its totally fresh-from-the-earth fruits and vegs, they have a bakery that is scandalously fabulous. I started with the most perfect biscuits (no sugar), scones (just like the best in the UK), baguettes (took my taste buds to France), mac & cheese (hard not to overeat), but most of all, the most scrumptious rhubarb and strawberry pie.


JACOB’S PILLOW
Jacob’s Pillow is, for me, the jewel in the crown of the Berkshires. As a dance center, it is unique and exhilarating. There are three main performance areas, all of which I will enjoy today and tomorrow.

The biggest theater space is the Ted Shawn Theatre, named after the founder and continuing inspiration for Jacob’s Pillow. Dance companies the world over aspire to be invited to this premiere venue. Tonight I see the incomparable tap company Dorrance Dance with Toshi Reagon and her BIGLovely band in a collaboration called The Blues Project. In fact, I saw this show in Boston some months ago and when Dorrance announced that she would be performing at Jacob’s Pillow, I decided that I would follow her to the Berkshires.

Prior to the show, a Jacob’s Pillow resident scholar, Suzanne Carbonneau, gives a riveting pre-performance lecture. (This is a regular JP tradition and service.) Michelle Dorrance is credited with the rebirth of tap dance popularity in what the lecturer says is its second golden age. Its heyday was during the 1920s and 30s. “Tap,” Carbonneau tells us, “is the danced blues… It’s the encounter of African and European cultures… The history of tap is the history of America.”

The Blues Project (photo: Morah Geist) bears that out. A truly diverse range of bodies, ages, ethnicities, races, talents, and backgrounds makes the combination of this extraordinary dance company with this magic jazz band especially exciting. The works involve changing combinations of dancers in choreography, interspersed with improvised solos. The sublime moment comes when Dorrance and Reagon form a duet, with Reagon singing “I can’t stop myself from falling down.”

The company injects lindy hop, hip hop, acrobatics, and jazz into tap, holding it all together with an attitude that is full of rhythm and of admiration between the band and the dancers. Although the performance seems both shorter and slightly less intense than their Boston debut of this work, there are few dance companies that can match their sensational work in The Blues Project.


Thursday, July 2, 2015
HOUSATONIC RIVER WALK
Housatonic River Walk in Great Barrington is just a few lovely blocks of a wooden path created and maintained by 2,300 local volunteers with the permission of home and property owners. It's a lovely day for a stroll and I do love rivers, having grown up in a town formed by three of them.

This civic effort is one of many attempts to deal with the contamination of the Housatonic by the General Electric company which dumped PCBs into the water. When this crime came to light, it seems to have infuriated the entire Berkshires population. It’s been mentioned to me every time the river is referenced.

JACOB’S PILLOW
I am back to Jacob’s Pillow for three different activities. First I take the tour of the huge campus that is offered twice weekly by one of the 33 interns accepted to the program this summer. (There are 25 full-time staff.) This young woman tells the story of Ted Shawn’s marriage and dance collaboration with Ruth St. Denis. Oddly enough, she understates that “the marriage did not work out,” and moves to describe Shawn’s most famous dance creation, Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers, who performed across the country ostensibly as a way to make dance okay for guys. The surviving footage and photos show a highly homoerotic choreography and in fact Shawn went on to have two long relationships with men, first with a company member and later with a stage manager.

I am bothered by the de-gaying of Jacob’s Pillow throughout my time there this year. Even when they announce the annual Out Weekend (July 4th), they do it without saying any of the queer words. LGBTQ people think of Jacob’s Pillow as a gay venue and I see many gay people at all the performances. The reluctance to speak with candor about Shawn and about the Out Weekend, which is really the high point of the season with a gala party and all, is perplexing.

I also cannot help noticing that anyone with a microphone – those introducing, lecturing, guiding, announcing – are all white, the majority women. For arguably one of the most important dance institutions in the country, that’s a missed opportunity. American dance, of course, owes a great deal to African-American performers, choreographers, and musicians.

The second of the three performance venues is Inside/Out, a floor with no walls or roof, perched atop a hill where dance students perform. Imagine a rough amphitheater. The performances are free and it is always standing-room-only. Tonight I see two dance troops from Williams College who drum and stomp their way into the audience’s heart with their African- influenced repertoire.

The third venue is the Doris Duke Theatre, smaller but more modern than the Ted Shawn theatre. Companies that are on their way up the professional ladder appear here. Tonight I see the L.A. troupe Bodytraffic, after a pre-performance discussion by Resident Scholar Maura Keefe. She outlines the four pieces by separate choreographers that comprise their program.

Although co-directed by Lillian Barbeito and Tina Finkelman Berkett, only the latter is present and dancing with the company. Berkett is, in fact, such an extraordinarily accomplished dancer, that she outshines the rest of her company. The men who work with her are more prominently featured than the women in Bodytraffic (photo credit: Christopher Duggan). However, since Berkett appears in all four pieces, it is hard to take one’s eyes off of her. Following the program, there is a charming Q&A with Berkett, moderated by Keefe. One of the dancers has Barbeito on his phone on Skype listening in right off-stage.

Jacob’s Pillow has a magnificent line-up of companies throughout the summer, and no visit to the Berkshires should skip the campus, with its worn wooden structures and sense of neighborhood. There is a pub, a restaurant, an ice-cream vendor. There is a photographic gallery and a dance archive. There is a dance school, including classes open to the community. There is space for top professionals to have artistic retreats to work out new choreography – filling the gap created by New York’s wildly expensive rehearsal space. There are places to picnic and people watch, with a break to check out the cool stuff in their store. Ain’t nothing like it nowhere.

Friday, July 3, 2015
I only have time to pack up, clean up, and lock up in the morning. I feel reluctant to leave the Berkshires for the city. To compensate myself, I make a pit stop at Tafts Farm. I've ordered a pie to take home. And some biscuits. And some mac and cheese. For days, back in Boston, I will have taste bud reminders of four days and nights well-spent in the Berkshires.

Hitting the Rainbow Ceiling: Yet Again

I’m studying West Coast Swing, or rather I’m trying hard to. I’ve been seriously involved in partner dancing since about 1989, during the birth in London of what would become a world-wide movement of queer dancers. For years I danced as a leader (Ballroom and Latin dances) – often six times a week. To do so, I had to shatter a lot of rainbow ceilings. (photo: with Vicki in the 90s)

 
Now, 25 years later, I’m being squashed by yet another rainbow ceiling in my dance and I can’t bear it. I don’t want to deal with it. I want it to evaporate. Don’t think I have always shied away from the good fight, though.

Here are some of the dance rainbow ceilings I shattered since 1990. I was the first woman to perform an official UK Showcase as a leader. It was with my teacher Ralf and I believe we did the West Coast Swing (an older version). I danced as leader in the ostensibly straight dance school of two of Europe’s top teachers, Glenn and Heather. Many of the women students did not want me to touch them as we rotated partners in the lessons, but I was saved by one (thanks Diane) who stepped up and filled those gruesome gaps. This was in the very early 90s. I won my International bronze, silver, and gold medals as a leader. On my 45th birthday (22 years ago!) I started a tradition of queer balls by using my birthdays as an excuse to raise money for movement groups I admired. I performed as a leader in the first Scottish Pride and many other events with a brilliant male follower, about a foot taller than me. I might have been the first dyke to lead in social dancing on the floor of the famous Blackpool ballroom – with the exquisite dancer Wonnita who went on to become a top dance teacher and run with her partner a fabulous women’s Ballroom and Latin dance club called Hilda’s in London.

None of this came without a price. I absorbed pushback and insults and homophobia and sexism and nasty remarks and disbelief and outrage every step of the way. Those things didn’t just roll off my back, believe me, but the growth of the safe haven of a LGBTQ dance community with superb teachers to support my obsession with dancing kept my feet moving.

I tell you all of this to show that I’ve paid my dues. Over and over and over. I’ve been in the States for 15 years now without finding a permanent dance partner. There is a miniscule queer dance scene, about an event per month, but with low participation and an unambitious proficiency level. In short, I have not really been dancing seriously since arriving here. However, West Coast Swing (a newer version that is virtually a new dance) is very big in New England and it has several aspects that appeal to me:

1. You don’t need a partner. Everyone dances with everyone. Even the competitions are “Jack & Jill” – that is, you pull a name out of a hat and just spontaneously lead and follow.
2. It is casual. There’s virtually no dress code. The women who follow can even wear flats and pants, and certainly not costumes that cost thousands and ridiculous spray tans and lacquered hair as is now the unfortunate norm even in same-sex Ballroom/Latin competitions.
3. It has no syllabus and so is still evolving.
4. Some of the lessons and dances are affordable.

I have written about my first foray to a West Coast Swing club (with lessons) that is less than a block away from my home. There I was met with aggressive hostility by the teacher of the beginners’ class – who is also the owner of the school. He was insulting and rude, even though I had called him earlier to make sure he had no objection to my learning as a leader.

Luckily I found Monday evening lessons at the welcoming “Ballroom in Boston” studio. Other dancers there, including a fine follower named X-, encouraged me to come along to a big club in Harvard Square that meets weekly, which I have been doing for five months religiously. It is comprised of about 80% undergraduate students – that’s people from 18-22 mostly – and then a few grown-ups.

The first time I came the woman at the door explained that it cost $10 but $5 for students. “What about seniors?” I asked. She did a mental double-take – of course they had never had a senior before I suspect – before agreeing, “Okay, discounts for seniors too.” The teachers are welcoming, the organizers are committed to creating a positive environment, but the young women followers are not happy dancing with me. I can see it on their faces as I approach them to ask them to dance. They’re thinking, “Oh jesus, I didn’t come to the club in order to dance with my grandfather.”

I’m an out dyke and I’m 67. There’s nobody like me on the floor. There’s no woman my age and no other butchy woman. There are plenty of women who lead and men who follow – BUT, it’s their secondary role (except for X-). There’s no other woman who leads exclusively. This self-satisfied Cambridge crowd assures me how cool and open the scene is, but last night five different followers turned me down. Five! This despite an etiquette that explicitly forbids refusing someone who asks you to dance.

I told myself that once I was really good it wouldn’t be a problem. However, I cannot get really skilled without dancing all the time and I can’t dance all the time if people don’t want to dance with me. Of course, there are those who do ask me to dance, but they are mostly guys who want to try out following and probably see me as lower stakes than dancing with another man while they’re feeling their way.

“Ballroom in Boston” isn’t like that. It’s mostly grown-ups and there’s never been an issue. The followers are happy to dance with me. The teacher Kirsten says “follower/leader” as naturally as most of the other instructors (sigh) say “ladies/gentlemen” or “gals/guys.” Some of the students even invited me to a private dance party they had.

There are other West Coast lessons to be had, but mostly those are very small groups with hetero-couples who cannot figure out what my problem is. In fact, I have not infrequently been asked by these women, What’s your problem? Or, What do you think you are doing? Or, Why are you acting like a man? To which I answer, Why are you acting like a woman?

I spoke to one of the hipper young teachers at the Harvard Square venue about all the followers turning me down. It’s time to have a talk about etiquette, he said. But that’s not it at all. Straight people aren’t turning each other down. The most awkward unskilled male leaders ask the most dazzling advanced women followers to dance without getting turned down. It’s not about dancing: it is about homophobia and sexism mixed with ageism among these groovy liberals.

I’m horribly depressed about all of this for I didn’t sign up for another rainbow ceiling. I am reluctant to abandon West Coast Swing. This is my exercise, my hobby, my social activity, and I’ve devoted time and money to it. The thought of giving it up is excruciating, but absorbing insults week after week ain’t a piece of cake either. What should I do?

Here's where I'm trying to go: