Transcript

Breaking Down Gender Roles in Swing Dance | Calvin Lu and Samantha Nguyen | TEDxGunnHighSchool

got to set my fingers got to rhythm in my MA as the elephant's say I'm living in a great way [Music] nothing but I watch it like a heart and I'm doing okay believe it in a great way something oh I'm the Sun in the sky [Music] a million dollars as long as I gots to set my finger got to rhythm in my bar the devil to pay in a great way well we're a little out of breath but I'd like to introduce ourselves hi everyone I'm Sam and I'm Calvin we're Lindy hoppers or swing dancers that means we do a dance called Lindy Hop Lindy Hop is a social dance they evolved in the 1920s and 30s alongside the evolution of jazz music and while this dance saw a major decline around World War two it was brought back around the 1980s with a huge swing dancing revival and thinks important figures like Frankie Manning here we are today with the dance very much alive in fact here in the Bay Area you can go dancing almost any night of the week and walk into a room full of people all you know may be close friends with each other maybe strangers and they're all dancing together and eager to dance with you we're not experts at the dance we've both been dancing for about four years now but there's one thing that's for sure and that's we love this dance we love the joy and exuberance that you can feel dancing with someone totally in Prague but feeling really inspired by your partner and the best part is that you get to share the same feeling and sentiment over and over and over again the entire night with a new partner and a new dance and for this reason we love the swing dancing community but with all great communities there's always room for improvement so today Calvin and I want to share with you our experience in trying to improve our already great swing dancing community or at least our little corner of it we want to share with you our process for taking and looking at our community asking ourselves is this the ideal state that we want it to be in and if not figuring out ways in which we can improve on them so Lindy Hop like most social dances has a leader and a follower someone who initiates movement and someone who responds to those movements in that dance that we just had I started as the leader but halfway through we actually switched so that I was following and Sam was leading now that's probably not something that you see very often in movies or in TV shows like Dancing with the Stars it's almost always a man leading and a woman following but we think that this seems to perpetuate a very negative power dynamic one where the man pulls and the woman Falls one where the man asserts and the woman reacts or one where the man makes the decisions and the woman allows them to happen to her what he says goes now obviously Sam and I would love to see you know more diversity in pop culture media but let's look at something a little smaller in scale let's look at our swing dancing community so historically when men left to fight in World War two the women back home had to learn to dance with other woman and and the men learned to dance with other men sorry our pictures not showing oh here it is and the men learned to dance with other men and so woman leading and men following wasn't super coming nowadays though at least from our experiences we don't see that many men lead it dancing with other men or women dancing with other women and we don't especially don't see women leading men we almost never see a reversal of the power dynamic it still seems to be the case that when one man and one woman dance together it's somehow more ideal if the man is leading and the woman is following and if you look off the social dance floor and you look at competitions and performances and choreographies you know the videos that would probably end up on YouTube that you all could watch they seem to all be saying the same exact thing and that's swing dancing is a man and a woman and the man leads and the woman follows always but don't get us wrong let's take a step back don't get us wrong we're not trying to say that we think that all men have to lead and all women have to follow not at all but we want to get to the real issue the deeply rooted and in fact dangerous issue the assumption that men must lead and that women must follow and like with all assumptions and values that you have with you in a hobby such as swing dancing they apply to the outside world the your outside life as well so if we don't believe that men and women should interact in this way in the rest of our lives then why is it that we're cultivating this idea in side of our swing dancing community okay so now we've kind of looked at our community and we've seen that yes there are things we can improve in it so now one thing we can ask ourselves is kind of how does this happen kind of what forces are at work that cause essentially all men to be leaders and all women to be followers well let's start at the beginning yeah so imagine that you're learning to swing dance by the way we hope this is true after this talk that you do decide to learn to sing dance but anyways you're learning to swing dance and you go take your first class now in most maybe not all but most Lindy Hop classes you'll only get to learn one roll so you have to choose Sam and I have found that in a lot of swing dancing classes there are elements that kind of perpetuate a gendered status quo you walk into the class and all the teachers are always a man leading and a woman following maybe the teachers start off the class by saying let's have everyone get into pairs and then everyone kind of automatically pairs up one man one woman maybe the teachers use gendered pronouns like she and him when they refer to followers and leaders even something as simple as splitting the class geographically maybe the teachers say something like let's have all the leaders stand behind me on this side of the room and watch my footwork and let's have all the followers stay on that side of the room behind sam and watch her footwork well that can be a little bit of a tough situation if you don't want to be say the one guy standing on that side of the room surrounded by was otherwise all woman because maybe you feel like that makes you stand out a little too much or maybe because you'll feel awkward when someone you know and the really helpful manner kind of taps you on the shoulder and it's like hey buddy I think you're on the wrong side guys are on that side right it can be a little scary already we know to learn to dance going out there and learning to dance that can be a little scary and you know it's scary enough without having to challenge gender norms at the same time and when you're finished with your classes it's off to the social dance floor but the social dance floor and swing dancing is totally different than say maybe homecoming or prom right you don't ask someone to be your date for the entire night and you only dance with that one person in swing dancing social dancing means that you go to a venue by yourself and then you get to dance with lots of different people they may be friends they may be acquaintances but they could also be strangers so with that in mind let's get back to Calvin's scenario you've just finished your classes and you're super excited to get to social dancing maybe a little nervous you stand at the edge of the dance floor waiting watching the other dancers and hoping that someone will ask you to dance and sure enough someone will probably ask you to dance but it won't just be anyone if you're a man women will ask you to dance and furthermore it'll also assume that well you're a man so you must know how to lead right and vice-versa if you're a woman men will ask you to dance and they'll also assume well you're a woman you must know how to follow and so with that idea we've also applied that to our experiences as well in our experiences we found that people who learn the role that quote unquote doesn't match their gender for example if you're a woman who learns how to lead first you have a much harder time on the social dance floor after all if you're a woman who only knows how to lead and men keep coming up and asking you to dance expecting you to follow well either you get really lucky that that man also knows how to follow or more likely and more commonly you just you can't dance and so now we kind of have a coherent explanation maybe for why when you watch media of swing dancing you know competitions and videos performances all the men are leading and all the women are following if you're going to dance in front of a crowd you know maybe in front of a few cameras you probably want to look good or you know maybe at least look your best so you're probably going to dance in the role that you spend most of your time in classes and in social dancing doing right and well there you have it from the classes to social dancing - now performances and videos on YouTube we've analyzed and explained why dance roles are so ingrained in gender so now what well luckily we're not the only ones talking about this vlog city stomp is a local event in San Francisco that really makes it a point to be progressive in what they do for example they hire women in underrepresented roles such as MCS and DJs and musicians and they also enforce that teachers don't use gendered pronouns when they're teaching they also help to promote a safe dance space by having a very clear code of conduct and even right here in Palo Alto there's a weekly swing dancing venue called Wednesday night hop and it's a weekly venue that has classes and social dancing every Wednesday night and they're also a force in which they're creating a progressive environment for dancers here in the South Bay and what about us well we are on the organizing team of a new event called the switch it's a weekend long workshop being held in San Francisco that's focused on breaking down gender norms we think that this is an opportunity for us to kind of address a lot of the you know coercive forces and issues that we just described for example we want to have classes in which the teachers show that women can be leaders and men can be followers in a serious manner and we also want to offer classes where people can learn both the roles instead just one but we also want to offer classes where people can choose to learn one role but not have to worry about feeling awkward about the world that they chose chose and we also want to have role markers these buttons that say I know how to lead or I know how to follow and you could even wear both at the same time if you wanted to just so gender isn't the primary thing that we use when we are trying to find someone to dance with and we want to push the word Amba dance trous kind of like ambidextrous as a term that people who dance both roles can identify with even if they do one role better than the other after all if a man takes one class as a leader and you know everyone calls him a leader then a woman who dances is a follower for five years and then takes one class as a leader it's going to be just as good a leader if not probably a lot better and so we hope that this kind of helps to you know change our language and separate and kind of decouple the words leader from man and follower from woman and for the switch what are we really hoping for we're hoping to create a safe dance environment a safe dance space and we want to promote these thoughtful interactions between leaders and followers and men and women but also new dancers and experienced dancers and these thoughtful interactions really are not just about this small swing dancing community that we have this really niche thing that we do it's about an attitude that we can bring to the rest of our lives because with the rest of our lives it's about all the things that we talked about it's about gender equality and it's about empowering both women and men and it's about shifting power dynamics so that attitude that we can bring to the rest of our lives is really what we're hoping for just in the same way that we fight for gender equality in TV and in film and in literature and many other things we also fight for those things and dance and we think it makes the community stronger for it so whatever community you're part of whether it's a school club a workplace maybe a group of friends we encourage you to explore this process of evaluating your community of kind of looking at its flaws and understanding why they're there that way you can make your little corner of the world a better place we hope to see you on the social dance floor sometime thank you you