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150 6 Taking the Lead The Male Dancer J A M E S , A H A N D S O M E and charming American-born dance instructor in his early forties, co-owns a studio in a southern state and is a regular fixture on the competition circuit. When I interviewed him at his studio, we were interrupted by students who told me how much they liked him and what a wonderful teacher he was. James’s journey to becoming a dancer was a long one. He “grew up in a little bit of a rough neighborhood” and had thought that he might become a police officer. He easily passed the exam, but they were going to place him in vice, and he “didn’t want to do that.” In addition, his “uncle had a [dance] school right outside of” a large naval base. James explained, “My uncle’s about five feet seven, and I’m now like six feet. We used to get a lot of navy pilots with their wives, and he needed a taller teacher, so he got me in.”1 James spent two years learning to dance before teaching, and at first he resisted. His friends gave him a hard time about it, partly because they assumed that only gay men danced. Even now, James acknowledged, “If I’m in a rough bar, I won’t tell people what I do.” He added, “I was the worst student in the world, ’cause I didn’t come in wanting to learn to dance, so I didn’t put in as much effort as my students do.” He danced, he explained, to help his family. His reservations are typical of many American men. Dance has long been understood to be something women do. Men who dance put their gender into question.2 This negative portrayal goes back at least three hundred years in the West.3 Sociologists Candace West and Don Zimmerman describe such threatening feelings as a result of what they call “doing gender .”4 In our culture, they argue, we learn to actively perform gender in line with accepted configurations. Furthermore, we police ourselves for behavior that others might see as gender inappropriate, lest we be called to account . This starts in the school playground when boys get named as “fags” Taking the Lead 151 or “girls” if they are caught appearing or behaving in a manner deemed feminine.5 Similar accusations are commonly made against male dancers.6 As James acclimated to the dance world, he became comfortable with a variety of gender and sexual identities. In our culture, men carefully police masculinity and heterosexuality in others; both are closely associated with appropriate gender performance.7 In many American high schools, boys view dance as an activity that qualifies a boy for “fagdom.” In one study, boys described a boy who danced well and swiveled his hips as “disgusting ,” because they saw his ability to dance as an activity engaged in by girls.8 The idea of gender as a performance was developed by Judith Butler.9 She calls this “performativity,” the repetitions and rituals of performance that naturalize gender and render it normal. It is only during transgressive moments, such as drag performances, that gender may be understood to be manufactured rather than natural. In some ways, American men who dance can be seen in a similar light. Men who dance widen the allowable markers of masculinity, yet this creates a dangerous tension for many male dancers and makes it imperative that they work hard to develop a “natural” masculinity both within and outside the dance world. Figure 6.1 shows Peter and Alexandra Perzhu dancing rhythm. In this picture, although Peter is wearing a sparkling shirt, one that most masculine or heterosexual men might not wear, he is clearly performing a scene of male dominance. How did James make the transition from a tough-guy masculine performance to that of a ballroom dance professional comfortable spending hours teaching women to dance, taking them to competitions, helping them select dance dresses, and worrying about their appearance? In other words, how did James learn to create the kind of emotional connection that many people see as women’s work, while at the same time retaining a strong masculine and heterosexual identity?10 Is this still doing gender “as we know it”?11 James and other male dancers embody the type of man that Susan Bordo describes as typical of 1930s movies: “a man a...

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