So what does it mean when people in the dance world — I repeat, the dance world — are shocked and confused at the sight of two men dancing together?

Ingrid and I are fans of the TV show, “So You Think You Can Dance.” Yes, it’s a cheesy reality competition show; but the cheese factor isn’t as bad as it could be, and the level of dancing is quite serious, and quite high. Since I care about dancing, I’m willing to overlook the stupid manufactured drama and the cheese, so I can watch the dancing…. which is very, very good indeed.

A couple weeks ago (I know, I’m behind the times, we Tivoed it and just watched it the other night), they premiered their new season. They started, as always, by showcasing highlights from the audition process. And they showed, for the first time in the show’s five- year history, an audition of two men doing ballroom dance together: Misha Belfer, and Mitchel Kibel.

And the judges were completely flummoxed. They were not just confused — a word two of the three judges used to describe their reactions. They were visibly upset. They were so freaked out that they were unable to render a verdict on the pair’s dancing, and insisted that each man repeat the audition with a woman, so they could accurately judge the men’s dancing without the distraction of the same-sexness of it all.

Here, so you can judge for yourself, are a few samples of the judges’ comments. (For those who think I might be taking these out of context — or who just don’t feel that their blood pressure is high enough — a complete transcript of the judging scene is at the end of this piece.)

Nigel Lythgoe: “I’m certainly one of those people that really like to see guys be guys and girls be girls on stage. I don’t think I liked it, to be frank.”

Mary Murphy: This is the first time, honestly, for me to see it. I’m confused, because I see that sometimes you’re both being the female role and sometimes the male, so, like, and then sometimes you’ll do the trick and then he does it too. So it confuses me.

(Quick note from Greta: Switching back and forth rapidly between lead and follow in a dance — what I assume Mary meant by “the male role” and “the female role” — is unbelievably hard to do. It’s even harder to do it gracefully and seamlessly. The fact that these dancers were able to do this should not have been freaking these judges out. It should have been making them give high marks.)

Mary: It was hard for me to even kind of focus on that technique, ’cause I was still just trying to figure out… It would have been easier for me, in other words, if, if one person was playing the female role and one was playing the male role.

Sonya Tayeh: I’m saying that in the genre that I’ve seen, when I see this approach (gesturing), which, I usually see it from the female perspective. I relate more to it as a female. So I just get confused. You guys are both amazing, and the movement quality, but I was just confused in terms of the, the classical form.

Nigel: Do you know what? I’d like to see you both dancing with a girl.

Mary: I would, too.

Sonya: Me, too.

Nigel: You never know. You might enjoy that! (smirking) All right, see you later.

(And at this point, both dancers were sent on to the group choreography, so they could be judged on their dancing with women.)

Now, to be fair — for some reason, even though this is making me spitting mad, I still feel compelled to be fair — I don’t think this is homophobia in the strictest sense of the word. I don’t think the judges are fearful or hostile towards gay people. These judges are dance people, and I’m sure they’ve all met and worked with kajillions of gay men before, with no problem. (And in fact, one of these two dancers isn’t gay. Mitchel is a straight guy, originally from the straight ballroom dance world, who switched to same-sex ballroom because it didn’t work out with his female dance partner and he wanted an opportunity to keep dancing.)

I think it’s what I call “dance homophobia.” It’s something I’ve encountered in the dance world before. People are reasonably accepting of LGBT people and our LGBT-ness in our personal lives… but on the dance floor, it’s Heteronormative City. Men are supposed to be men, women are supposed to be women, each is supposed to dance in a certain way, and they’re bloody well supposed to dance with each other.

It’s the aspect of homophobia that’s about a deep attachment to rigid gender roles, and that sees homosexuality as upsetting those roles. (Which, in fact, it is.) It’s the aspect of homophobia that sees certain kinds of interactions — in this case, partner dancing — as being about one person expressing Masculinity and the other person expressing Femininity, with the two fitting together in some sort of magically ordained way… and that gets confused at best and upset at worst when people call those roles and assumptions into question.

So it’s not like I’ve never encountered this before.

I was still shocked at the judges’ attitude, though. And my first reaction was to say, “You’re dance people. Are you really not familiar with same-sex ballroom dancing? Do you really not know that this is a thing? Do you really not know that this is being taught and danced at dance studios around the country and around the world? Do you really not know that it’s happening on a competitive level?”

But I decided, for some bizarre reason, to be fair for just one more moment. Maybe they never have seen or heard of same-sex ballroom dancing. It is a subculture, after all, a weird little world of a handful of people obsessed with their hobby. I do find it a bit shocking that I, with my extremely limited dance experience, am familiar with a dance form that professional choreographers have apparently never seen or heard of… but hey. Maybe they’ve never heard of longsword dancing, either. So maybe it’s not that appalling that same-sex ballroom would be such a revelation to them.

And then I came up with a much, much better example.

Okay. Maybe they’ve never seen same-sex ballroom before.

Have they ever seen Mark Morris?

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the dance world: That was a very snarky question. Mark Morris is one of the most famous, important, influential choreographers of our time. In the dance world, he is as famous and important and influential as Alvin Ailey or Twyla Tharpe. The judges of “So You Think You Can Dance” have absolutely heard of him.

And one of the things Mark Morris is most famous for — one of the single most defining features of his choreography — is gender fluidity.

Mark Morris loves to play with gender. He has men dancing women’s roles, women dancing men’s roles, dancers switching back and forth between male and female roles throughout a ballet. He has men dancing together, women dancing together, women dancing with men. He has group dances where everyone is doing the same routines and steps, and you can’t tell which dancers are the men and which are the women. (And you don’t care.) He has dances where it’s an important, written-in part of the dance that men dance as women and women dance as men; he has dances where he casts the roles without regard to gender. Mark Morris understands that both men and women all have both masculine and feminine qualities — not to mention qualities that have bupkis to do with gender — and he loves to play with bringing all of those qualities out in all of his dancers. Mark Morris is very far from the only gay choreographer in the world; but he is one of the first to be publicly, proudly, fiercely gay, and to openly weave his gayness, and the way his gayness has informed his playful and fluid perception of gender, into his work.

I repeat: One of the most famous, important, influential choreographers of our time.

And yet, despite the fact that every one these judges is absolutely guaranteed to be familiar with Mark Morris’s work, somehow they still found the notion of gender fluidity and same-sex interaction in dance to be not only new, but shocking and confusing and upsetting. They were still so freaked out and distracted by two men dancing ballroom together — and switching roles, no less — that they were unable to judge the men’s dancing abilities without seeing them dance “the men’s part” with women. Despite being professional dance people of many years’ standing, they were so fixated on rigid gender roles, so flummoxed at a little same-sexness and gender fluidity, that they were completely unable to see through it and just see the dancing.

Shame on them.

(Full transcript of the judging scene is below the jump.)

Continue reading “"I'm Confused": Dance Homophobia, Gender Rigidity, and "So You Think You Can Dance"” →