So….I know that I’v been really bad about updating the blog. Once the school semester is over it’ll be easier. I did however want to let my current and future students ::wink:: know that I will be offering some great deals on dance lessons for the holiday season. Times are tough and I think that just about everyone is feeling the effects of a bad economy but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be out living life and having fun! I’m offering 5 private lessons for $100…that is an incredible price! Give the gift of dance or improve your technique. I am also developing some specialized group classes and could use input and ideas.

See you on the floor!

Why dance? Specifically, why ballroom dance? I get asked this question a lot. As a card carrying feminist, people are perplexed as to why I would choose this particular medium as my creative outlet. Well for one, I love music and though I tried several times over, I couldn’t learn to play an instrument to save my life. And so my body became my instrument as to which I could interpret, experience and enjoy music. I am fascinated by the human body and frankly, there is nothing more beautiful or interesting to me than stretching the limits of what it can do. I tried many different styles of dance before I discovered and fell in love with ballroom dance or DanceSport as it is known to competitors.

My love/hate relationship with ballroom dance comes from many factors. It is in essence, a creative interpretation of heterosexual courtship. And anyone who knows me has heard me bitch and moan about heteronormativity.The rigid confines, the objectifying nature and especially the performance of gender roles is a daily struggle for me. As someone who has spent her life critical of terms like “masculine” or “feminine” has never felt particularly “girly” and does not like to play by “the rules”; the best way that I can describe it is that it allows a space for me to negotiate my gender affiliation, to perform the illusion of being ultra feminine, sexually charged, and seemingly passive yet within a space that requires athleticism, strength and discipline. Learning the “female” parts or to follow was such a huge challenge for me and I still stuggle with the urge to backlead.

I know that I am not alone in my reasons for participating in DanceSport. For an industry built upon patriarchial ideologies, white heterosexual men are the minority, while women make up a large demographic, along with homosexual men and immigrants. I do believe that the glamour and the fantasy that ballroom dance provides is a way for those of us that don’t quite fit in with hegemonic principles to cope in a culture that sends us so many mixed messages.

Oh, and I really like the shoes.

“Movement never lies”

-Martha Graham