The other night I downed tools and went to a new block of swing-dance classes.
Several years have travelled under the South Bridge since I took my first Lindy Hop lessons in Fair Edina. Back then I felt awkward and also lonely when the unmarried female friend I was accompanying wasn’t with me. Eventually I mastered some steps, but I couldn’t get used to the chill: although newbies were encouraged to stay for the socials, we often found ourselves left alone to prop up the walls.
From those walls I studied the popular dancers. They looked very talented. Some wore special footwear, like Bleyer saddle shoes. At least one of the most sought-after women was a decade older than me, so I couldn’t blame my age for my lack of partners. Women asked men to dance (thus making it even less likely men would ask me), so I dared to ask my teachers, fellow beginners, and shy strangers. But it seemed to me that the magic formula for getting asked to dance was better skills and status shoes.
Thus, I took private lessons, ordered my Bleyers, and bought £55 tickets to the local weekend-long Lindy Exchange.
This last was a mistake, however. No matter what you wore, the only way to be guaranteed partners in the local swing dance scene was to confine yourself to classes where teachers ordered a partner-change rotation. The LX was dedicated to social dances, but no-one was relegated the task of ensuring everyone danced.
It was horrible. It soon became clear that unless a woman belonged to one of the cliques, or was a very advanced dancer, she might not have a chance to dance that weekend.
That Friday night I asked a couple of male classmates and a friendly female lead to dance, and after that I was too intimidated to ask anyone else. If I smiled and said hello to men I recognized from the scene, including the event’s volunteers, their gazes slid right past me.
I was both young enough to be hurt and old enough to complain, so I wrote a scathing email to the “Safe Space” officer about the “culture of exclusion” and offered suggestions for overcoming it.
The response was along the lines of “We’ve all been there; keep trying,” but I was done. I was married, for Pete’s sake. I had a perfectly lovely, albeit non-dancing, husband at home. My friend had herself given up the scene, so I had no reason to stay. Okay, I did want to become an excellent swing-dancer, but without partners that would be impossible.
For, irony of ironies, the best way for a woman to succeed in the secular, PC, thoroughly feminist swing scene was to bring a man with her.
When I began Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party for my Traditional Latin Mass community, I discovered the opposite problem on my hands: not enough women. In this town, the TLM is more popular with young men than with young women. Thus, many more young men than women come to my dance parties, leaving me asking, like Dr Freud, “What do women want?” Fortunately, women do come from other parishes and corners of Scotland for the big dances, so we achieve “gender parity” then. The MMWP boys, being proper Catholic gentlemen, ask these ladies to dance. There shall be no wallflowers–not on my watch.
It was in a position of strength that I returned to the local swing-dance scene. First, I engaged some of its teachers to teach my group privately. Second, I accompanied the willing, among them boys and men, to public lessons. This proved unexpectedly problematic, as we are traditionalists and some men in the local scene now prefer to dance the follower’s, i.e. lady’s, part. My friends do not want to lead other men on the dance floor, so this makes the normal change-partners rotation uncomfortable.
Fortunately, there is a way around this, and it is for the traditional man to dance with one willing woman for the entire class. A polite “We’d prefer to stay out of the rotation, thank you!” should suffice to soothe a worried teacher. And, weirdly, this means that the traditional man now also has to bring a partner with him, albeit to class, not to socials.
Thus, your humble impresario turned up at the first class in a new block of lessons as the partner of a man about 100 years her junior, playing the chronological Big Bea to his Shorty George. The class, it turned out, was traditional on this occasion: all the women present wished to be follows, and all the men wished to be leads. Thus, my partner and I generously kept ourselves in rotation, and everyone seemed to have a good time.
There followed the social, but instead of watching the most talented dancers, I either danced or looked at the people holding up the walls. One woman was a classmate, so I went over to ask if she were new to the scene. I then introduced her to my partner and, in the course of time, to a stranger who had asked me to dance..
The dance floor was a showcase of gender diversity: men danced with men, women danced with women, men danced with women, a person whose sex my partner and I later debated danced with a woman.
“So how do you know each other,” the newbie asked me, Chronological Big Bea.
“Church,” I said.
She looked amazed and turned to Chronological Shorty George for confirmation.
“Church,” said CSG.
The music was loud, so I don’t know what else he said. But he did ask her to dance, and I smiled at a visiting Spaniard, here only for a conference in mathematics, so I danced, too.
I am happy to report that the Spaniard asked the newbie to dance after I introduced them, and also that, after wishing one of the popular dancers a happy birthday, one of the organisers invited everyone who had had a birthday this summer into the Birthday Jam. This included the newbie, who bravely took her place inside the ring. She danced with four or five partners, and I was delighted. What was happening was exactly what I had hoped for myself on that miserable Friday night ten years ago.
This is not a “hooray for me, hostess-at-large” moment, for I wouldn’t have stayed for the social without my pre-arranged partner. (And I don’t think I would have been asked to dance if I hadn’t been seen dancing with him.) I assume the newbie girl hoped not to chat to middle-aged ladies at the social but to dance with gentlemen like my friend. And, of course, it would seem the scene has learned something about real inclusion (or real hospitality), for the newbie felt invited by the organiser into the Birthday Jam.
That said, I did my bit.
Don’t forget that tickets for our lovely Michaelmas Dance (September 27) are now on sale. Those planning to go are welcome to attend MMWP dance workshops for the three Sundays beforehand. They will be in Edinburgh from 2:30 -5 PM. For more information, do contact me!
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