WEBVTT - Men Dancing 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:03.240 When I say men dancing, what's the first thing you 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:09.880 think about? What's the first thing that comes to your mind? Reluctance. Um. 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:17.640 I feel like there's a societal expectation that you stay composed, um, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:22.160 or that you should be embarrassed in many situations. I 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:27.040 don't know it bums me out, but it does. My 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:29.200 name is Julie Douglas and this is the Stuff of 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.960 Life today. I'm joined by correspondent and How Stuff Works editor, 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:38.239 Eve's Jeff Cote, and we're talking about men dancing. And 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.960 for the record, Julie, you're a woman and I'm a woman, 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.840 Yet we're talking about men dancing. Why do we even 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:50.160 decide to tackle this topic? I believe it all started 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.880 with our male coworkers who we observed mostly head bobbing 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:58.440 instead of dancing to music at our company holiday party. Yeah, 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:00.720 and that sent us down a rubbit, all of thoughts 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.120 on what it means for gods to move their bodies 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.560 to a beat. In this episode, Eves explores what it 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:08.800 means to be a man taking on dance and talks 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.520 with Emory University professor George Stabe. It was just great 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.120 to do things to music, and it can feel really 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:19.440 authentic and natural to do that. And if we can 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.440 connect to something like oh, I can relate to this 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:27.360 in one we or another, that's when magic happens. And 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.880 Duke Universities Professor Thomas de France discusses race, identity and dance. 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:35.920 Black lives are expressed through culture and especially through music 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.080 and dance. We love music and dance, we need it, 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.400 we engage it. And finally, Eaves talks to a couple 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.880 of regular Jo's are co workers Christopher Hessiadas, Dylan Fagan, 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.120 and Jonathan Strickland to find out why they do or 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:54.480 don't dance. But there's something subversive about about a bunch 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.279 of men dancing, right. I mean, as we've we've mentioned 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.560 a couple of times men dancing. The reason why they 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.040 we're even here talking about this is because the idea 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:16.320 of men dancing together in American mainstream culture is noteworthy. 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:22.079 Maybe you've seen awkward dads and viral videos trying sometimes 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.880 too hard to do the latest dance craze, or fraternity 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:29.600 members strolling in unison, or your brothers and uncles and 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:34.200 cousins dancing at family reunions and wedding receptions. But despite 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.480 how common dancing is and how long humans have been 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:42.880 doing it. Dancing is emotionally complex. It's the departure from normalcy, 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:45.959 the rope movements that get us from A to B, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.000 and for men it can be super problematic. Only two 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.760 years ago, ABC reportedly nixed idea of two men dancing 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.160 together on Dancing with the Stars, and it may entertainment 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.080 news when two guys share at the floor for the 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.919 first time on the reality show early last year. Now 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:19.360 DeMarco and Kio Mazepe dancing together starts here and ends there. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:23.560 That's twelve seconds of two guys dancing together if you 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:31.360 weren't counting. So people are uncomfortable with men dancing, especially 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.840 with each other. Who cares? You might say, haven't we 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:38.560 given enough space to men's grievances? They and all their 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:43.680 problems have dominated history after all. But this men dancing 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.960 is a matter of acceptance, of freedom, of expression, of equity, 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.920 of living our personal truths, ideals we could all get behind. 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.560 And if you think about it, the actions and characteristics 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.600 that make up gender can be considered their own performances. 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.080 So what's it like to be a dancing man in 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.520 a world that cares so much about upholding the mantle 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.360 of masculinity. What's it like to swivel your hips and 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:13.000 buck the authority of social norms and a culture that 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:17.840 often rejects vulnerability and encourages conformity. A scene as basic 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:21.760 as a man dancing can become a psychological labyrinth, and 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:28.120 we're going to enter it here. This is four ish 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:31.599 when Janet Jackson's Pleasure Principle came out. It was my 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.080 after school project every day to memorize that whole video, 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.200 and my sister and I, if we could drink, we 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.200 would have chugged champagne after we figured out this one 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.000 scene where she was in front of a mirror doing 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:52.200 all this intricate hand stuff that storage State the artistic 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.840 director for State Dance and a senior lecturer in the 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:59.800 dance program at Emory University in Atlanta. This is which 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:05.679 is wait. George was born in Tehran, Iran. At age nine, 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.520 I was with my mother picking up our cousin from 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:12.000 the ballet class, and I remember watching it and thinking, Oh, 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:13.880 that looks fun. I want to do it. And I 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.600 asked my mother can I do that? And she said no, 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:22.279 boys don't do this. Years later, after getting a degree 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.400 in political science in a stint at Georgetown's Law school 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:30.000 doing legal research, impressive career choices that would appease his parents. 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.239 He says it was an impromptu duet at a freshman 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:36.839 frat party that inspired him to take modern and ballet classes, 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:42.359 and upon graduation from college, I remember distinctly telling my parents, 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.120 I did this for you. Now grad school and dance 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:49.479 is going to be for me. That didn't come without doubts, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.760 feeling embarrassed as a new dance professor in a room 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.880 full of scientists, his mom telling family members he was 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.280 a French professor. He went from being a stranger and 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.679 one strange and to another. But that was okay because 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.440 he felt liberated in those moments when I'm just lost. 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.920 It could actually feel like, I guess, a drug trip 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.760 where you're completely not aware of stuff, or you are 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.840 aware that I've completely abandoned and let go and I 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.400 don't have to pull myself back at all, and that's 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:23.960 kind of crazy. Imagine a tantrum, like when you have 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.760 that tantrum and the breakdown or laughing fit or a 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.760 crying fit um where no one's around to see it 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.960 in the most pristine, sublime way, that's kind of how 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.640 I feel or like to go to. You know, it's 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.200 not necessarily I want you to see my passion. I 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.560 want to feel it myself, and if other people notice it, 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:50.719 that's great to him. Dance class was a place with 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.120 many doorways, a place to explore, make mistakes, and try 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:59.920 new things. But the line between introspection and perform a 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.280 it's fine, you're taking all that emotion and putting it 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.599 on the world stage in front of judgmental eyes. And 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.720 even though it doesn't happen all the time or in 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:15.080 every culture, George says that sometimes negativity can start to 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.800 creep into spaces that aren't as accepting. There's only one 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.800 clans left, but it happens to be the coolest one 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:27.440 of all. That way dancing is for girls, well you 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:32.960 should have gotten near earlier. Okay, steady board taking ballet 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:39.760 doesn't make you any less of a man. That constant 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.800 reminder that um like, oh you would be thought of 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.720 as a sissy, or this is not a real career, 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:47.800 or you must be gay, or all of these things 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:50.640 do creep in and when you're gonna get your real job. 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:55.640 Because the body, as it twists, spins twirls in jar 0:07:55.760 --> 0:08:01.120 rates is the focus. Dance can often reinforce or negate 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:06.640 perceptions about gender in sexuality. For men dancing at a party, 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:11.760 whether they are married or single, it's amazing ritual in 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:16.120 a way. And even in Greek culture, Persian culture, Armenian culture, 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.920 there often be the men who danced together and then 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.080 the women dance together, and then if they do I 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:27.560 mean by gender, and if they do connect with different genders, 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.600 it's in a sort of benign circle. So I think 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.520 it's almost like a peacock streading, you know. And I 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.160 think you might even find that in country western lined. 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.680 I think that happens there. I'm not very familiar with that, 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:40.840 but I almost think there's like, hey, watch me do 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:45.640 this fancy foot thing and TOAs my cowboy had around. 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.520 I hope I'm not offending anyone, but I just don't 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:51.920 know that stuff. But I think it that's what it 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.679 isn't if you go to clubs, it is that either 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.360 the men or in the background just kind of watching 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.319 and praying on the women there, or they're going to 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.680 go out there and kind of show off a little bit. 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.800 And in that respect, it's okay. I think the moment 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:09.960 you put it on stage and put a weird costume 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.319 on and try to express yourself in a different way 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.640 other than sexually. Then it's a bit naughty, I guess, 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:25.000 or not naughty but taboo. Sure, dancing is often visceral, 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:30.560 igniting hormones and firing up our most basic desires. But 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.240 it isn't just a physical act. It's a process of 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:38.559 learning and discovery. The body becomes a means of discourse. 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:45.360 Movements become questions, gestures become demands, and interactions become statements. 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.400 It peels back the layers of assumptions and perspectives that 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:57.200 we hold. You know everybody, and I don't. I see 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:03.680 sometimes like just because if you let yourself connect to 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:08.319 something abstract, you might find out more about yourself as 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:10.880 opposed to being fed a story, kind of like those 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:13.760 Hollywood blockbusters. You might want to go to see one 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.680 because you don't want to to think so much. But 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:20.440 when we're invited to think and explore uncomfortable territory, that's 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.760 what dance can do. And if you're patient enough and 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:26.920 let yourself be in the room for the hour or 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.439 so that you're watching the thing, that's when it speaks 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.040 and not to mention bringing community together, to move together, 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:48.080 to share stories through their bodies. It's so valuable. George 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:50.800 is a pro. He's trained in the art of dancing, 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.960 performs in front of crowds and as a dancer with 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:58.040 the capital D. But sometimes the spotlight is on guys 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:02.920 who aren't so well skillful. Could you describe your typical 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:07.560 dance style? Uh, I do the t rex. That's Donathan Strickland, 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:10.760 the host of Ford Thinking. That's where you get a 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.360 little the foe arms up and like you got your 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.200 your hands kind of curled into fists and you're just 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:16.760 sort of bouncing up and down a little bit to 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.319 the beat. You're not really doing anything in particular because again, 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:25.520 as I said, awkward, And here's an awkward dance story 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.040 recounting about Dylan, producer at how Stuff Works. When I 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.360 was in college, I had a radio show with um 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:35.840 my friend, and we had a green screen and decided 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.120 we're going to make some promotional videos for our radio 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.240 show and put it on Facebook. And I didn't know 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:42.160 what to do, so we thought, well, how we dance, 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:44.720 And so we'd danced for like three minutes at a time, 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.120 and then we'd find a song that fitted we we 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:50.480 would not have a song beforehand. Um, So you know, 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.680 there was one video that was Technotronics Pump Up the Jam, 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.480 and that just like lined up perfectly, and so we 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.600 put that there and I realized halfway through it I 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:01.640 was really feeling it, and I did what I called 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.120 the spitting dinosaur, which is like this, like it's more 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.640 fluid than that, but Dylan's putting his hands behind his 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.720 ears and waving them around. It was from growing up 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.360 watching Jurassic Parks. The Jurassic period is great with the 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.320 frill dinosaur. The frill dinosaur that's that spits poison. Yeah, that, 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:20.840 and I thought, hey, look look guys, it's the spit 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:25.800 and everyone's like that. I like that movie if it 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:32.520 works for you going in. Yeah, I remembered from my 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:37.040 high school days, from my college days, where dancing, engaging 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.440 in that activity was unless you were amazing, it was 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.320 just considered something that was lame or stupid, or or 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.559 you felt lame or stupid for wanting to do it. 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:51.000 But there's something subversive about about a bunch of men dancing, right. 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.959 That's Christopher editor at How Stuff Works. As we've we've 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.480 mentioned a couple of times men dancing. The reason why 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.680 they we're even here talking about this is because the 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:07.079 idea of men dancing together in American mainstream culture is noteworthy, 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:13.240 is not necessarily the standard mode of operating. So if 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.120 you're already in a culture where you feel kind of 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:21.360 set aside, whether it's nerd culture, gay culture, nerdy gay culture, uh, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.320 the act of dancing is you're embracing the fact that 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.640 you're sort of accepting your status as an outsider and saying, 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.400 you know what, let's celebrate this. Let's let's yeah, we'll 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:40.120 be outsiders that uncomfortable territory. Those moments of surprise are 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:44.240 a border something Thomas Defrance called slippage. It's the place 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.520 where things don't quite work. It's the if we think 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:49.559 of it as a physical space, it's the spot on 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.600 the ground where a literal slip happens. And it's also 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.000 the remains of that slipping. When you slip, there's a 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.480 slippage that's left behind. So I love this word because 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.679 it's a it's a noun, but it's all so an 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.679 adjective and and something of an adverb. It has all 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.640 of these different balances, and it implies this this kind 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:11.880 of place where things don't quite add up, something doesn't 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:16.240 quite shive the way you think it's going to. He's 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.320 a professor of African and African American Studies and Dance 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.960 at Duke University. Queerness and dance, to de France, is 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.480 that slippery, unpredictable, and sometimes unsettling place between what we 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.920 assume about gender and dance and how certain dances buck 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:34.360 those notions. You know, your little niece who you've never 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:38.200 seen really move, suddenly bust bust the dance out at 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.080 the birthday party with all this fierce power and energy, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.280 and maybe she slides to the floor in a vogue 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:49.280 astraw like. There's something queer about that moment because it 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:52.360 surprises us. And that's what I mean by queer when 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:54.880 I use it in terms of queer gesture. It's the 0:14:54.920 --> 0:15:01.239 physical movement that suggests something really unexpected, so emboyant probably 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:06.200 and also unusual and non noormative. We need queer gestures 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.960 in our lives because they remind us that there's there's 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:13.440 more to learn, there's more to do, there's explorations to 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:16.960 have among each other and with ourselves, that we're not 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:19.360 stuck in our jobs and stuck in our kind of 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.320 every day now is that we have the capacity to 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:27.720 express and explore corporeal rature your body telling a story, 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.720 and that's what that phrase means, telling a story with 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:34.760 your body without words, but through gesture and doing it 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.080 in a queer way, in a way that surprises the 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.080 people who are receiving a story or witnessing your dance. 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:46.359 Queer corporeal gesture is a way to narrate our possibility. 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:51.280 It's a way to perform how we can surprise ourselves 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:55.120 and keep learning things. Think of it as a sort 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:59.120 of resistance or subversion of norms, but it's more than 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:03.240 just a statement. It's surviving through expression. I think that 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.080 concept is really important when we're thinking in any way 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:10.040 about African American expressive, expressive arts and black lives in 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.240 the United States. There's a way that how our lives 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:18.120 are organized and circumscribed. Things almost work, but they don't quite. 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:20.560 And this is why I think we have this amazing 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.880 social justice movement right now, because we're still trying to 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.520 deal with the legacies of the path that have created 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:31.040 this um circumstance where it's very hard for Black Americans 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:34.400 to kind of find ourselves and find our way forward, 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.200 and especially for our youngest, our youngest family members, um 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:40.640 are always having a hard time figuring out how to 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.160 be a black person. In the concept of the US 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.760 for Black men in America, he says, a lot of 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:50.680 dance is simply about navigating how to exist, and there's 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:53.960 science to back that up. Some research says that because 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.680 there's evidence of humans dancing in cave paintings from thirteen 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:01.880 thousand years ago, it has a genetic basis that dance 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.919 likely popped up around the tom Homo sapience did and 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.159 is linked to good social communication, a hand equality to 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.680 have when your survival depends on bonding, and community support. 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:16.359 Black Americans have also always had to monitor our physicality. 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:18.760 We turned that into dance, and we've always turned that 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.159 into dance. In the nineties twenties we called it eccentric dance, 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.280 and now in the twenty tens, there's a form of 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:29.480 movement called bone breaking, and this is a physicalization of 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.760 a kind of shifting body, a body that can do 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.800 unusual things. So we're turning that need to corral or 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:42.159 physicality in order to survive in a relatively hostile environment 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.040 and hostile daily environment, and we turn that into expression 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:46.880 and turn it into dance. And that's what we see 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.560 in bone breaking. We see this this kind of physicalization 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:55.119 of how to be shifty and odd with the body 0:17:55.480 --> 0:18:01.040 to suggest something really unusual and and expressive a creator. No, 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.119 he's not talking about actual bone breaking. It's a social dance, 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.879 which is one that involves group participation that has roots 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.679 in bed mooin and dance battles. Dancers can tot their 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:17.520 limbs into apparently impossible and painful poses, dislocating their shoulders 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:20.919 and realigning their arms, pushing the limits of their bodies 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:26.240 and creativity. In this case, pain depicted is pain internalized, 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.240 and that coping through movement isn't just limited to dance 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:34.840 floors or social dance. It can extend into other realms 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:38.479 of expression, like protesters who raise their hands in an 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:45.119 outcry against Michael Brown's shooting, or celebratory end zone dances 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:50.399 on the football field. We have a penalty marker on 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:54.400 the field. Here's John Perry's fun Sports from like conduct 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:58.720 of the excessive celebration of her twenty two. That penalty 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:04.240 will be forced there Go Defrance calls this the policing 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.320 of black culture. Or imagine the opposing postures of President 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:11.680 Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama when they met 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.520 in the Oval Office. Legs spread, lips taught back stiff, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:21.280 our brows furrowed. Our bodies often betray our thoughts even 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.040 when we don't say, let alone understand them. But dance 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.240 isn't passive. It's a deliberate channeling of emotion that takes 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.960 courage and audacity, a willingness to be outside of the 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:37.560 everyday experience. As Defrance puts it, an impulse to dance 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:41.880 is a desire to speak with the primal, essential language, 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:45.920 and it's not easy to be bare stripped to our 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.960 essence when our identities are exposed. The great things about 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.440 Black social dance is that it always challenges the space 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.360 for jender nor maturity. It always does so even if 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.800 we have Chicago steppanding, which is built upon two roles 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.440 leader and a follower, Well, in Black social dance, that 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.600 follower role done an awful lot of leading to. So 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.240 we can call these roles masculine and feminine, or the 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:12.119 male role or female role, but in practice that's not 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.159 really how they play out. There's always going to be 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.600 places where um, the female role or the feminine spaces 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.359 leading the interaction, and there's going to be places where 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.960 the woman, if you will, is shining and she's going 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.480 to do something really extraordinary and amazing. So this is 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.720 one of the reasons we love social dance so much. 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.840 It gets it gives us a chance to explore alternative 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.680 ways of being, to explore, for you know, really powerful 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.240 men to explore our feminine sort of abilities, and for 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.920 women to explore their power if those are hard of 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:48.399 what masculine and feminine um contained. So Black social dances 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.120 are always kind of getting into that space where it's 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.119 not one or the other, but it's a both and 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:04.600 course defined tradition doesn't come without backlash. Take Elvis, a 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:08.320 performer who was controversial for different reasons in different circles. 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:11.159 I had no idea that this performance of round was 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:15.800 going to call it such a round. I still can't 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:20.800 figure out what round. To his fans, he was a rebellious, 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:26.080 pioneering sex symbol. To his detractors, his dancing was inappropriate 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:30.159 or even animalistic, and too many black people, Elvis the 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:34.560 pelvis was yet another symbol of appropriation, acclaimed for moves 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.960 he seemingly lifted from black artists like Jackie Wilson. The 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.600 problem wasn't the invitation, per se. The problem was Elvis 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.479 getting cultural credit for elevating a sexualized performance style that 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.359 black artists had already been doing. And we're shamed or 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.679 simply I'm recognized. For historian Eric Lott says in the 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:57.080 book Love and Theft quote, what appears, in fact to 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:01.240 have been appropriated were certain kinds of masculinity. To put 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.080 one of the cultural forms of blackness was to engage 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.680 in a complex affair of manly mimicry. The Elvis debate 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.320 goes deeper, as he's perhaps one of the most contentious 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:15.679 figures of so called edginess or unorthodoxy and performance. But 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.680 there's another huge factor that causes people to get riled 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:22.280 up when dance questions norms, the way that norm ativity 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:27.080 or gender normalcy is about being afraid, being afraid of 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.000 the unknown or the unexpected. I mean, the only reason 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:32.520 to be afraid of something is because you're not sure 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:34.800 what it will mean for you in some in some 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:39.880 weird way, although that happens a lot less than social dance. 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:43.560 He points out, we're at a party, for example, the 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.200 excitement of the moment of dance is most important. Think 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:51.120 of popular dances you may have seen go viral, quant ETCETERA. 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:55.240 Flamboyance doesn't get much flak. It's often celebrated and for 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:59.879 black folks, especially to Francis, dancing is like air and water. 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:03.000 It's always been a part of life. We danced at 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.760 the high school reaunion. We dance at the graduation party. 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:09.560 We dance at the birth, we dance at the coming home. 0:23:09.800 --> 0:23:14.760 We dance. Dance is important to us. We dance in church. Um. 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:18.440 We even have movement things that we executed in times 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:21.280 of morning. There's a way that music and movement are 0:23:21.320 --> 0:23:24.040 important to our practice of morning as well, so for 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:28.360 us dances everywhere. He mentions the Nicholas brothers who jumped, twisted, 0:23:28.400 --> 0:23:30.439 and tap danced their way into people's hearts from the 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:33.840 stage and screen in the early nineteen hundreds, and he 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:37.160 talks about the high energy, dramatic street dance styles crumping 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:40.119 and clowning, which grew out of the desire for an 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.960 alternative to gangs and violence and for an outlet for aggression. 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:47.320 During the aftermath of Rodney King's beating in Los Angeles, 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:51.159 in if I hadn't start from him, I would be 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:53.320 in jail for sure, or I would have got caught 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:55.440 up in something that I would have him killed. Very 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:59.320 early in my life because I was around a drama 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:02.399 in violent but dance and always kept me away or 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:13.560 sent nigger time from ritualistic and ceremonial dance like the 0:24:13.640 --> 0:24:17.680 hula tow line dancing to country Western music, dance holds 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:20.560 a mirror to the social climate as a sign of 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:24.240 the times. Dance can be as important to cultural documentation 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:28.800 as records of war, policy and technology. It's an uninhibited 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:32.000 declaration of self, showing us as we are, for who 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:35.639 we are in every fleeting moment. As father of modern 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:38.680 American dance, Ted Sean, who performed with an all male 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:41.200 dance company throughout the US in the thirties and forties, 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:44.000 put it, you see, a peter can paint something that 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:47.200 it goes on the wall, or a sculptor makes something 0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:50.560 and it stays there. But this is the most ephemeral 0:24:50.760 --> 0:24:54.399 art you see. You do it, and it's born and 0:24:54.560 --> 0:25:07.800 dies in the very second you're doing it. We engage it. 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:10.199 We let it be unusual, we let it be weird, 0:25:10.600 --> 0:25:13.280 we let it be queer, and we learned from it. 0:25:24.880 --> 0:25:28.680 We need society, yet so many of us feel left 0:25:28.720 --> 0:25:33.000 out and yearned to be understood and recognized. When you're 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:35.879 struggling to be seen, especially when you're part of a 0:25:35.920 --> 0:25:40.399 marginalized group, asserting your existence through dance can be cathartic, 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:45.680 powerful and pleasurable. And for anybody, dance can be a 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:48.639 means of release that they often don't get to or 0:25:48.680 --> 0:25:53.920 want to say with words, for fear of being embarrassed, moralized, dismissed, 0:25:54.000 --> 0:25:59.320 or simply ignored. It gives men a chance to be genuine, creative, 0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:02.919 and present. And what more do we need now than 0:26:03.040 --> 0:26:13.000 open and honest communication. Maybe try dancing sometime. There's something 0:26:13.000 --> 0:26:15.560 about when you finally get out there and everyone around 0:26:15.600 --> 0:26:20.879 you is encouraging you that really, um, it's one of 0:26:20.920 --> 0:26:23.119