Where you lead, I will follow!

The conventions of partnered dance often mirror conventions of courting. If you wonder what was generally acceptable at a point in history, take a look at the dance floor! And while you're at it, take a look at all the other dance floors where the unacceptable was flourishing! Then wait a suitable amount of time and voilà! the formerly unacceptable is all the rage. And the cycle begins anew.

Take the basic convention of leading and following. Dance- rhythmic moving to sound- is ancient. Ritual dance to propitiate gods, to appease the forces of nature, to ensure the general well-being- is documented back to primitive times. Partner dance appears later on, in Western societies as stylized courtship rituals. In peasant dances, which were scandalous by upper class standards, a boy would approach a girl, who then would flirtatiously divert his advances. The aristocracy and the wealthy merchants, with money and prestige vested in marriage alliances, held stylized balls where distance and elaborate steps kept everyone in their place.  

Then came the waltz, a whirling peasant dance that Strauss brought to the upper classes. It was initially greeted with much gasping and clutching of pearls by the upstanding, moral sorts, and embraced, figuratively and literally by the young and fashionable. The close hold put partners in direct physical contact, and dancing gracefully meant that one partner directed the general flow and the other sensed through signaled actions how to respond. In the mores of the time, the leader was the man, and the follower was the woman.    

That convention dominated through much of the past centuries, but no longer is it unquestioned. With the growing understanding that strict definitions of partnering in life are no longer applicable, the world of dance has responded by separating gender from the terms leader and follower. In 2019 USA Dance revised its competition guidelines to reflect social realities. And a new technique, called liquid leading, teaches partners to transfer roles back and forth as they dance.

The world is ever-changing, some things stay the same: People will dance and dance together!  Contact us to find out more about how you can join in!