Dance and gay liberation.

To the Editor:

I write in response to your feature in November-December 2006, "Bodies in Motion." I would like to have seen at least one of the articles pushing theoretical considerations further than acknowledging the links between dance, gender, and sexuality (though Bill T. Jones' statement links in with some of what I have written about). In an unpublished work, "Dance in Everyday Life" (1998), I wrote: "Dance is shorthand for sexuality in this society [northern Europe, North America]. We, a majority of this society's constituents who dance--women, black people, gay men, youths--are hailed as sexual objects through our movements. This sexuality may be about availability--sexual objects as subject to the gaze. This sexuality may equally be about sensuality--sexual objects as the Othering of masculinity. We may be desired. We may be imagined. In movement we signify. Through language we are symbolic. Our very movement is used to carry us away from the centre of power, from the gravity of distinction. For us, dance in everyday life places us as a key text on someone else's behalf."

This statement came out of research I did ten years earlier in three schools in Leicestershire, England. One of the conclusions of that study was: "It should not be overlooked that a 'politics' around the significance of the contribution to dance by the gay community can form part of a school's overall strategy for the promotion of dance" ("The Promotion of Dance in Secondary Schools," Unpublished Dissertation, Leicester Polytechnic, 1991). Contesting the way in which we are placed by "dance" is, I would argue, a losing battle because of the hegemonic work being done. Promoting the joy of dance in our lives--whether or not it involves effeminacy for men or athletic prowess for women, etc.--gives us a surer footing (pun intended).

Dr. Bob Bennett, Coventry University (now retired), the UK