The safe ground at swing and ballroom
By Benjamin Treadwell · Contributing Writer
John Hatzis, my excellent and cheerful editor, raised an interesting question this week: why have swing dance and ballroom dance hit record attendance? What is so special about them?
I posit that the more traditional dance forms are our last refuge in the modern fraught relationship between the two genders. Men and women, due to a combination of philosophy, politics and culture, are to a greater or lesser extent engaged in what The culture commentators call ‘The war of the sexes.’
Guys and girls, generally speaking, get along significantly worse than in the past. Feminism has aged poorly — it started wanting human rights for women, and it is now simply the voice of male-hate.
Unsurprisingly, men are annoyed, and misogyny intensifies in the “manosphere.” Statistically speaking, women are drifting left, and men are drifting right.
Modern American culture continues to be extraordinarily, repulsively obsessed with sex, which means that young men and young women have very little space to interact without at least questions of romantic tension appearing.
America’s youth who haven’t lost hope in marriage (and reportedly many have) are trying to find somewhere they can interact and get to know each other without worrying about relational ambiguity or emotional confusion.
The traditional dances at Grove City provide exactly this opportunity. As one of my friends helped me realize, the older etiquette involved helps form an atmosphere of platonic interaction.
There are no questions (or at least many fewer) when a gentleman asks a lady to dance. It is the same favor he could and will extend to many of the other ladies attending the dance.
The format of the traditional social dances establishes a place where the default male-female interaction is one of friendship. It removes our culture’s prevailing gender expectations, tensions and barriers.
If a man or woman has no friends of the opposite gender, traditional dance is a fine place to gain some. Dancing with someone is one of the more effective ice-breakers culture has come up with for breaking down the wall between men and women.
All this is, I deeply suspect, why swing and ballroom presently have record attendance. I am not saying that it is not due to more or better efforts by the club execs or to a statistical fluke. It could even be a movement among people to recover the art of dancing beyond chaotic mosh-pit grooving.
These are distinct possibilities. Indeed, the world being as complicated as it is, it could be a combination of any of these reasons. But I will continue to argue that at least part of it comes from young men and women who desire to have some interactions with each other that aren’t “weird.”
So let us celebrate! The cultural relationship between male and female does not have to be dysfunctional. Guys and girls can, in fact, speak to one another without there necessarily being any kind of romantic or creepy undertones.
The high attendance at ballroom and swing club means that, perhaps, at least at Grove City, there is hope that the divisions between men and women can be reconciled — at least as best they can this side of the new creation.
