NO BOYS ALLOWED?

“I got started dancing because I knew it was one way to meet girls.”

-Gene Kelly

 

Dance is perceived as being feminine, and there are some people who view dance as an all-girls sport. This is far from the truth. Although the sport is heavily populated by women it is not strictly females, nor is it odd that men do dance. Men are judges for being dancers, but dance is an enormous physical challenge on a male dancer’s body and mind requiring a high level of strength, positioning, concentration, technique, balance, passion, and muscle. Just looking at men like Derek Hough, Benjamin Millepied, Anthony Morigerato, Matt Steffania, Hok and Myles Erlick dance should be enough for any person to step back and consider everything that is required to be a male dancer.

Having men in dance is an important and crucial structure to the dance industry. Men are used in lifts, portraying stories and used at a very high level in professional companies and institutions. It is a fact that men are able to be more muscular than women, their genetic features enable them to be bigger and broader. Due to this genetic difference between men and women, men are an important key into doing difficult lifts. It requires an immense amount of strength, control, focus and balance for a man to be able to lift a woman into the air, with a look of ease, under the pressure of an audience for an extended amount of time. They must condition their body and mind under intense workout to execute lifting skills correctly. The element of telling a story for an audience is another significant role of a male dancer. There is only so many shows you can perform with an all-women’s cast, and there is only so much you can do to portray the high percent of female dancers in the business as male characters. Therefore you need men to fill those roles and bring the story to life for all viewers in attendance.

There are many stereotypes with men, although the most common is that male dancers are gay. Some say that because they spend all their time with girls, that they draw away from crushing on them and instead become one of them, thinking, speaking and acting like them, drawing closer to the affection of a man. That is ludacris. Yes, there are gay male dancers, but nothing of the fact that all men who dance are gay. Why does being a man in dance make you gayer than a football player? Football players are around men all the time, therefore you could say because they share so much time together they must have deeper, sensual relationships. Again, people assume and can make judgments about any sport, which is extremely unnecessary. I’m not saying football player are gay, but it is a point that we should not assume because a man dances, or plays football that he automatically must be gay. It is a stereotype of the world that needs to be put to rest and instead of insulting the male dancers we come to know, appreciate them for all the dedication they put into the field.

Saying that only women can be dancers is false and a stereotype by many. Just because there is a higher ratio of women to men does not mean that men are not and cannot be amazing dancers. In fact male dancers have a very high amount of strength, their mental capacity is extremely strong as are there physical strengths. Male dancers are essential to dance and are overlooked by the general public, which is a change that I hope is broken, as all male dancers should get the appreciation and respect they deserve for the efforts they have put in to be amazing dancers.

~Julia