As an area of research, masculinity and dance remains under-examined, due in part to the overwhelming Western notion that men don’t dance and to the homophobic assumption that men who do dance are gay. Scholarly research has primarily utilised feminist methodology, performance studies and queer theory to examine the construction of power and gender on stage and in social dances and the meaning of the body within social and ritual contexts. Questioning Western notions about men who dance, Burt (1995) outlines the biases that dominate masculinity within the practice of Western theatrical twentiethcentury dance. Also, Cohan (1993) and Dyer (2002) have written important essays on entertainment and danced masculinity in popular culture.
Men have danced throughout history as a form of communication and pleasure within the cultural boundaries that define their masculinity. In early history a man’s physical abilities and stature were demonstrated in danced rituals that included warrior, hunting, healing and fertility rites. Today, in many nations, traditional male dances have been transformed into entertainments for tourists, creating the illusion of a masculine ‘otherness’ that contributes to the ‘imperialistic stereotypes’ that Said outlines as ‘the hegemony of Orientalism’ (Said 1979:329). However, in certain areas of Guyana, India, Bali and other societies, male dancers continue to perform important roles in the ritual and spiritual functions that have been a part of their cultures for generations.
In Europe, the height of the male dancer’s prestige was in the Baroque court of Louis XIV (1638–1715), who used dance as a means of propaganda to establish his divine right to rule. This artificial court system required that men establish their nobility in daily public dance lessons, numerous weekly balls and performances in ballet spectacles. In this era a well-turned-out leg, an open chest, a smooth turn of the wrist and the skill to physically demonstrate musical innuendo symbolised a man’s breeding, his harmonious relationship with nature, his stature at court, his potential as a lover and his integrity as a business partner. Also, the technique and coordination of Baroque dance was understood to mirror the arts of war (fencing and horsemanship), so dancing also demonstrated a man’s skill as a warrior.
By the mid-1700s women dominated theatrical dance, and ballet became a peep show for men to gaze at women’s legs and to fin mistresses from the chorus of underprivileged female dancers. The Western notion that dancing is a female activity developed with the rise of the Romantic Ballet (1832), coinciding with the Industrial Revolution and the emerging middle class’s construction of male and female identity. Burt outlines this development and interprets the homophobia that accompanies the expressive male body on display in Western theatrical dance throughout the twentieth century.
The eighteenth-century male ballet dancer found a home in the Danish Ballet of August Bournonville (1805–1889) and Mauris Petipa’s (1818–1910) choreography for the Imperial Russian Ballet Vaslov Nijinsky (1889–1950) is the most famous—and infamous—dancer to train in the Russian tradition and was one of the rare dance artists who possessed both a remarkable physical technique and the ability to fully inhabit the roles he performed. Critics wrote that when Nijinsky leaped he seemingly stayed in the air until he wanted to land and that the cells of his body appeared to reshape his body with each role he performed. It is speculated that Nijinsky’s schizophrenia, which was eventually diagnosed, may have facilitated his ability to lose himself in his dancing.
Although Nijinsky’s relationship with ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev (1872–1929) is the first publicised and most popular homosexual affiliation in ballet, today all Western theatrical male dancers must cope with the homophobic assumptions that accompany their career. In Hollywood, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly overcame the assumptions that male dancers are homosexual by making their dancing about difficult physical accomplishments, sports, teaching and courting women. Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson (1878–1949) and other black dancers in early Hollywood needed to overcome deep-seated racism within the movie industry and the general audience. Hollywood’s early image of the black male dancer was derived from minstrel shows, a complicated mix of black men parodying white men parodying black dancers parodying European social dances. The Nicholas Brothers’ thirty films made them among the most admired Hollywood tap dancers, who established their masculine identity by creating athletic tap dance spectacle, jumping over each other and landing in the splits as they travelled down a flight of stairs, or dancing incredibly fast unison combinations.
By the time John Travolta danced in Saturday Night Fever (1979), male dancing had all but disappeared from Hollywood, due in part to the feminist movement and gay liberation’s probing questions about the construction of gender. In response to these questions, Travolta’s solo became an affirmation of his character’s heterosexuality by subverting the gaze into a performance of his sexual potential. Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov’s performance in White Nights (1985) is one of the very few examples of a male relationship expressed in dance. Recent films such as The Full Monty (1997) and Billy Elliot (2000) assert heterosexual normative assumptions about the men who are forced to dance as a last-ditch effort to escape the deadend existence of the UK’s labour culture.
Challenging the assumption that men don’t dance, choreographers such as Bill T.Jones, Mark Morris and Lloyd Newson have created work that clearly demonstrates that dance is a site for the expression and examination of masculinity.
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