Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Men dancing

Seeing that most straight men who happen to see male ballet dancers perform are probably already thinking at one point or another "that looks pretty gay", is it such a big step to have ballets developed to show "two men fall in love"?   Maybe not, but one would have to bet that an art form that is surely already female heavy in audience is not going to do anything to change that by going into gay stories.   (I've never been to a ballet:  it's an artform I "get" in much the same way as I get poetry - pretty much not at all.)

Dance generally is a funny medium regarding this male sexuality thing.   I've probably mentioned this before, but for some reason, I've often felt that Australian male dance performance on Australian TV looked particularly, well, not exactly straight - but is it just a thing about Australian choreography rather than the dancers themselves?   I think that it is not generally noticeable in American movie or TV choreography.   It's a subtle thing, and a bit curious, as I would assume that dancing as a career in both countries attracts a somewhat higher than average number of gay men (as does many parts of show business.)  But look at the dancing in something like La La Land - you virtually never get a gay vibe at all.  Is it partly to do with more black men, with their annoyingly natural grace in dance movement, being in American dance? 

Just one of life's puzzles.

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