English Dance and Song Autumn 2021
A slightly shorter version of this article appears in English Dance and Song, the magazine of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. The world’s oldest magazine for folk music and dance, EDS was first published in 1936 and is essential reading for anyone with a passion for folk arts.
Lisa Heywood discusses the importance of gender-free calling and offers some practical tips on how to get started.
I’m a ceilidh caller, morris dancer and general folk enthusiast. I’m also bisexual. You might wonder why I’m telling you this, and what it has to do with folk dancing? But please stay with me, and hopefully all will become clear.
Bisexual Visibility Day is marked on 23 September and every year, I reflect on whether people actually realise I’m bisexual. Too often, people judge a person’s sexuality based on the gender of their partner at the time, which means that bisexual folk are seen as either gay or straight. This lack of bisexual visibility is part of the reason it took me until my early twenties to realise that it was a term that might apply to me; I hadn’t really seen any bisexual people represented in the media or in the communities I was a part of.
One of those communities was folk dancing, where callers mostly used the terms ‘women’ and ‘men’ or ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’ to refer to the two people in a couple. This reinforced the idea that the ‘normal’ pairing was male-female, even if some dancers were dancing in different pairings. However, at some dances things were different – callers used dance instructions without making any reference to gender. In recent years, this idea of ‘gender-free’ calling has caught on more widely, but it’s still met with uncertainty from some callers, organisers and dancers.
So here I’d like to explain why gender-free calling makes a big difference to me and my friends in the LGBT+ community when we go to dances. I also want to acknowledge that changing the way you call or dance can seem scary or difficult, but there are lots of people and resources available to help you out. I hope you’ll agree it’s worth making the change so that dances can be more inclusive and welcoming to the LGBT+ community.
Where gender is used, it can lead to awkward or uncomfortable situations
I can’t speak for all LGBT+ folk, but I think most of us can remember a time at a dance when we got asked “are you the man or the woman?”, told that we were “dancing in the wrong place”, or even encouraged to switch partners. This also applies to anyone who’s ever danced in the ‘wrong’ role, so they can dance with a parent, child, sibling or friend.
For LGBT+ folk, it can feel particularly frustrating that these comments arise simply because of your gender, or that of your significant other. Likewise, it can be uncomfortable for any dancer to be referred to as the wrong gender on the dancefloor; this can be particularly distressing for trans and non-binary dancers.
‘Man’ and ‘woman’ aren’t just words
When calling in the past, I used to caveat my use of gender terms by saying it doesn’t matter what gender you actually are; the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are just words referring to the dance role, not your actual gender. This was certainly a step in the right direction, but not really a solution, mainly because ‘man’ and ‘woman’ aren’t just words – as much as we try to break down stereotypes, they still have particular associations which are hard to get away from.
In a dance context, using the terms ‘man’ or ‘woman’ for dance roles encourages dancers to fall back onto stereotyped deas of gender, whether they mean to or not. If the instructions rely on gender as a tool to understand the dance, then dancers will likely end up trying to interpret the gender of other dancers in order to follow the dance. As they meet another dancer they might think, “is this person wearing trousers or a skirt?” or “does this person have short or long hair?” to try and work out which role they’re dancing.
Gendered calling can be more confusing than gender-free calling
I’m not sure I can remember ever having been at a dance where every couple in every dance was mixed gender. This means that, at almost every dance I’ve ever been to where gender was used in the instructions, at least one set has had to interpret the instructions differently to everyone else.
Many dance instructions referencing gender rely on visual gender cues as part of the instructions, whether that’s identifying “the next man you meet” for a right-hand turn, or “the women do a left-hand star”. For sets with a non-mixed gender couple, this means the whole set has an extra piece of information to remember – who in that couple is dancing which role? Wouldn’t it just be easier to do away with the gender part altogether so that everyone can follow the same cues?
Moving towards gender-free calling
The solution isn’t as complex as it might seem – in fact, in many ways, gender-free calling makes things a lot simpler for both dancers and callers. Of course, changing the way you’ve been calling or dancing for many years can be an intimidating thought. Thankfully, there’s plenty of expertise and resources available to get you started; many callers have been gender-free calling for years and they have sorted out many of the teething problems which may have put some folk off when they first encountered it.
There are a number of ways to call dances clearly and concisely without using gender terms. Which method you use will depend on the context, both in terms of dance style and your own community. Here are five general tips to get you started:
Setting up the dance
Don’t tell people where to stand based on their gender. If you’re going to use different role names, you might want to specify these after dancers are in place, for example, “the side facing the windows is the first line”.
Keep it simple and appropriate to the audience
You don’t necessarily need to come up with different terms to replace ‘man’ and ‘woman’, and some audiences can find ‘fun’ role terms patronising. If one line does the move first, it’s easiest to just call them “the first line”.
Practice
Changing the way you do things will take some work. Practice on your own or with a friend to make sure you’re comfortable with your new instructions. Ask for feedback to see if your new instructions work and amend them if needed.
Rewrite your cards
Help yourself out and make sure you write out new dance cards without gender on them – it’s more difficult to remember the new words if you’re using prompts with the old ones.
Don’t reinvent the wheel
There are lots of callers with many years of experience calling without using gender roles. Ask their advice and pick their brains if you’re just starting out.
Lisa ran an online workshop on 20 November 2021 focusing on gender-free calling for English ceilidh dancing.
An example of gender-free calling: Stoke Golding Country Dance
Tune: Slip jig or jig.
Set formation: 4 or 5 couple longways.
Setting up the dance
Identify the first corners (left-hand end of each line) and second corners (right-hand end of each line). I often use cues in the room instead of left and right, for example, “top person with their back to the windows”.
Note: this is an un-phrased dance, so each set goes at their own pace.
Part 1: First corners swing for as long as they like in a mutually-agreeable swing hold; not too long or everyone else will get bored.
Part 2: Second corners swing.
Part 3: Top couple strip-the-willow to the bottom of the set.
Part 4: Top couple face up and make an arch. Take the arch over the right-hand line, then loop around to go back over the other line. Loop again at the bottom, so the new first corner goes straight into the middle of the set to start the swing.
Explaining the strip-the-willow
Top couple: you’re going to strip-the-willow. Look at your partner, then everyone on your partner’s line – these are the people you’ll be dancing with. You’ll work your way to the bottom of the set by turning your partner with your right hand, then someone on your partner’s line with your left hand. Everyone else, have your left arm ready to turn when they get to you.
Top couple: start off with a right-hand turn one-and-a-half times around. Then alternate; a left-hand turn with the first person on your partner’s line then back to your partner. Keep going – right to your partner, left to the next person on the side – until you get to the bottom of the set. After the last turn with your partner, make sure you stand on the same side you started on.
Note: these instructions are intended as a guide – please adapt them as necessary to suit you, your audience and the context you’re calling in.
There’s far more to say about gender-free calling than I could possibly fit in this article. For that reason, I’ve started a collection of gender-free dance resources on my website, lisaheywood.net/gender-free.
See also Get into position for social dancing, written by Louise Siddons for the Winter 2021 edition of EDS Magazine.
Photos by Ben Reid and Ryan Carollo.
