Dancing Another Role: Gender, Sexuality, and the Lead-Follow System in Korean Social Partner Dance Communities

Abstract

This study examines the gendered and sexualized meanings and effects of dancers who challenge the gendered assignment of lead-follow roles in contemporary social partner dance practice in Korea. This study focuses on a growing number of women dancing the leading role and men dancing the follower role in styles such as swing, salsa, and tango, despite gendered norms in partner dance and Korean cultures. I coin the term “nonconventionally gendered role” (NGCR) to specify this practice across partner dances that use different terminology. Beyond filling this gap in the literature on this phenomenon in Korea, this study seeks to give insights into dancing the other role for practitioners across styles and how embodied arts can provide space for negotiation and understanding of gender and sexuality. I use archival analysis, ethnographic interviews, and participant observation to examine the limitations, meanings, possibilities, and effects of dancing the other role. My data suggests norms in Korea and partner dance around the gender binary, conformity, and skill hierarchy place limits on gendered and sexualized expression in dance communities. However, dancing the nonconventional role in Korea offers a broader range of gendered expression, relations, and somatic and verbal discourse beyond the conventionally gendered role. The effects of representation and the dialogue between practice and policy in this study may signal a move from exclusive to inclusive practice of the other gendered role in Korea.