07 August 2008

Boys should dance

Equality is an elusive thing when we start off with different body shapes. At the Olympics, we will celebrate inequality, but in daily life, we have to find ways to compensate for it. Full essay.

5 comments:

HanSolo said...

One of your most convoluted attempts to include photos of nude men in your writings.. I don't think this will help your credibility.

Anonymous said...

Alex,

I don't think it was a badly edited raw footage.. if you look at the pattern of film cutting, it looks more like a artistically edited photage.. a bit ala blair witch (but that one was not artistic, this one is). Letting the song continue running after the act is over convey the continued sense of darkness and mystery of the act.

Anonymous said...

As a former trained dancer, I couldn't agree with you more.

Too often, guys who practice dance styles that are not hip-hop get stigmatized as being feminine or "sissy" by folks outside of the dance community. It also doesn't help that in reality, a good fraction of trained male contemporary, lyrical, jazz, or ballet dancers in Singapore are gay and do behave a bit "sissy" (I hate that word).

The irony? You ask any veteran male hip-hop dancer what they think about their male contemporary or lyrical dance colleagues, and they have nothing less than the utmost respect for them. No one cares who is gay or not, and no one who has danced (hip-hop or otherwise) for a period of time will think that classical dance is "sissy".

I see the situation improving, as "softer" dance forms such as jazz and salsa are starting to become a bit more mainstream, but the process is slow. Shows like SYTYCD also helps change the public perception of what a male dancer is actually like.

For me personally, I have even dabbled in a little bit of ballet before, as part of my training. I always use the fact that I used to do ballet as a talking point when meeting new people. I think as long as you have the confidence in yourself, no one will stigmatize you. :)

Anonymous said...

it doesn't change much to the basic idea that was pointed out, but nubians don't live in the south of sudan, but in north-sudan and south egypt. and the men in the pictures don't really look like nubians. i suspect they're actually from one of the races of the southern-sudanese wetlands.

Anonymous said...

I know I'm not your target audience but... "The male sex is the more physical of the two" wtf are you on?