r/SwingDancing • u/riffraffmorgan Super Mario • Jun 05 '22

Community Herräng Dance Camp responds to backlash after posting a controversial dance sketch discussed in Latasha Barnes NPR Interview

https://www.facebook.com/201020159925248/posts/pfbid0TtNMg1QiCUjeakhv9KCJzoAg4UvQJENnzUWjrbHtQ9eamJGdnpCuEmdYGv4HWaVyl/
24 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

14

u/Aicy Jun 05 '22

Can someone tell me what was wrong with it without saying "go listen to a podcast"?

22

u/swingindenver Underground Jitterbug Champion Jun 06 '22

the tldr: in a Herrang discussion panel, a panelist mentioned they'd like to travel back in time. Herrang leadership took this idea, and performed a sketch the next evening where the panelist traveled back in time to the 1940s to a rent party. People danced, the panelist was "arrested." The end.

Time traveling is usually done for nostalgic purposes by white people while ignoring the inherent racism. Lindy Hop, much like all vernacular dances created by Black people or others not yet integrated into the white majority (Armenians, Italians, etc), were to inform the community of their values and to provide a socialization mechanism. Nostalgic time traveling tends to pluck things from the past and present it without proper attribution.

And the transcript is an easy way to digest the conversation. Second link above.

4

u/tireggub Jun 07 '22

I feel this way about every retro back-to-WW-II dance event.

2

u/swingindenver Underground Jitterbug Champion Jun 07 '22

I especially had that feeling when I had a long discussion with a Berlin friend concerning why we celebrate WW2 and how we celebrate it. Made me certainly question some things and I pulled out of participating in Colorado's two large WW2 events. Helped the organizer is pretty bad too.

10

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '22

If I'm not mistaken the problems were:

  • going "back" in time to a segregated time, without explaining what it really entailed and just being in a "nice and fun" version of real history.
  • doing a rent party without explained why they were created, why their existence is not a good thing, and why they were the result of discrimination.
  • there was also some other incident later in the camp in where Latasha saw someone with blackface.

One great part of the inteview was the reframing from cultural appropiation to cultural surrogates. I feel much better about discussing about it this way, because we can feel part of the culture without being african-american, or even from the states.

By the way, my main take of the discussion is that in order to keep moving forward these cases have to be brought forward with the best and clearest explanation, so that people that are not in the known can be one of the "lucky 10000" and learn about what was the main point that should be addressed. It's tiring to explain the same things multiple times, but if people are to learn to be better someone(s) should teach.

6

u/Tmbaladdin Jun 09 '22

and today, they completely shutdown all comments and discussion….

6

u/belltoller Jun 07 '22

On a related note, one often wonders why there are not a lot of Black people doing Lindy Hop and why it didn't catch on in their community during late 90s and early 00s.

I got the impression that the main reason was that Black people were never nostalgic about that time in the 40s and 30s where they were never treated as equals. Why would anyone want to go back to that time or recreate it, where they were marginalized, it felt like they wanted to move on.... and thats what they have done, gone onto other dance forms and musical styles. Perhaps there is more nostalgia for the disco era.

Anyway this a theory from an outsider looking in.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 08 '22

Jazz (and swing in particular) went from brothel music to high status music. It was no longer a "street" music. And so the dance went from street dance to studio dance who only people with a decent salary (or better) could take part in.

That meant catering to a mostly white audience, while African-American either danced to current "street" musics or found that the dance from their fathers had been taken by white youths that not only disregarded its origin, but make them feel the odd one.

That's my take from the different interviews I've read about people who entered into the scene. After all, the going back to a more marginalized time... it's not like society has advanced a lot. There's still too much racism and aporophobia.

6

u/belltoller Jun 07 '22

Herrang dance camp is coming out from a tough two year long hiatus but all anyone wants to do is pile on.

8

u/Midasx Jun 07 '22

The pandemic break has given the staff time to pause and reflect on their involvement with camp. We've always known and complained about many issues there, but now with some distance barely any of the core staff are going back.

This is 100% on the owners for their terrible management.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '22

I always thought jazz art was supposed to be raw. We don’t need to be told the world is a ——— up place.

What we need to be told, is that we navigating things together, in community. Not every scene needs to be deconstructed before it’s viewed, that’s what critical thinking is for. We need to look for those universal cues… that something isn’t right. We might not know what it is at first, but we need to seek those answers. That’s what jazz art is about, seeking answers together, clapping hands when we are at the lowest of the low— together. Smiling, when we are standing in the middle of our emotions— bc that’s all we have sometimes.

No, I don’t need a history lesson every time to know there’s human suffering. They didn’t owe us that.