Dresses, Jackets, and the Space in Between

Gender Expression in Ballroom

By Chelsea Visser

I’ve never considered myself a particularly girly person. I think I had my nose stuck in a book during the time period when all the other girls I knew learned how to put on eyeliner. Over the last couple of years, I’ve fallen into a love affair with floral dresses, but on the whole, I’ve never really spent much time thinking about where I fall on the sliding scale of feminine to masculine. Then I joined ballroom and was blindsided by the gender binary.

This isn’t exactly the forum to talk about how gender is a spectrum, not a binary (although feel free to email me if you’d like to discuss; it’s a topic I’m passionate about). However, this is definitely the place to talk about how rigid expressions of gender tend to be in ballroom dance.

If gender is a spectrum, ballroom dance has characteristics on both ends. You have the feminine figure, with elaborate hair and makeup and beautiful dresses. On the other end, you have the masculine figure, which exudes charisma and power and an unerring ability to lead the girl on his arm. This is the ballroom you see in competitions, and this is the way it’s been for as long as anyone can remember. The result is a group of dancers forced into rigid roles that allow for little variation.

The truth is, not everybody is the embodiment of femininity or masculinity—honestly, hardly anyone is. Learning how to portray those roles can be nearly as difficult as getting some particularly tricky footwork right. Take me, for example.

A week or so before my first dance competition, one of the older girls on the team sat down all us new kids and showed us how to make ourselves up in comp makeup. I was fascinated as she pulled tubes and cases and packages out of her bag, explaining everything as she went. I had spent an entire afternoon dragging my dance partner around town trying to find something to wear for my rhythm events, and three days before Ballroom Blast, I found myself at Target staring blankly at the rows and rows of makeup. My entire first year on the competitive team was spent experimenting with eyeshadow and hairspray, and I’ve still not entirely figured out how to get your eyeliner just right without blinding yourself.

I’ve heard plenty of people say that ballroom is a visual sport, and it wasn’t until the first time I saw myself in my smooth dress that I really understood. It can be unsettling, catching a glimpse of yourself in full competition costume and not immediately recognizing yourself. When you’re on the floor, you’re acting: even if you aren’t that ideal masculine or feminine figure, that’s who you’re supposed to be. Reconciling that image with who you actually are can be a challenge.

I’ve accepted that I’ll never quite fit the ideal image of a girl in ballroom. I keep my hair short, my makeup is never all that pronounced, and I occasionally have a tendency to back-lead. If it were up to me, I’d definitely rather wear a vest and a short skirt than a conventional rhythm dress. I think the culture of ballroom as an incredibly heteronormative activity is slowly starting to relax, and I hope that trend continues. I’d much rather see dancers expressing themselves as they truly are than being forced into roles that limit them to a stereotype.