This presentation will explore visual and textual narratives documenting the significance of male homosocial dance activity in social environments outside or on the fringes of “civilized” heteronormative urban, rural, commercial and/or industrialized society. Accepting social dance as one of the most visible signifiers of ritualized and/or leisure activity essential to domestic heteronormativity, I propose that homosocial dance in frontier milieus at once confirms the central role of dance in civil society while at the same time challenges conventional gender roles, eliminates gender- and racial-based divisions of labor, and blurs the lines between homosocial and homosexual engagement. I also contend that acknowledgement, but not the existence, of the centrality of homosocial dance in frontier societies all but disappeared with the end of the American frontier itself and the imposition of the indisputable heterosexual identity of American culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
My focus will be on frontier societies established and occupied primarily by American men in the 18th through early 20th centuries, but will include references to the colonial period and to late-20th and contemporary 21st century references. Societal and cultural issues raised by and investigation of homosocial dance activity in the lives of sailors, whalers, and boatmen, soldiers, miners (significantly the 49ers of California Gold Rush), and cowboys will be discussed as well as the largely resistant response of Eurocentric slave traders, explorers, colonists and missionaries to homosocial dance among populations of the marginalized societies of African slaves and indigenous peoples of the Americas and Oceania.
Narratives in support of my contention will be drawn from primary source materials including letters, journals, diaries, missionary and expeditionary accounts, etc., and from works of American literature, painting and photography.
About the presenterAndrew M Wentink
A graduate of Middlebury College and Columbia University, Andrew Wentink began his career as Manuscript Archivist at the Dance Collection of the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center. Until 2013, he was Curator of Special Collections & Archives at Middlebury College, where he taught for American Studies, Film/Media Culture, and Dance. He is a writer, editor, cultural historian, documentary filmmaker, and recently started his own imprint, TurningPointPress. He is currently writing a book on drag.