For most of my life as a dancer--honestly, in most spaces I occupy--I usually am the first or only of some demographic I belong to in a given space. Throughout college this was pretty common: I was the first male to ever join the Knox College Dance Squad, which led to me becoming the first black/male co-captain (interim) of the dance squad in its 16-year history. (To this day I am the only male that has been an active member of the dance squad for all four undergraduate years and the only male co-captain.) Alongside that during my senior year, I began living my life as an openly gay man, and for that I was the first openly gay undergraduate member in the history of my fraternity's chapter (which was the campus' predominantly white male fraternity comprised 98% of sports athletes; clearly, you-know-who represented the 2%). Hence, choreographing for and performing at the halftime presentations during football and basketball games were important acts for multiple reasons. Not to mention, I was also the Greek Affiliate and Small Group Leader for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and a mentor and tutor in TRIO Achievement Programs (national organization for first-generation college-bound and college undergraduate students), and treasurer for the Knox College Class of 2012 (two of the four of us were LGBTQ, but I was the only POC); every time I hit the stage I brought all of these parts of me to the performance. As cool as this may sound, it brought many challenges. At first I couldn’t perform in Dance Squad because they did not have uniforms for men, and the captains and choreographers weren’t sure if the choreography would be well received with a male dancer. Sometimes I would feel insecure about sticking out so much, hoping I would be able to deliver as a team player, and that the audience would enjoy the performance without considering all of my “stats”. To my surprise, classmates, coworkers, mentees, and administrators--male and female, heterosexual and non--would tell me that it was the first time they saw someone like me/themselves/us in that space and how much they appreciated it--added with “BOI, you dance your A** off!!”
Living intersectionally--that is, dealing with being a marginalized person in a combination of oppressive systems--definitely presents more challenges than it does championing moments, but that is what makes those winning moments matter so much. Take into account the National Football League’s first male cheerleaders: Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies of the Los Angeles Rams Cheer Team and Jesse Hernández of the New Orleans Saintsations. Last weekend during the NFC championship game, I was able to watch something I had only dreamed of seeing: all 3 men being on the sidelines dancing and cheering for the teams from their homelands, ensuring the fact that we would see a male cheerleader performing at SuperBowl LIII. It was such a validating moment to behold. In 2017, I auditioned for a professional sports dance team only comprised of women. They have all-male hip-hop and ambigender stunts counterpart teams, but the dance style that I prefer and had experienced in college is what the all-female team does. The audition and the clinic classes leading to it were open to men participating; however, before the last run of choreography in the first round of auditions, the sport team’s director of entertainment stated how dancers chosen for the team are charged to uphold the brand and image of the organization in addition to dancing well. At that moment, being one of three men in an audition pool of over 150 dancers--and none of us men were similar in build or performance quality, nor were we participants of the clinic classes that apparently allow you automatic access into the next round--I knew the chances of advancing were practically nonexistent. And none of us did. Though it was a hard lesson to learn, it did not discourage me, and knowing that Napoleon and Quinton will be on television and computer screens all over the world within a year’s time of them joining the Rams Cheer Team gives me all the motivation I need to audition again this summer.
In their--Quinton, Napoleon, and team captain Emily Leibert--interview with Good Morning America in March 2018, Emily discussed how the two men are great fits for the team and as ambassadors for the Rams community. Looking at all the social media story posts of the two with the teammates and at performances, you would think they have been received well by Rams and NFL fans. However, numerous comments in YouTube video for their interview (see here → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-95Yxs7FZI) reveal how resistant these fans are to this progressive moment. (NOTE: Most of these brash comments came from cisgender “heterosexual” white and black men. A deeper conversation for a different post, but it definitely proves relevant to our discussion of intersectionality.) In an interview about joining the Saintsations, Jesse Hernández spoke the following gospel pertaining to the backlash of adding male cheerleaders:
“There’s always going to be a first of something, so when that ‘first’ happens, it’s different to a lot of people and they don’t know how to react to it. Hopefully--and I believe this will happen--it will become a normality, and it’ll be normal for people to just do what they love. I love to dance; I want to be out there supporting the team I grew up with. So why not?! I mean, this is something I love to do, and this is something that I have been training for since the age of two. I mean, I can’t complain; this is my career. This is my job that I want to do: to spread dance knowledge and love.”
Let's open the conversation! How often have you experienced being the “guinea pig” in a dance collective due to your gender, race, or other non-mutable identifying trait? What draws you to being in spaces that others in your demographic do not normally occupy? What do you think the addition of Quinton, Napoleon, and Jesse will lead to regarding all professional sports dance teams? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, or e-mail me your responses to this article at averybrandon0812@gmail.com. Thank you for your time, and stay elevé-ted!
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