[lbo-talk] Same-sex marriage and gender

[joanna bujes]

While I was composing my initial response to Woj, I couldn't help 
recollecting a scene from last summer. I was at Amira's restaurant on a 
Sunday night with my roommate/friend/belly dancing teacher, some other 
dancers in the troupe, and her partner (a young woman) who is a doumbek 
player. (Doumbek = persian hourglass shaped drum.) Being that it was a 
Sunday night, it was very slow. By nine o'clock the place was pretty 
much empty except for the dancers and the party I was with. As it was 
all among friends, the dancers and the musicians just decided to jam. At 
one point, my teacher, who is one of the most superb dancers I've seen 
in twenty years, got up and started doing a solo. Her girlfriend was 
playing doumbek and the other musicians were taking a break. (It's 
perfectly normal for a belly dancer to dance to a drum alone. )

So, my teacher was dancing, and her partner was drumming and there 
developed between the two of them a sort of dialog of dance and rhythm, 
each egging the other one, each challenging the other.  So far this is 
all normal belly dance stuff -- a good dancer needs to be present and 
totally responsive to the drummer who is at liberty to improvise, change 
tempos -- to challenge and support the dancer. In this case the dialog 
invoved a dancer and a musician, two women, and two lovers. There were 
points at which the whole experience -- including the erotic charge 
evolving between these two -- became simply ecstatic. And thinking about 
this months later, relative to this husband/wife thing, I realized I 
couldn't even begin to fit any kinds of labels to it. At first sight, 
the drummer appears to be the man -- relative to the feminine dancer. 
And yet, the point of drumming is to support, to create a context for 
the dancer. The dancer herself, was very far from the passive/retiring 
woman. She is, in fact, a very strong dancer; you look at her move and 
you become aware of a sensuality of steel, of a bent bow. Moreover, when 
she dances, she concentrates the entire focus of the room on her body 
and motion. There's no mistaking this for a lap dance. In their private 
lives too, they fall wide of stereotypes. The "drummer" is the 
peacemaker, supporter, mechanic, socially aware, and super sensitive 
one. The dancer is more the self-absorbed, driven, star -- the 
aggressive one -- the one who has no time to worry about feelings.

So, traditional gender roles are always available, but they're not 
necessarily taken up by hetero couples or same-sex couples...

For LOBsters in the bay area, check out Amira's Sunday night....or any 
night for that matter. It's a nice scene.

http://www.amiraistanbul.com/musicDance.html

Joanna