Many traditional couples dances have two roles: Leader and Follower. One person initiating most of the movement and one person following those invitations. In many dance scenes we see mostly men taking the role of the leaders and women taking the role of the followers. However this is not how we have to dance, especially in Lindy Hop! You can choose whichever role you want to learn or even learn both roles. Still many people choose to learn the stereotypical role for their gender and as you see many women taking the dance role as followers many of the classes offered at this event are about working on your following skills. However even though a minority, some women do choose to learn the leading role in the dance from the beginning and we want to welcome those to this workshop just as much. In general any person (no matter what gender) who has spent some time working on their follower skills, even if it is not their main role in the dance, is welcome to participate in the follower-focussed classes. And many other classes like Jumps & Turns, Solo Jazz, Tap Dance, Voguing and Burlesque will give you material to improve not only as a follower but as a dancer.

More on gender roles in dancing especially looking back at old clips and the history of the dance:

Check out all the women dancing both roles in 1939 at the World Fair in New York City!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB28EIKC4DE

And of course, how many of us have watched this awesome video of Al Minns and Leon James dancing together?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkqybUKt8mc

Interested in starting to learn Lindy hop and you want to learn both roles? Some schools offer you exactly that!
http://julepjazz.com/swing-in-vienna/

Listen to international dancers discuss the issue of gender roles in dance in the short IG Hop - Podcast ‘From the Top’
https://soundcloud.com/fromthetoppodcast/episode-5

Learn more about why we need to reflect on the language we use in our dance community (and while you’re at it in every other aspect of life as well!) to be more inclusive!

In this article:

Why it is important to rename the former “Jack & Jill” contest to something new like “Mix & Match”.
From the Article: ‘By using the phrase “Jack & Jill” we spread the message that the “right” way to dance Lindy Hop is for a male to lead and a female to follow. This doesn’t reflect how the dance is currently done.

The scene today has a large and growing number of women who lead, men who follow, and people dancing both roles. Increasingly dance classes and workshops are using gender-neutral language to encourage men and women to take on any role they wish.’

‘If you are LGBTQ in particular, you may finding it off-putting to watch a dance contest called a “Jack & Jill” and see mostly men leading and women following. What kind of message would this communicate to a gay or lesbian couple taking their first dance lesson? I think it would be that this dance isn’t for you.’

http://www.yehoodi.com/blog/2017/5/7/opinion-lets-rename-the-jack-and-jill-contest

Who are we talking about when we say we want to empower women?

Everyone who identifies as such. Everyone who maybe only partly or sometimes identifies as much but would love to get some sassiness going in their life! At this workshop when we talk about ‘being women’ or ‘being feminine’ we want to encourage and empower all the different aspects, shapes and ways femininities come in. To quote Sam Caroll an international instructor and DJ from Australia: http://dogpossum.org/2014/03/busy-ham-finds-time-to-rant-about-gender/#respond

“There are multiple ways of performing femininity and masculinity. Or, there are multiple femininities and masculinities, and these aren’t fixed or permanent. They are specific to particular moments in time, to particular cultures, ethnicities and demographics. Patriarchy tends to insist that there’s only one type of femininity and masculinity, and that these are the only desirable models. So femininity equates to delicate, sensual, passive, gentle, nurturing, caring, soft, hairless (except on your head), emotional, untechnological, natural, etc; masculine equates to aggressive, potentially violent, mechanical, intellectual/rational, etc etc. Both are necessarily heterosexual and interdependent.
In that setting, if you aren’t gentle/sensual/caring/etc, you’re not feminine.”

At Sassy Jazz we want to encourage and empower all the different ways one might feel or want to be feminine.

While talking about creating this event for ALL women and all different kinds of femininities it is also important to remind ourselves that not all women are coming from the same background and same previous experiences and therefore potentially want different kinds of empowerment. Especially looking at the swing dance scene women might have very different experiences due to the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, the gender they were assigned at birth and many other factors. As this event is created and this year predominantly taught by white cis-women we want to remind ourselves especially that we need to be constantly aware of our own privileges when we are bringing our feminism into class and on the stage and we ask all of the attendees to do the same.
This way to reflect on and act in your feminism is called intersectional feminism.

Read up on it here:
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/01/wtf-is-intersectional-feminism/