I wondered why men will generally take social dance class and not ballet or modern too. I am taking Viennese Waltz lessons at the French Embassy with about 200 people, half of them men. When we split from the women to learn the turns I realized that I was surrounded by men in a dance class and it was very strange. After a while I was aware of the social/sexual aspects of social dance class that is discouraged in modern and ballet class. In modern you dance by yourself most of the time and get approached by few during and after class. In the social dance setting women are coming up to me and asking me to dance and often telling me how much they like it when I take charge and twirl them around. I feel very manly.

That's so cool that 92Y blogged about your blog! Funny too, because I was going to take that class and opted for another one instead. Generally, I feel more comfortable at the Y than anywhere else -- the other studios I find very intimidating, particularly Steps on Broadway! The Y generally seems pretty mellow and the students non-competitive and non-judgmental. I used to take ballet with Merceditas Manago-Alexander (who was in that Sara Rudner thing we saw). I loved her class and she was an excellent teacher and I highly recommend her for ballet if you ever want to take that; ballet for me unfortunately just become too hard on my hips.

Drunk men at social dance competitions have told me that one of the reasons they love to take social is so they can put their hands all over women's bodies and have it be socially acceptable. Gross. This is one of the reasons so many women opt for the huge expense of private lessons; we HATE that. Men who take social dance are rarely very serious about actually learning to dance, yet most women are. It's very difficult to learn to dance when you have as partners people who just want to touch you in places they shouldn't be (you wouldn't believe how many men do not know what a shoulder blade is - that's where they're supposed to hold you, NOT farther down; you cannot "lead" someone by their butt) and aren't the least bit interested dance as an art form. It's really too bad that more men aren't.

first year professional training 1 guy to 24 girls!!

2-3rd years 4 guys to 20 girls!!

Yeah, and then you look at how many men head major dance companies vs women and suddenly the demographic completely flips. What's that about?

Here's some interesting research on dancenyc's site called The Gender Project: http://www.dancenyc.org/upload/chapter/407_Pdf_3_researchdata.pdf

What I meant to say above, and not sure if it was clear, is that I think the social dancing classes are not really about dance, to the men, though they are to the women. I also think homophobia has something to do with men not taking ballet and modern and those kinds of dance classes, at least in adulthood. I don't really understand it, but I've been told by a few that they're afraid of being around gay men in class.

Anna, that's really disturbing. Horribly, stats like that make me not want to like ballet as well as I do. I also feel, from what Neil said, that male dancers must have it so much easier than female. Makes me want to root for the women more.