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(Music)
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(Applause)
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Trevor Copp: So when Dancing
With the Stars first hit the airwaves,
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that is not what it looked like.
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Jeff and I were full time
ballroom dance instructors
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when the big TV ballroom revival hit,
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and this was incredible.
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I mean, one day we would say "foxtrot"
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and people were like
"foxes trotting,"
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and the next day they were telling us
the finer points of a good feather step.
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And this blew our minds.
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I mean, all of the ballroom dance
geeking out that we had always done
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on why salsa worked differently
than the competitive rumba,
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and why tango traveled unlike the waltz,
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all of that
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just hit the public consciousness,
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and it changed everything.
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But running parallel to this excitement,
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the excitement that suddenly,
somehow, we were cool --
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(Laughter) --
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there was also this reservation.
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Why this, and why now?
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Jeff Fox: When Trevor and I
would get together for training seminars
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or just for fun,
we'd toss each other around,
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mix it up, take a break
from having to lead all the time.
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We even came with a system
for switching lead and follow
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while we were dancing as a way
of taking turns and playing fair.
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It wasn't until we used that system
as part of a performance
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in a small festival that we got
an important tap on the shoulder.
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Lisa O'Connell, a dramaturge and
director of a playwright center,
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pulled us aside after the show and said,
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"Do you have any idea
how political that was?"
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So that began an eight-year collaboration
to create a play which not only
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further developed our system for switching
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but also explored the impact
of being locked into a single role,
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and what's worse,
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being defined by that single role.
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TC: Because of course,
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classic Latin and ballroom dancing
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isn't just a system of dancing,
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it's a way of thinking, of being,
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of relating to each other
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that captured a whole period's values.
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There's one thing that stayed
consistent, though:
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the man leads
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and the woman follows.
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So street salsa, championship tango,
it's all the same:
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he leads, she follows.
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So this was gender training.
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You weren't just learning to dance.
You were learning to man and to woman.
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It's a relic,
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and in the way of relics,
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you don't throw it out, but you need
to know that this is the past.
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This isn't the present.
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It's like Shakespeare.
Respect it. Revive it. Great.
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But know that this is history.
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This doesn't represent how we think today.
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So we asked ourselves,
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if you strip it all down,
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what is at the core of partner dancing?
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JF: Well, the core principle
of partner dancing
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is that one person leads,
the other one follows.
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The machine works the same
regardless of who is playing which role.
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The physics of movement doesn't really
give a crap about your gender.
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So if we were to update the existing form,
we would need to make it
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more representative of how we interact
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here, now, in 2015.
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When you watch ballroom,
don't just watch what's there.
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Watch what's not.
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The couple is always only a man or a woman
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together.
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Only. Ever.
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So same sex and gender
nonconformist couples
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just disappear.
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In most mainstream international
ballroom competitions,
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same sex couples are rarely
recognized on the floor,
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and in many cases the rules
prohibit them completely.
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TC: Try this. Google Image
professional Latin dancer
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and then look for an actual Latino person.
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(Laughter)
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You'll be there for days.
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What you will get is page after page
of white straight Russian couples
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spray-tanned the point of mahogany.
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(Laughter)
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There are no black people,
there are no Asians,
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no mixed-race couples,
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so basically non-white people
just disappeared.
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Even within the white straight
couple only paradigm,
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she can't be taller,
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he can't be shorter.
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She can't be bolder,
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he can't be gentler.
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If you were to take
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a ballroom dance and translate that
into a conversation
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and drop that into a movie,
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we as a culture would
never stand for this.
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He dictates. She reacts.
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No relationship,
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gay, straight or anything
that we would regard
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as remotely healthy or functional
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looks like that,
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and yet somehow,
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you put it on primetime,
you slap some makeup on it,
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throw the glitter on,
put it out there as movement,
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not as text,
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and we as a culture
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tune in and clap.
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We are applauding our own absence.
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Too many people have disappeared
from partner dancing.
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(Music)
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(Applause)
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JF: Now you just saw
two man dancing together,
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and you thought
it looked a little strange,
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interesting, appealing even,
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but a little bit odd.
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Even avid followers of the same sex
ballroom circuit can attest
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that while same sex partner dancing
can be dynamic and strong and exciting,
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it just doesn't quite seem to fit.
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Aesthetically speaking,
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if Alita and I take the classic
closed ballroom hold,
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this is considered beautiful.
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(Laughter)
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But why not this?
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See, the standard image that the leader
must be larger and masculine
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and the follower smaller and feminine,
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this is a stumbling point.
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TC: So we wanted to look at this
from a totally different angle.
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So what if we could keep
the idea of lead and follow
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but toss the idea
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that this was connected to gender?
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Further, what if a couple
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could lead and follow each other
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and then switch
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and then switch back?
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What if it could be like a conversation,
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taking turns listening and speaking,
just like we do in life?
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What if we could dance like that?
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We call it liquid lead dancing.
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JF: Let's try this with a Latin dance,
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salsa.
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Now, in salsa, there's
a key transitional step
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called the cross-body lead.
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We use it as punctuation to break up
the improvisation.
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It can be a little tricky to spot
if you're not used to looking for it,
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so here it is.
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One more time for the cheap seats.
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(Laughter)
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And here's the action one more time,
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nice and slow.
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Now if we apply liquid lead thinking
to this transitional step,
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the cross-body lead becomes a point
where the lead and the follow
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can switch.
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The person who is following
can elect to take over the lead,
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or the person who is leading
can choose to surrender it,
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essentially making it
a counter-cross-body lead.
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Here's how that looks in slow motion.
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And here's how it looked when we danced it
in the opening dance.
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Now with this simple tweak,
the dance moves from being a dictation
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to a negotiation.
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Anyone can lead. Anyone can follow.
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And more importantly,
you can change your mind.
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Now this is only one example
of how this applies,
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but once the blinkers come off,
anything can happen.
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TC: So let's look at how
liquid lead thinking
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could apply to a classic waltz.
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Because of course,
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it isn't just a system of switching leads.
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It's a way of thinking
that can actually make the dance itself
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more efficient.
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So the waltz.
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The waltz is a turning dance.
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This means for the lead
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that you spend half of the dance
traveling backwards
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completely blind,
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and because of the follower's position,
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basically no one
can see where they're going.
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(Laughter)
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So you're out here on the floor,
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and then imagine that
coming right at you.
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JF: Raaaaaah.
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TC: There are actually a lot
of accidents out there that happen
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as a result of this blind spot.
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But what if the partners
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were to just allow for
a switch of posture for a moment?
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A lot of accidents could be avoided.
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Even if one person led the whole dance
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but allowed this switch to happen,
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it would be a lot safer
while at the same time
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offering new aesthetics into the waltz.
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Because physics doesn't give a damn
about your gender.
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JF: Now, we've danced liquid lead
in clubs, convention centers,
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and as part of First Dance, the play
we created with Lisa,
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on stages in North America and in Europe,
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and it never fails to engage.
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I mean, beyond the unusual sight
of seeing two men dancing together,
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it always evokes and engages.
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But why?
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The secret lies in what made Lisa see
our initial demonstration as political.
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It wasn't just that we were switching
lead and follow.
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It's that we stayed consistent
in our presence, our personality,
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and our power, regardless
of which role we were playing.
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We were still us.
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And that's where the true freedom lies,
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not just the freedom to switch roles,
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but the freedom from being defined
by whichever role you're playing,
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the freedom to always remain
true to yourself.
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Forget what a lead is supposed
to look like or a follow.
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Be a masculine follow
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or a feminine lead.
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Just be yourself.
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Obviously, this applies
off the dance floor as well,
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but on the floor it gives us
the perfect opportunity
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to update an old paradigm,
reinvigorate an old relic,
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and make it more representative
of our era and our current way of being.
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TC: Jeff and I dance partner dancing
all the time with women and men,
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and we love it,
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but we dance with a consciousness
that this is a historic form
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that can produce silence
and produce invisibility
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across the spectrum of identity
that we enjoy today.
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We invented liquid lead
as a way of stripping out
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all of the ideas that don't belong to us
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and taking partner dancing back
to what it really always was,
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the fine art of taking care of each other.
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(Music)
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(Applause)
Brian Greene
The subtitle beginning at 5:31 was corrected on 12/6/16.
5:31
spray-tanned the point of mahogany.
was changed to:
spray-tanned to the point of mahogany.