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Methodology and Resources

This section covers our methods, key definitions, gender resources, and credits to collaborators and funders.

State of the art

This work engages with the legacy and evolution of previous and current queering practices (such as switching, for example) as well as the academic discourses that interact with them. These often occur in scenes that are more permissive than the cisheteronormative DanceSport scene (West Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, or Equality DanceSport). For more information, please refer to the following scholarship:


•    Salsa: McMains (2008; 2013; 2015), Hutchinson (2014; 2018; 2007), Boulila (2020), Garcia (2013), Whitmore (2011), Skinner (2008), Ibarra (2019), Domeikyte (2020);
•    Lindy hop by Wade (2011) or West Coast Swing by O’Neill (2021);
•    Argentine or queer tango by McMains (2018b; 2018a), Plass (2022), Savigliano (1995), Liska (2018), Klein (2014), Davis (2015), Haller (2009; 2014), Hartmann (2002), Malask and Votruba (2011); 
•    Traditional dances by Kaminsky (2011), Helmersson (2020)(); 
•    Country dancing by Alexander (2018); 
•    Quebredita by Gonzalez (2023); 
•    Social ballroom dancing by Harman (2019) or Bosse (2015; 2007); 
•    Equality DanceSport by Wong (2024a; 2023; 2025; 2024b); 
•    And on partner dances in general, most notably by Kaminsky (2021) and Malnig (Malnig 2009). 


With Queering DanceSport, we aim to contribute to and extend this body of literature by addressing the cisheteronormative DanceSport scene specifically. We also aim to expand the literature on DanceSport, for example the work of McMains (2008; 2010; 2006; 2001), Picart (2006), Ericksen (2011; 2012), Marion (2008) and Richardson (2018), which does not discuss practical solutions for moving away from the ambient cisheteronormativity of the scene. 
Queering DanceSport is developing alongside many other projects. One of these is a forthcoming collection, Queering Partner Dance, which is being co-edited by Val Meneau and Sydney Hutchinson and will be published by Bloomsbury in 2026, featuring brand new chapters by established or emerging scholars on the dances discussed above. 
 
Alexander, Kathryn. 2018. ‘Politely Different: Queer Presence in Country Dancing and Music’. Yearbook for Traditional Music 50:187–209. https://doi.org/10.5921/yeartradmusi.50.2018.0187.
Bosse, Joanna. 2007. ‘Whiteness and the Performance of Race in American Ballroom Dance’. Journal of American Folklore 120 (475): 19–47.
———. 2015. Becoming Beautiful: Ballroom Dance in the American Heartland. University of Illinois Press.
Boulila, Stefanie Claudine. 2020. ‘Straight(Ening) Salsa? The Heterosexual Matrix, Romance and Disciplinary Spaces’. Leisure Studies 39 (4): 519–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2019.1703139.
Davis, Kathy. 2015. Dancing Tango: Passionate Encounters in a Globalizing World. New York: NYU Press.
Domeikyte, Evelina. 2020. ‘Gender in Motion: Exceeding Heteronormative Codes in Salsa Dancing’. Master’s thesis, OCAD University.
Ericksen, Julia. 2011. Dance With Me: Ballroom Dancing and the Promise of Instant Intimacy. NYU Press.
———. 2012. ‘Dancing the Body Beautiful’. Contexts 11 (2): 48–53.
Garcia, Cindy. 2013. Salsa Crossings: Dancing Latinidad in Los Angeles. Latin America Otherwise : Languages, Empires, Nations. Durham: Duke University Press.
Gonzalez, Irvin Manuel. 2023. ‘The Politics of Popular Movements’. In Dance in US Popular Culture, by Jennifer Atkins, 1st ed., 284–96. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003011170-48.
Haller, M. 2009. ‘“Verschmelzung”: Bürgerliches Paarideal Im Tango Argentino’. In Tango in Translation. Tanz Zwischen Medien, Kulturen, Kunst Und Politik, edited by G. Klein. transcript Verlag.
Haller, Melanie. 2014. Abstimmung in Bewegung: Intersubjektivität im Tango Argentino. TanzScripte 31. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Harman, Vicki. 2019. The Sexual Politics of Ballroom Dancing. Palgrave McMillan.
Hartmann, A. 2002. ‘Doing Tango – Performing Gender. Zur (De-)Konstruktion von Geschlechtsidentitäten in Literatur Und Tanz’. In Tanz, Theorie, Text, edited by G. Klein and C. Zipprich. LIT.
Helmersson, Linnea. 2020. ‘Swedish Folk Music and Dance – Vibrant but Contested’. Nätverket Etnologisk Tidskrift 22:25–42.
Hutchinson, Sydney. 2007. ‘When Women Lead: Changing Gender Roles in New York Salsa’. In . Paris.
———, ed. 2014. Salsa World: A Global Dance in Local Contexts. Studies in Latin American and Caribbean Music. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
———. 2018. ‘Followers Strike Back! The Dynamics of Dialogue in Contemporary Partner Dance’. In . Szeged, Hungary.
Ibarra, Jazmin. 2019. ‘Salsa Dancing: Exploring Ethnic and Gender Performances in Heteronormative and Queer Spaces’. Master’s thesis, San Francisco University.
Kaminsky, David. 2011. ‘Gender and Sexuality in the Polska: Swedish Couple Dancing and the Challenge of Egalitarian Flirtation’. Ethnomusicology Forum 20 (2): 123–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2011.587244.
———. 2021. Social Partner Dance Body, Sound, and Space. London: Routledge.
Klein, G. 2014. ‘Tanz Als Aufführung Des Sozialen. Zum Verhältnis von Gesellschaftsordnung Und Tänzerischer Praxis’. In Konzepte Der Tanzkultur. Wissen Und Wege Der Tanzforschung, edited by M. Bischof and C. Rosini. transcript Verlag.
Liska, María Mercedes. 2018. Argentine Queer Tango: Dance and Sexuality Politics in Buenos Aires. Music, Culture, and Identity in Latin America. Lanham: Lexington Books.
Malnig, Julie, ed. 2009. Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Marion, Jonathan. 2008. Ballroom: Culture and Costumes in Competitive Dance (Dress, Body, Culture). BergPublishers.
Maslak, Mary Ann, and Stanley Votruba. 2011. ‘“Two To Tango”: A Reflection on Gender Roles in Argentina’. Gender Forum, no. 36.
McMains, Juliet. 2001. ‘Brownface: Representations of Latin-Ness in Dancesport’. Dance Research Journal 33 (2): 54. https://doi.org/10.2307/1477804.
———. 2006. Glamour Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry. Wesleyan.
———. 2008. ‘Dancing Latin/Latin Dancing. Salsa and DanceSport’. In Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader, edited by Julie Malnig. University of Illinois Press.
———. 2010. ‘Rumba Encounters. Transculturation of Cuban Rumba in American and European Ballrooms’. In Making Caribbean Dance. Continuity and Creativity in Island Cultures, edited by Susanna Sloat. University Press of Florida.
———. 2013. ‘Hot Latin Dance: Ethnic Identity and Stereotype’. In The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity, edited by Anthony Shay. Oxford University Press.
———. 2015. Spinning Mambo into Salsa: Caribbean Dance in Global Commerce. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 2018a. ‘Queer Tango Space: Minority Stress, Sexual Potentiality, and Gender Utopias’. TDR/The Drama Review 62 (2): 59–77. https://doi.org/10.1162/DRAM_a_00748.
———. 2018b. ‘Rebellious Wallflowers and Queer Tangueras: The Rise of Female Leaders in Buenos Aires’ Tango Scene’. Dance Research 36 (2): 173–97. https://doi.org/10.3366/drs.2018.0237.
O’Neill, Brittney. 2021. ‘The Dance of Conversation: Gender and Language in Metaphors for West Coast Swing Partnership’. In .
Picart, Caroline. 2006. From Ballroom to DanceSport: Aesthetics, Athletics, and Body Culture. SUNY.
Plass, Arno. 2022. ‘Queer Tango: A Lesson in Dialogical Embodiment’. Cultural Studies 36 (5): 799–820. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2021.2012706.
Richardson, Niall. 2018. ‘“Whether You Are Gay or Straight, I Don’t like to See Effeminate Dancing”: Effeminophobia in Performance-Level Ballroom Dance’. Journal of Gender Studies 27 (2): 207–19.
Savigliano, Marta. 1995. Tango and the Political Economy of Passion. Institutional Structures of Feeling. Boulder: Westview Press.
Skinner, Jonathan. 2008. ‘Women Dancing Back—and Forth: Resistance and Self-Regulation in Belfast Salsa’. Dance Research Journal 40 (1): 65–77. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0149767700001376.
Wade, Lisa. 2011. ‘The Emancipatory Promise of the Habitus: Lindy Hop, the Body, and Social Change’. Ethnography 12 (2): 224–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138111398231.
Whitmore, Aleysia. 2011. ‘Bodies in Dialogue: Performing Gender and Sexuality in Salsa Dance’. In Women and Language: Essays on Gendered Communication across Media, edited by Melissa Ames and Sarah Himsel Burcon. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland.
Wong, Yen Nee. 2023. ‘Gender and Sexuality Performances Among LGBT+ Equality Dancers: Photo-Elicitation as a Method of Inquiry’. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 22 (October):16094069231182015. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069231182015.
———. 2024a. Equality Dancesport: Gender and Sexual Identities Matter. New York, NY: Routledge.
———. 2024b. ‘LGBT+ Ballroom Dancers and Their Shoes: Fashioning the Queer Self into Existence’. Current Sociology 72 (5): 946–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/00113921231182182.
———. 2025. ‘Equality DanceSport Doing Transgender Inclusivity in the United Kingdom: Cultural Cisgenderism and Transgender Experiences’. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 60 (1): 25–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/10126902241259342.

Definitions of terms

(Cis-)Heteronormativity

"A pervasive system of belief that centers and naturalizes heterosexuality and a binary system of assigned sex/gender when there are two rigid, distinct ways of being: assigned-male-at-birth masculine men and assigned-female-at-birth feminine women" (GSCC). 

Cultural Appropriation

Appropriation of “something of cultural value, usually a symbol or a practice, to others. […] The contextual conditions that can render acts of cultural appropriation more egregious include: the existence of a power imbalance between the cultural appropriator and those from whom the practice or symbol is appropriated; the absence of consent; and the presence of profit that accrues to the appropriator” (Lenard and Balint 2020).

Gender binary

"A socially constructed gender system in which gender is classified into two distinct and opposite categories. These gender categories are both narrowly defined and disconnected from one another. They are strictly enforced through rigid gender roles and expectations. Further, there is a hierarchy inherent to the classification, in which one gender, men/boys/masculinity, has access to power and privilege and the other, women/girls/femininity, is marginalized and oppressed. These classifications are seen as immutable; those assigned male at birth should identify as men and embody masculinity, and those assigned female at birth should identify as women and embody femininity. This binary system excludes nonbinary, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming individuals. All people are harmed by the gender binary system, but your place within the system determines the degree and quality of harm. The gender binary is weaponized through conquest, colonization, and continued occupation of indigenous peoples’ lands. The gender binary system is inherently violent and foregrounds all gender-based oppression" (GSCC).

Homophobia

"The irrational fear, hatred, and intolerance of gay and/or queer people. Sometimes used as an umbrella term encompassing phobias associated with marginalized sexual and gender identities" (GSCC). 

Hypersexualization

‘Accentuating of one’s sexuality in such a way as to make it extraordinarily sexual,’ also modifying girls’ appearance towards erotization (Liotard and Jamain-Samson 2011, 63).

Latin DanceSport

DanceSport is the competitive counterpart to ballroom dancing. It comprises two disciplines, Standard (featuring Slow Waltz, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Slow Fox, and Quickstep) and Latin (with Samba, Cha Cha Cha, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive). 

Male gaze

Consistent imagery deployed by Western media ‘of female corporeity in Western culture,’ which is ‘constructed and developed through a gender ideology at the service of the institutions of patriarchy, and covertly disseminated through the imposed and controlling definition of the “ideal” model of the female body.’ The exposure and objectification of women’s bodies in Western society socially constructed, created, and disseminated in the media to satisfy the men watching them (Ponterotto 2016, 134). 

Male supremacy

Ideology that ‘governs how the sexes are socialized (males to aggression, force, and efficacy and females to passivity, virtue, and obedience)’ (Waylen et al. 2013, 40).

Non-binary

"A gender identity term for a person who identifies outside of the gender binary. Non-binary is also conceptualized as an array of genders at some distance form the gender binary. Non-binary is sometimes written as “nonbinary.” A common abbreviation for non-binary is enby" (GSCC).

Objectification

Treating ‘a human being as a “thing,” disregarding [their] personality, autonomy, and sentience.’ Sexual objectification is by extension the tendency to ‘focus on women’s appearances in a sexualised way while ignoring women’s personalities’ (Ramsey, Marotta, and Hoyt 2017, 259) (2012, 1). 

Sexism

“Subjectively favorable and unfavorable attitudes (toward both sexes) that reinforce gender inequality. This new framework focuses on how sexist attitudes, both explicit and implicit, reconcile male dominance with intimate heterosexual interdependence. Sexist beliefs not only influence expectations about each sex, but prescribe how men and women ‘should’ behave. Favorable emotional and behavioral reactions reward members of each sex when they conform to gender-traditional traits, while gender ‘deviants’ are punished. Thus, although ambivalent and context dependent, sexist attitudes serve a common goal: to reinforce traditional gender role and power distinctions” (Glick and Rudman 2010). 

Transphobia

"Fear, hatred, and intolerance of transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming people, or those who break, blur, or transgress assigned gender roles and the gender binary" (GSCC).

Transgender or trans*

"A gender identity term for an individual whose gender identity does not match or is at some distance from the gender identity assumed based on their birth-assigned sex. For some folks, transgender and/or trans are considered to be umbrella terms" (GSCC).

Methodology

Why queering DanceSport?

Previous academic work on the heteronormative gender binary in Latin DanceSport has detailed how gendered performances are on the competitive dance floor. Prejudices about gender affect every element of the dance – from the competition rules that define who can dance with whom, to the judging criteria, the clothes dancers wear, but also the dance itself; the steps, the technique, the partnering mechanisms. Many of these elements require explicit work to reproduce, limiting what Latin dance can look like (Richardson 2018; Meneau 2020; 2023; 2024).

​

Inspired by Foucault's idea that power can only exist in relation to resistance, and Butler's idea that the citationality of gender is also its potential for subversion, this publication explores ways to queer DanceSport, that is, to reappropriate the vocabulary of dance while deconstructing any element that perpetuates the heteronormative gender binary (Foucault 1976; Butler 2004). Our aim is to expose and critique the constructions and mechanisms of power, knowledge and norms in DanceSport – and dare to imagine another world, another way of using dance principles and making something new out of it. 

 

Why did we choose this format?

This kind of digital publication is nowhere to be found. In the dance scene, work on deconstructing the heteronormative gender binary tends to take place behind closed doors. This contributes to the invisibilisation of queer dance practices in DanceSport. Furthermore, this empirical work is not systematised: there is an awareness of the need to deconstruct the heteronormative gender binary, but it is not based on academic research. In contrast, this digital publication aims to make visible a wide range of queering practices, while helping to highlight the mechanisms of productive and disciplinary power that produce the heteronormative gender binary in Latin DanceSport. 

 

Not only is there a need to make this work accessible to a wider audience, but we also believe that the format of a digital publication is the most appropriate. We want to make the results available to anyone who might be interested, including the dance world itself. As the barriers to academic publication are likely to make it difficult for dance enthusiasts, be they social dancers, competitors, professionals or ex-dancers, to access this work, we have designed this digital publication to reach out to the community and slowly work towards change through channels they already use and are familiar with. This format is also interesting because of the common difficulty of reducing dance to written and spoken language. Val and Giulia's research is about gendered performances in dance and it is difficult to imagine what the authors are talking about just by reading the words. However, it follows the usual academic format, with empirical examples from our own practice research that illustrate the points we make on a discursive level.

 

Where does our knowledge come from? 

The website is grounded in years of in-depth academic and movement-based research on the heteronormative gender binary in Latin DanceSport. This knowledge is distilled into several tools, each focusing on a different aspect of hegemony. The tools combine our personal experiences as members of oppressed groups in DanceSport and our own practice research with the academic knowledge that Val has been working on for the last seven years. Conducting their PhD fieldwork at the intersection of queer, gender and critical dance studies, they have gathered, structured and presented a plethora of data which they have published or are about to publish in academic publications. This publication is based on fieldwork and interviews conducted by Val and Giulia over four years in Europe and North America; discourse analysis of judging criteria, technique books, syllabus books; and dance analysis of dance lectures and dance performances.

 

In Val’s first book, entitled DanceSport’s Economy of Desire: A Queer Feminist Perspective (forthcoming with Bloomsbury), they argue that the DanceSport dispositive, Foucault's term for a network of power, creates and maintains an economy of desire that shapes the possibilities, desires and choices of its actors. This economy of desire leads to the reproduction of the heteronormative gender binary in Latin dance performances. In this way, the dispositive manages to shape Latin dance, despite resistance and counter-movements, by excluding or invisibilizing queerness and objectifying and sexualising female dancers. Val focused on the dance itself (the explicit rules published by the federations, the judging situation, the clothes the dancers wear, but also the actual dance; the steps, the technique, the partnering mechanisms). In this work they showed that women are encouraged to sexualise themselves, while queer people are excluded or required to erase their queerness to take part in competitions. If you want to know more about this, we suggest you wait for the book or read Val’s academic publications!

​

Beyond our academic research, our positionalities and experiences in DanceSport inform our work. As a cis woman and a non-binary trans* femme, we have both suffered from the hegemonic normativities applied to the expression of our gender and sexuality. So the kind of knowledge we bring to the work can be tapped into through autoethnography, a critical methodology that combines personal experience with ethnographic analysis of the situations in which that experience occurred. Autoethnography “offers fertile ground for interrogating dominant theoretical stances and hegemonic paradigms, and furthering social justice aims” (Lapadat 2017). We seek to analyse socially unjust practices, challenge “taken-for-granted knowledges that continue to marginalise, oppress and/or take advantage” of those excluded from the norm, and generate new practices for transformation. We aim to “‘disturbs the order of things’” (Jones and Harris 2018, 4), and not only on a theoretical level, but also on a practical one. Our practical experience also shines through in our practice-based research (Vear, Candy, and Edmonds 2021) – something we have both dabbled in, but in which Giulia has much more experience. Check out her artistic work! 

 

How to use the toolbox?

Two things to note before moving on: first, this knowledge is not ours alone. The academic research is indebted to the countless informants who agreed to share their knowledge in interviews, while we acknowledge many practices by queer feminist communities that came before us (about switching roles, for instance.) We did not invent most of these tools. We are bringing them to a wider audience; we are playing with them; we are exploring how they can liberate us. And secondly, we do not intend to crystallise the tools into a new normal, but to offer ways of imagining what DanceSport might look like. But we insist, based on academic research, that such an exploration is necessary. What your own exploration looks like is up to you, and ultimately we need a wealth of ideas to move beyond oppression in DanceSport. Finally, we specialise in Latin DanceSport, and some of our insights will be transferable to Standard - but you are free and welcome to build up on this discussion!

Bibliography and resources

Methodology

  • Butler, Judith. 2004. Undoing Gender. Routledge.

  • Foucault, Michel. 1976. Histoire de La Sexualité, Vol. 1: La Volonté de Savoir. Gallimard.

  • Glick, Peter, and Laurie A. Rudman. 2010. ‘Sexism’. In The SAGE Handbook of Prejudice, Stereotyping and Discrimination, by John Dovidio, Miles Hewstone, Peter Glick, and Victoria Esses, 328–44. 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road, London EC1Y 1SP United Kingdom: SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446200919.n20.

  • Gender and Sexuality Campus Centre (GSCC). Glossary. Michigan State University.

  • Jones, Stacy Holman., and Anne M. Harris. 2018. Queering Autoethnography. Routledge.

  • Lapadat, Judith C. 2017. ‘Ethics in Autoethnography and Collaborative Autoethnography’. Qualitative Inquiry, 1–15.

  • Lenard, Patti Tamara, and Peter Balint. 2020. ‘What Is (the Wrong of) Cultural Appropriation?’ Ethnicities 20 (2): 331–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796819866498.

  • Liotard, Philippe, and Sandrine Jamain-Samson. 2011. ‘La « Lolita » et La « sex Bomb », Figures de Socialisation Des Jeunes Filles. L’hypersexualisation En Question’. Sociologie et Sociétés 43 (1): 45–71. https://doi.org/10.7202/1003531ar.

  • Meneau, Val. 2020. ‘Coding Sexual Violence as Love – Choreographed Heteronormative Gender Performances in Latin American Competitive Dancing’. Journal of Gender Studies 29 (8): 962–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2020.1823824.

  • ———. 2023. ‘DanceSport’s Economy of Desire – a Dispositive Analysis of the Heteronormative Gender Binary in Latin American Competitive Dancing’. PhD Dissertation, University of Salzburg.

  • ———. 2024. ‘Queer Dancers’ Experiences in the Dancesport World: Exclusion, Invisibilisation, and Assimilation’. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion 43 (9).

  • Ponterotto, Diane. 2016. ‘Resisting the Male Gaze: Feminist Responses to the “Normatization” of the Female Body in Western Culture.’ Journal of International Women’s Studies 17 (1): 133–51.

  • Ramsey, Laura R., Justin A. Marotta, and Tiffany Hoyt. 2017. ‘Sexualized, Objectified, but Not Satisfied: Enjoying Sexualization Relates to Lower Relationship Satisfaction through Perceived Partner-Objectification’. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 34 (2): 258–78. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407516631157.

  • Richardson, Niall. 2018. ‘“Whether You Are Gay or Straight, I Don’t like to See Effeminate Dancing”: Effeminophobia in Performance-Level Ballroom Dance’. Journal of Gender Studies 27 (2): 207–19.

  • Vandenbosch, Laura, and Steven Eggermont. 2012. ‘Understanding Sexual Objectification: A Comprehensive Approach Toward Media Exposure and Girls’ Internalization of Beauty Ideals, Self-Objectification, and Body Surveillance: Media, Adolescent Girls, and Self-Objectification’. Journal of Communication 62 (5): 869–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01667.x.

  • Vear, Craig, Linda Candy, and Ernest Edmonds. 2021. The Routledge International Handbook of Practice-Based Research. 1st ed. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429324154.

  • Waylen, Georgina, Karen Celis, Johanna Kantola, and Laurel Weldon, eds. 2013. Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199751457.013.0004.

Switching

  • Kaminsky, David. 2021. Social Partner Dance Body, Sound, and Space. London: Routledge.

  • McMains, Juliet. 2006. Glamour Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry. Wesleyan.

  • Meneau, Val. 2020. ‘Coding Sexual Violence as Love – Choreographed Heteronormative Gender Performances in Latin American Competitive Dancing’. Journal of Gender Studies 29 (8): 962–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2020.1823824.

  • ———. 2024. ‘Queer Dancers’ Experiences in the Dancesport World: Exclusion, Invisibilisation, and Assimilation’. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion 43 (9).

  • ———. 2025. DanceSport’s Economy of Desire: A Queer Feminist Perspective. Bloomsbury Academic.

  • Robinson, Danielle. 2015. Modern Moves. Dancing Race During the Ragtime and Jazz Eras. OUP.

  • Wong, Yen Nee. 2024. Equality Dancesport: Gender and Sexual Identities Matter. New York, NY: Routledge.

  • Young, Iris Marion. 2001. ‘Justice and the Politics of Difference’. In The New Social Theory Reader, edited by Steven Seidman and Jeffrey C. Alexander, 2nd ed. Routledge.

Desexualising

  • Kaminsky, David. 2021. Social Partner Dance Body, Sound, and Space. London: Routledge.

  • McMains, Juliet. 2001. ‘Brownface: Representations of Latin-Ness in Dancesport’. Dance Research Journal 33 (2): 54. https://doi.org/10.2307/1477804.

  • ———. 2013. ‘Hot Latin Dance: Ethnic Identity and Stereotype’. In The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity, edited by Anthony Shay. Oxford University Press.

  • Meneau, Val. 2020. ‘Coding Sexual Violence as Love – Choreographed Heteronormative Gender Performances in Latin American Competitive Dancing’. Journal of Gender Studies 29 (8): 962–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2020.1823824.

  • ———. 2024. ‘Queer Dancers’ Experiences in the Dancesport World: Exclusion, Invisibilisation, and Assimilation’. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion 43 (9).

  • ———. 2025. DanceSport’s Economy of Desire: A Queer Feminist Perspective. Bloomsbury Academic.

  • Young, Iris Marion. 2001. ‘Justice and the Politics of Difference’. In The New Social Theory Reader, edited by Steven Seidman and Jeffrey C. Alexander, 2nd ed. Routledge.

Embodying / moving

  • Boenisch, Peter. KörPERformance 1.0 Theorie Und Analyse von Körper- Und Bewegungsdarstellungen Im Zeitgenössischen Theater. ePodium Verlag, 2002.

  • Butler, Judith. ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’. Theatre Journal 40, no. 4 (December 1988): 519–31.

  • ———. Undoing Gender. Routledge, 2004.

  • Chang Dong. ‘THE CAMP 2017 Latin Lecture on Female Dance by Svetlana Tverianovich - YouTube’, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBB__tsDFG0.

  • Foucault, Michel. Surveiller et Punir. Naissance de La Prison. Gallimard, 1975.

  • Judith Lynne Hanna. Dance, Sex and Gender. Signs of Identity, Dominance, Defiance, and Desire. University of Chicago Press, 1988.

  • Kaminsky, David. Social Partner Dance: Body, Sound, and Space. London: Routledge, 2021.

  • Meneau, Val. DanceSport’s Economy of Desire: A Queer Feminist Perspective. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.

  • Richardson, Niall. ‘“Whether You Are Gay or Straight, I Don’t like to See Effeminate Dancing”: Effeminophobia in Performance-Level Ballroom Dance’. Journal of Gender Studies 27, no. 2 (2018): 207–19.

  • Sietas, Marco, Natasa Ambroz, Davide Cacciari, Olga Cacciari, Fabio Bosco, Marina Ferrari, Saverio Loria, and Zeudi Zanetti. WDSF Samba. 2nd ed. Grafiche BIME, 2013.

Further readings

  • Bonner, Frances, ed. Imagining Women: Cultural Representations and Gender. Repr. Cambridge: Polity Press u.a, 1995.

  • Bosse, Joanna. Becoming Beautiful: Ballroom Dance in the American Heartland. University of Illinois Press, 2015.

  • Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. Routledge, 1999.

  • Connell, Raewyn W., and Rebecca Pearse. Gender: In World Perspective. John Wiley & Sons / POLITY PR, 2014.

  • Desmond, Jane, ed. Dancing Desires: Choreographing Sexualities on and off the Stage. Studies in Dance History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001.

  • Ericksen, Julia. Dance With Me: Ballroom Dancing and the Promise of Instant Intimacy. NYU Press, 2011.

  • Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World. Routledge, 2012.

  • Foster, Susan Leigh. ‘Choreographies of Gender’. Signs 24, no. 1 (1998): 1–33.

  • Foucault, Michel. Surveiller et Punir. Naissance de La Prison. Gallimard, 1975.

  • Harman, Vicki. The Sexual Politics of Ballroom Dancing. Palgrave McMillan, 2019.

  • Kammeyer, Kenneth C. W. A Hypersexual Society: Sexual Discourse, Erotica, and Pornography in America Today. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2008. 

  • Kuhn, Annette. The Power of the Image: Essays on Representation and Sexuality. 1st ed. Routledge, 2013. 

  • Lloyd, Moya. ‘Power, Politics, Domination, and Oppression’. In The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics, edited by Georgina Waylen, Karen Celis, Johanna Kantola, and Laurel Weldon, 111–34. Oxford University Press, 2013. 

  • Malnig, Julie, ed. Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

  • Marion, Jonathan. Ballroom: Culture and Costumes in Competitive Dance (Dress, Body, Culture). BergPublishers, 2008.

  • ———. ‘Rumba Encounters. Transculturation of Cuban Rumba in American and European Ballrooms’. In Making Caribbean Dance. Continuity and Creativity in Island Cultures, edited by Susanna Sloat. University Press of Florida, 2010.

  • Mulvey, Laura. ‘Unmasking the Gaze: Some Thoughts on New Feminist Film Theory and History’. In Lectora 7: Revista de Dones i Textualitat. Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2001.

  • Oksala, Johanna. ‘Microphysics of Power’. In The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, edited by Lisa Jane Disch and Mary Hawkesworth. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

  • Picart, Caroline. From Ballroom to DanceSport: Aesthetics, Athletics, and Body Culture. SUNY, 2006.

Credits

Funder

Austrian Science Fund (FWF)

Concept, research, performance

Val Meneau & Giulia Settomini

 

The FWF funds the production of the website and media content, but not the work that goes into creating the content, which amounts to thousands of hours of unpaid labour that goes into researching, writing, editing, translating, choreographing, managing social media, conceptualising. 

Webdesign

Kalena Designs

Switching

Maja Karolina Franke – Performance

Vedran Nedelkovski – Performance 

Silas Isenmann – Videography

Carina Armes – Photography 

Volkskundemuseum Wien – Location 

Lena Fletcher - Coordination

Desexualising

Silas Isenmann – Videography

Carina Armes – Photography 

Volkskundemuseum Wien – Location 

Lena Fletcher - Coordination

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