There are a number of people who have helped contribute to this. Most notably are Carl Wittman with his global terminology and leadership of English and Scottish Country dancing in Oregon and North Carolina, Chris Ricciotti with Contra and Square dancing in New England, along with others including Alan Troxler with English Country Dancing in North Carolina, Cindy Green who used methods of teaching dance without reference to gender for occasional Girl Scout and gay country dances during the 1970s and 80s – including at the Boston Gay Folk Dance Club (1981), Carol Ormand with the Les be Gay and Dance community in Minnesota, and Michael Cicone with English country dancing.

Carl Wittman – the development of Gender-Free English and Scottish Country Dancing

Carl Wittman, a certified RSCDS (Royal Scottish Country Dance Society) instructor, started teaching Scottish country dancing in the San Francisco area about 1970. Carl was very involved in the gay political movements of that era. Carl loved Scottish country dancing and brought his male partner and danced with him at some of these events, much to the dismay and disapproval of that community. Carl eventually left San Francisco in the early 1970s and traveled up the coast to the artists community of Wolf Creek, Oregon where he settled in Golden, Oregon with his partner, Alan Troxler. Carl became involved in the newly emerging intentional communities of gay men and lesbians in that area. He started a local community dance in his barn in Golden, Oregon, pulling in people from that community, as well as families from around the area. His dance ended up being a mixture of families, gay men, lesbians and friends.

At first Carl taught English and Scottish country dancing in the tradition he had learned, identifying dancers by their gender role and using gender language. He allowed anyone to dance with whomever they wished and in any role they chose, but he used the conventional gender language to identify these roles. Sometime thereafter, Alan challenged Carl to change this convention, and come up with something that was more appropriate for their community. Carl changed his role identification system to “Reds” and “Greens” (the traditional men’s role wearing a red ribbon and the traditional women’s role wearing a blue one). Eventually he further changed this to “left file” (men’s role) and “right file” (woman’s role) dancers.

Carl travelled around Oregon, starting other dance communities using this newly developed style of global terminology for leading English and Scottish country dancing. Carl also developed a new way to approach lining up for each dance. He advocated for dancers to come individually to the set and fill in the next available space. This method ensures that everyone will have someone to dance with and addressed the sometimes-awkward practice of asking someone to dance, particularly with folks new to the dance. Carl was also the masterful dance leader and principle choreographer for the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon in 1980.

The Durham, NC Gender-Free English Country Dance Community

Carl’s partner, Alan Troxler, moved to Durham, NC in the early 1980s and shortly thereafter, Carl followed, leaving behind communities of dancers who eventually came together to organize themselves into the “Heather and the Rose”. While in Durham, NC, Carl started new groups of English and Scottish Country dances, some of whom still teach in Carls style.

Sadly, Carl died in 1986 of AIDS leaving behind his active role in political activism and a legacy of dance communities who embrace his philosophy of dancing and community to this day.

More about Carl’s work.

What was most interesting about Carl’s work, particularly with the Heather and the Rose community, is that he was using this style of gender-free terminology long before there were any other established dance communities of this kind in that area. These dancers had no other point of reference to work from and Carl’s philosophy and leadership style became the established tradition of that region.

Other dance leaders eventually settled in Oregon and organized their own English and Scottish Country dances using conventional gender terminology. Dancers from these new groups would occasionally run into one of Carl’s communities.

I first visited and danced with the Heather and the Rose in the Autumn of 1992. While there, I became a witness to some of the challenges the Heather and the Rose occasionally faced from dancers visiting from other communities. During one afternoon class, one of these dancers asked Dorothy Jackson (Atteneve), who was leading, to change to using convention gender identification, stating that it would be a lot easier and less confusing. A couple of folks from the Heather and the Rose called out “Don’t do it Dorothy.” The response was gentle and direct, “This is the tradition that we dance here.”

What these visiting dancers hadn’t initially understood was that the dancers from Carls community were just as comfortable dancing their tradition as the visiting dancers have been dancing with gender identification. There was no confusion for them. It was what they knew.

Dancers from the Heather and the Rose communities have danced in communities where conventional gender terminology is used. Some reported to me that they felt the rules, standing on one side of the set or the other based on gender, as well as coming to the set with a partner, to be confining compared to what they were used to their own community. They said that in these communities, the expectation was that you come to the dance with someone of the opposite sex. If you attempted to dance with someone of the same gender or a friend, but were standing on the “wrong” side, you ran the risk of being pushed into the correct spot thinking a mistake had been made. If you brought someone of the same gender, the leadership or the dancers often would find another partner for them, thinking they were confused.

These rules and limits proved unsatisfactory to a number of dancers who were raised on Carls tradition. Some people dance in both communities; many feel more committed to one style or another.

Boston Gay and Lesbian Folk Dancers (1977-1985)

Dee Michel and others at Harvard University got together and organized an international folk dance group specifically for gays and lesbians on the campus of Harvard University. More information will be forthcoming on this section. There is some wonderful footage of this dance group that has recently been posted on YouTube which can be viewed:

http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz3QWQ8u3vg
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=n7xfCMaz3n8

A number of the dancers from this group went on 8 or so years later to dance with the Jamaica Plain and LCFD Gender-Free Dance community, and many of them are still dancing with us today.

Les be Gay and Dance –

(Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota) using no reference to gender (1981 – 1998)

Les be Gay and Dance was likely the 1st organized ongoing Gay and Lesbian contra dance series in the United States. Starting in 1981, they developed a style of dance terminology where no reference was made to gender, not even by role identification. This style came out of the group founder whose philosophy was being completely free of any of the restrictions that our society places on gender – as a political statement.

At first, they used contra dances that were completely symmetrical and didn’t contain movements that were specific by role. Eventually as more callers came to lead their dancing, they developed creative ideas on how to introduce more complex dances within this structure. Carol Ormand was one of the callers who took on this challenge and who had success at bridging this gap. Despite this, the limitations of this convention continued to be frustrating, particularly to dancers who had some experience and were dancing in other communities.

The group leaders were so adamant about having no reference to gender that even when improper contra dances were called, there was no mention of crossing over at the ends, nor where or how to end in a swing, (unless it was with your neighbor where they used the term “swing and change”). If a dancer ended up on the “wrong” side of the swing their response was, “it doesn’t matter, just dance it from whatever position you end up in.” For the ‘ladies’ chain, they called it a “right hand chain”.

Though this dance was very popular in the gay community from a social and political standpoint, eventually the limitations and frustrations from this style took its toll. Dancers who grew in this community and then danced at other local dances, or who originally came from other conventional dance communities, felt the level of dancing was not as satisfying as in the other communities. Many of the experienced level dancers eventually left the group. New folks kept coming in, but without the support of the more experienced dancers, sadly, this group folded around 1998. There had been some discussion among the more experienced dancers of that community to start another gay/gender-free dance without these restrictions. In 2011, Mike La Fleur, a long time dancer from the Jamaica Plain, MA gender-free contra dance community, moved to St. Paul and started a new gender-free contra dance series. I understand that they do use some form of identification for each role in this new series.

Chris Ricciotti – the Development of Gender-Free Contra and Square Dancing in New England

I fell in love with dance at the age of 6 when traditional square dancing was introduced to him in Phys Ed. There was a strong element of square dancing in Phys Ed all through the Coventry, RI school system. In 1978 I found out about the 4-H square dances from friends in high school, and started dancing there. Eventually I was asked to try my hand at calling traditional singing squares for competition with 4-H 1979. Soon I found himself enjoying calling as much as I loved to dance. After leaving 4-H, I started a number of his own square dance groups including a Friday night and Saturday night square dance series at the Summit Baptish Church hall in 1982 and 1983. In 1983, I discovered Modern Western Square dancing under the leadership of Dick Ledger. In 1984, through an ad that Isabel Barton had posted in the Providence Journal, I discovered New England Style Contra dancing at the Congregational Church hall in Kingston, RI. Isabel and her husband at the time, Dave Mussey were a part of the band “Four on the Floor.” Together, they helped foster my passion and involvement in my newly discovered love of this form of music and dance. In August of 1985, I attended a callers school for new modern western square dance callers, again under the leadership of Dick Ledger and modern western contra dancing under the leadership of Roger Whynot.

The event that got me into thinking about teaching traditional dancing to the gay community came about one evening in 1986 while at the Providence Mens Chorus. During a break one evening, another chorus member, Bill Wilson, was discussing a trip he had recently taken to Denver, CO where he went to a gay rodeo. I was intrigued and never thought about gay men at a rodeo. Then he mentioned that after the rodeo they attended a square dance.

Immediately I asked, “You mean a gay square dance?” Bill said, “Yes! They’ve been doing them out there for years!” Hearing this, I realized that it was possible to bring together two completely separate worlds in my life, that being my passion for traditional dancing and music, and being a gay man. This led me to start my first gay & lesbian contra dance in March of 1987.

My development of gender-free teaching and calling terminology developed very much along the same lines as Carl, without ever having known of him or his work until years later.

Much like Carl, I started using by conventional gender language for teaching, calling and role identification and didn’t know of any other way to call or teach. My philosophy was, anyone could dance with anyone they liked, but if you stood on one side of the line, I would identify you as a gent, and on the other side, as a lady.        This went on until 1989 when an event took place that would change all that.

The Jamaica Plain, MA Gay & Lesbian Contra Dance Series – (1988) My development of Gender-Free Language and Philosophy

The Providence, RI group was pretty small for the first couple of years. Most of the people who attended this dance were either from Hartford, or Boston. It was a couple of the women from Boston who suggested that I try starting a dance series in Jamaica Plain, stating that it would likely be very popular there. I secured an arrangement for this with the 1st Church of Jamaica Plain in June of 1988, and in September, called our first contra dance there. Our first evening had 12 people. Two weeks later, those 12 brought 12 more. Two weeks later those 24 brought another 20, and by January of 1989, we had the hall packed to capacity with close to 90 dancers.

It was in January of 1989 that something happened at the Jamaica Plain, MA dance that changed how I would call or look at dances. One dancer in particular, Janet Dillon, supported by others, challenged me one evening by stating that they loved the dancing and the music, but the references to gender had to change because they didn’t fit this community. Their argument, “I’m not a ‘lady’ or a ‘gent’”, and I don’t want to be identified that way. They asked if it were possible for me to change this convention of calling and teaching dance.

I recalled the research I did while I was planning my first dance in Providence and remembered hearing about one group who used the convention of a tie or an armband to identify roles. I decided to try using this convention at the Jamaica Plain dance, ripping up an old bed sheet to make armbands and asking dancers who were dancing in the traditional gents role to tie on one of these ribbons, and identifying them as “armbands” and those dancing the traditional ladies role, not wearing the armbands as the “barearms”. This method ended up being an instance hit, and I started using this method of identification for all the gay community dances I went on to organize at that time. Since then some callers who have called at our community dances have shortened this identification “Bands” and “Bares” (Bears).

Eventually at one of the Hartford, CT gay & lesbian contra dances, I ran out of bed sheets. My friends, David Darnell and Gary Cote’, a biologist and a botanist, suggesting using some of their rolls of environmental flagging. To this day, we still use this for armbands.

Gender-Free dancing and NEFFA

In 1990 I asked NEFFA (the New England Folk Festival) about the idea of leading a session on this style of dancing during their weekend. I had no idea that this request caused the controversy that it did. When Larry Jennings, one of the long time founders of NEFFA was asked if a session like this would be appropriate for NEFFA, he stated “It would be inappropriate NOT to consider it as a session for NEFFA.” Eventually I was contacted and told this session was approved.

I had no idea how to title session. Ideas I solicited from our community included: Sex- Free Dancing, No Role Dancing, Gay & Straight dancing together, Gender-Neutral Dancing, No Sex Contras, Non Gendered Contra Dancing, Role Free Contras. NEFFA dubbed it as “Gender- Free Contra Dancing”, a term we still use today.

This session was the beginning of building bridges and allies between gay and gender- free dance and the mainstream traditional folk dance communities in the Boston area. Initially there were a number of negative comments received by the NEFFA committee about gender-free contra dancing, particularly from the old guard who commented, “This is not the appropriate place to have this kind of a dance”, “This kind of dancing is not a part of our tradition”; “This type of dancing is not appropriate in a family setting”, etc. Despite the controversy, these sessions were well attended and wildly popular by many of the folks who came to participate, and still are today.

The novelty and excitement of that moment when we first danced at NEFFA was that this was something new, different and innovative to this dance tradition, that no one had ever done this before. It allowed men to try dancing the ladies role. It allowed women to dance the gents role. It allowed same gender couples to dance together. It allowed kids and adults to dance with their friends or favorite dance partners, who may have just happened to be of the same gender.

And it gave a whole new challenging spin on contra dancing, and opened a lot of discussion on its potential uses outside of this venue, and perhaps giving this dance a whole new perspective from which to view it, and more importantly, dance it.

Over the years, the gender-free dance community has encouraged callers and musicians from the Boston and New England conventional dance communities to call and play music for us at our local dances as well as our twice a year dance camps. They have learned a lot from us as we have also learned a lot from their perspective on dancing from their community. Together, we have built ties that have benefited both communities, broadening ideas on how to look at dancing as well as adding more people to the overall community that makes up traditional dancing in New England.

The Jamaica Plain, MA. English Country dance community.

Michael Cicone and Rob Dobson originally danced and performed under the leadership of Carl Wittman in the summer of 1980 in Ashland, Oregon while Carl was the principal choreographer at the Shakespeare Festival. Sometime after we started dancing in Jamaica Plain, Rob and Michael attended some of our local dances and dance camps. Michael and Rob had a strong interest in starting an English country-dance group using Carl’s tradition.

Soon after gender-free contra dancing got a yearly slot at NEFFA, Michael proposed a session of gender-free English Country Dancing in 1992, which got accepted and has also been an event at NEFFA over the years. Michael called gender-free English country dances at our LCFD dance camps and a couple of times a year, the Jamaica Plain gender-free contra dance group held a mixed program of English Country Dancing and Contra dancing. Alan Troxler came up to visit with us, first attending LCFD (the Lavender Country and Folk Dancers) dance camp in the winter of 1992. Alan returned to camp from time to time and in the summer of 1994 visited our dance community in Jamaica Plain for a period of time. During that time, he organized and let some English country dances for us. Alan returned in 1995 to spend the summer in Boston, MA Alan, along with Michael and Rob, spearheaded the start of the Jamaica Plain (gender-free) English Country dance series that summer.  Originally this series drew a lot of its initial interest from the Jamaica Plain contra dance series. Over time, it developed a lot of its own unique character, separate from the gender-free contra dance community, but with a fair amount of cross over between the two dances. They also draw dancers in from the greater Boston area English country dance community.

The Jamaica Plain English dance community continues to dance on 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month with 5th Tuesdays being an experienced English dance program. They use Carls terminology of Left and Right file (better known there as the “Clock” side of the hall and the “Window” side of the hall), along with his philosophy of lining up individually without a partner, but add that if you would like to take a particular partner with you to dance, please wait until all the holes above you have been filled before entering the bottom of the set.

LCFD and Dance Camp

As communities of gender-free dancing started to spread around Southern New England, I saw the need for networking these groups together. By late 1988, I posted flyers with a schedule of all the Gay & Lesbian dances in the Southern New England area not only at my dances but to other local area conventional contra dances, and dubbing this series as “S.E.G.A.L.” (The South East are Gay And Lesbian Country Dancers).

The following summer in June of 1989, I organized a special gay pride dance event in Rhode Island at the Moosup Valley Grange Hall in Foster, R.I. (the same location where I first called dances in 4-H), inviting everyone from the southern New England gay & lesbian dance community to come out and join in this day long event. It was during that event that a meeting was held, and a new umbrella organization was created incorporating the new and expanding communities gay and lesbian country dancing around New England, and this group adopted the name N.E.G.A.L. (the North East Gay and Lesbian) Country Dancers.

I signed up for his first Pinewoods Dance camp in January of 1989. This idea of this camp made such an impression on me that I decided to take a poll of my own community to see if there would be enough interest to try this for ourselves. In August of 1989 soon after having attended Pinewoods, I started the first of what has become a twice a year gender-free dance camp. The first few years of camp were held in Greenfield, NH at the Otter Lake Conservation School. We had 29 folks at our first camp.  The attendees loved camp so much that it was decided we should have another in the Winter of 1990. We continued with Summer and Winter dance camps in Greenfield, NH till the winter of 1991 when the Otter Lake Conservation School, closed. With the help of Cindy Green, we moved NEGAL Dance camp to Goshen, MA for our summer camp in 1991. During that camp, I, along with a few attendees from dance camp, scouted around that area of western Massachusetts and checked out 3 potential new locations for our dance weekend. The last, and most impressive visit on this trip was to the Becket/Chimney Corners YMCA Camp in Becket, MA. We immediately decided that this would be our new home. In February of 1992, we moved dance camp to this new location. By this time, we had 50-60 folks at each camp.

It was also about that time that our community started a conversation around a letter we had received from Bobbi Keppel, a bi-sexual political activist, who challenged us to change our title to be more inclusive of the diversity of our community, which now consisted of not only gays and lesbians, but also bisexuals, people from the trans-gendered community as well as straight folks. We had toyed with a number of ideas, including the “Lavender Gypsies”, until Doug Victor, who has Rom ancestry suggested that this might not be appropriate. We eventually voted that our name would be changed to the Lavender Country and Folk Dancers (LCFD).

Our dance camps grew rapidly at our new location in Becket, MA eventually reaching a peak of over 165 attendees in 1997. We danced our Winter and Summer Camps in Becket, MA until the Summer of 2003, then we were asked to leave Becket Camp so they could give more focus to YMCA specific activities. We moved our Autumn Camp to Circle Lodge in Hopewell Junction, NY for a while, and found a YMCA camp in Woodstock, CT to host our spring camps. We reconnected with the Becket/Chimney Corners YMCA camp in late 2006 and found out that this facility was again open to outside groups and we returned to Becket in October of 2007 with a special reunion camp weekend.

Currently we typically get between 100-125 dancers in Becket. Our dance camps draw attendees from all over the USA. The LCFD camp board are the organizers of this biyearly event. LCFDs mission continues to be to financially support and offer organizational assistance to new communities of gender-free local dance events and camps all over the United States.

San Francisco, CA is the newest group to join LCFD. They started their local contra

dance series in April of 2004, and in April of 2007, LCFD helped them start what is now becoming their own once a year dance camp in the redwood forest of Monte Toyan, CA (not far from Santa Cruz). Their first camp hosted 75 attendees.

Our dancing includes New England contra & square dancing, English Country dancing, International folk dances, couple dances of many folk traditions as well as occasionally some Scottish country dancing.

Other gender-free dance communities in include: Montague Center, MA; New York City; Long Island, NY; Atlanta, Georgia; St. Paul, Minnesota; San Francisco, CA & Seattle, WA (more to come!)

“Gay Gordons” dance community in the United Kingdom.

In London, England, there is a relatively new dance community who is drawing a lot of attention in the traditional Scottish country dancing community. It is the Gay Gordons, a primarily gay and lesbian Scottish country dance community. This warm and delightful group welcomes anyone who would like to dance with them. They have classes and dances most Thursdays throughout the year. More information will be forth coming about this group. You can find them on the web at:

http://thegaygordons.org/index.htm http://www.outeverywhere.com/tags/dancing.html

I would like to acknowledge a special thanks to Andrew Carnie, Michael Cicone, John Burrows, Brooke Friendly, Chris Sackett, Laura Johannes, Bob Peterson, Robert Coren and the late Cindy Green for their editorial ideas and assistance in helping me pull this material together.

Your comments and ideas are also most welcome, and I would appreciate extending an open dialogue on this topic from readers and dance enthusiasts.

If you have comments, suggestions, or want more information about any of this material, please feel free to contact me as follows:

Chris Ricciotti 393 Union Street

Rockland, MA 02370-1729

Home: (781) 982-8042

Cell:     (617) 852-4042

Email: Ricciotti@aol.com

You can also find this and other documents as well as a list of all gender-free dance communities around the world on the LCFD (Lavender Country & Folk Dancers) web site at:

http://www.lcfd.org