When Steve and I headed to dance to Perpetual e-Motion on Sunday night at Glen Echo, we decided we might do the initial forays into an experiment. Several weeks ago, one of my more vigorous partners (read: that guy who twirls the snot out of me every single time) made a comment about how he was tired, but "you're the one doing most of the work anyway."
Which got me (as someone who typically dances the follow's part) thinking: does the follow actually exert themselves more in a typical dance? There are people who object to my use of "lead" and "follow" on this blog because they believe it to be an entirely equal dance form for which those labels are (or should be) meaningless. Meanwhile, in a ladies' chain (which is so much more common than a men's chain that even a decent chunk of experienced dancers don't know how to pull a men's chain off smoothly, at least around these parts), someone dancing the lady's role and dancing without flourishes crosses the set and takes at least four medium-to-large steps around the outside of a circle, whereas someone dancing the gent's role will take maybe four small steps backwards to help the lady around the courtesy turn.
Which got me (as someone who typically dances the follow's part) thinking: does the follow actually exert themselves more in a typical dance? There are people who object to my use of "lead" and "follow" on this blog because they believe it to be an entirely equal dance form for which those labels are (or should be) meaningless. Meanwhile, in a ladies' chain (which is so much more common than a men's chain that even a decent chunk of experienced dancers don't know how to pull a men's chain off smoothly, at least around these parts), someone dancing the lady's role and dancing without flourishes crosses the set and takes at least four medium-to-large steps around the outside of a circle, whereas someone dancing the gent's role will take maybe four small steps backwards to help the lady around the courtesy turn.
