I have no idea if this is a movement or not. but I saw this a little while ago and fell in love with it! she has another concept piece music video that i think really makes explicit the industries selling of women as objects.

she is <3 with a capital "<" !

I think the attire is gendered. Tuxedos are traditionally masculine attire. Plus, the women have much larger bow ties than the men.

Hm i don't really see that the two dances are similar. And yes I agree with K, the clothing and dance are gendered, theyre very masculine.

I just put on Jannelle's song while watching the vintage vid without sound. and rythmically it works very well

K and Leigh,

Yep about the clothes. I misspoke. Fixed.

I've loved Janelle Monae forever, & that video was absolutely brilliant!

Yes, the dance is gendered, but the way the video is executed still challenges gender binaries in a very fresh & entertaining way.

Whether the tuxes are gendered or not, I want a pair of those striped wingtips so badly.

The clothing is gendered in once sense, but it isn't in the sense that it is the same (or nearly the same) for both the men and women. This is really unusual in dance, where women's bodies are often exposed and men's remain covered.

The dancing is definitely NOT gendered! It's wonderful. Thanks for sharing the video, I really enjoyed it.

Why does wearing masculine attire mean that the dance has been "degendered"? Why is masculine attire seen as neutral?

I can see what you mean, that this breaks the usual mold: the women aren't wearing feminine clothing, and their dancing doesn't emphasize a particular kind of female sexuality. But their attire isn't gender-neutral at all. You would probably have to invent something new to avoid gender associations.

I don't know enough about the dance (other than it's awesome) to know if it's "masculine" or not.

It's a great video, though. I just bought the MP3 on Amazon because I liked it so much.

Although tuxes are traditionally masculine, the tuxes that Janelle and the other prominent female dancer are wearing have been fitting in the way that most clothing made specifically for women are; so it's not really masculinizing them, but feminizing something masculine, and she still maintains some other signifiers of femininity (make-up, jewelry, a fancier bowtie) while coopting something usually reserved for me.

So I think the attire is still de-gendered because it isn't used to erase Janelle's femininity but combine it with masculinity, thus making it more gender-neutral.

This reminds me of queer tango. Tango has very rigid gender roles, but in queer tango both dancers alternate between leading and following.

Hmm, I can kind of see the comparison. The historical film, regardless of when filmed, is definitely the Charleston. The shuffling movements of the modern artist are similar and a little derivative. I think the de-gendering here is that the basic movements and individual interpretations of such a dance aren't really as gender-roled as "partner" dances. Do a youtube search for any Charleston competition and you'll see that the dance itself can be individualized, but the movements themselves aren't usually sexualized to either gender.

I love Janelle's steampunk affections

Kudos on the great discussion of gendering here--makes me, at least, realize how difficult it is to imagine bodies in motion without any play of gender or desire. More appropriate, I think, to talk about a complex or nuanced gendering and desire-play. Butch dandy, by my read ;)

And--also by my read--the glide, the control, and the effortlessness of the dancing are also totally hot: sexy and confident in a way not related to exposure of skin or emphasis on movements that evoke sexual acts. Still a game of gendering and desiring, though

I have no sociological insights whatsoever; I just want to say thanks for posting that. I've wanted to listen to her music for a long time but would always get sidetracked before. But now I know that it's awesome and she has some amazing moves to go with it! Wish I could dance like that...

The dancing reminded us of Chicago footwork: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4sY4ZI_EKU&feature

I really loved this video. It's so refreshing to see a music video where women are seen as talented and equally interesting to the audience. I particularly liked that it was a mixed group. Often in videos all the backing dancers will be identical, I feel that this objectifies them whereas here there were lots of different people it felt more like the people were included for a reason rather than because they managed an exact physical specification. It was also shocking to see dancing that did not emphasize the physical characteristics of the women.

All I really see in common between the two videos is the short pants/no socks combo.

What I did notice in the older video is that the two men are using moves that, in today's world, would be considered very feminine. The shimmying and strong hip rotations, for example. Then when the two men were dancing together - those moves are typically associated with male/female dance partners, and any men dancing like that today would be thought of as gay.

There is a definite shift in how movement and contact between the genders are now viewed in a sexual manner that weren't before. If you spend some time watching old movies, especially the silents, with their exaggerated emoting, men were frequently seen hugging and kissing. What was then viewed as showing close friendship and brotherly love is now assumed to be homosexual love. In my mother's and grandmother's generation, women frequently held hands, danced waltzes and polkas together, etc., while in my own culture, men and women both greeted each other with kisses. Our modern culture seems to have sexualized all physical contact, and I think that's why the two men dancing together near then end of the old clip would, had it been filmed today, be viewed as a "couple."

The dances are definitely similar in style - mostly in the legwork.

I also find it interesting that the Janelle video has an all-Black cast.

One thing I couldn't help but notice - and forgive me if I'm being too literal here, maybe I just don't know enough about dance - is that all of the dance moves in the Janelle video could probably be done on a tightrope! The shuffling, the movements along straight lines, the arm movements and quick right turns all seem to be ways you would dance if you were on a tightrope. Since the song is called Tightrope, I thought the dance moves were a cool way to represent the concept without having them actually trying to balance on ropes. It doesn't take away from the awesomeness of the music, the dance, the costumes, or the degendering/gendering mix-ups, but it's just something to think about as a possible motivation for the dance style. It's like telling kids to pretend they're on a tightrope - I bet you'd see them perform some similar movements to the ones in this video.

Yes! I'm a long-time Janelle fan, and I'm so thrilled she's starting to get noticed more. Her recent concert here in Mpls was the most amazing thing ever.

Here is the video the first commenter was talking about. When she throws her jacket into the audience and the women all scream I get so happy. Lots more great dancing, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHgbzNHVg0c

Doesn't she come from a tap background?

The dance and footwork focus of it (and also the short pants/no socks) are all elements that reference rhythm tap culture which many (myself included although I'm no expert) would argue is genderless.

to clarify: I'm not saying all tap is genderless, only rhythm tap. The default tap style people think of when hearing the term tap is broadway tap which is gendered like whoa.

Also of potential interest - broadway tap is a derivative of rhythm tap which is absolutely a cultural product of african americans. Interesting how the appropriated white take on a form of dance is now the default when speaking about the entire dance form.

I'm curious about what all of you are specifically thinking about when you express discomfort with gendered dancing. Does this include more traditional dances such as waltz, swing, etc. in which there are leading and following roles, or mostly (as I am guessing from the original language of the post) mainstream hip hop dance? If it's the latter, then I also wonder this video would have made such a big impression on you if the singers and dancers weren't Black and therefore likely to be compared to the prevailing image of what Black artists' music videos are like. I'm not trying to start a fight; I'm just genuinely curious about what the precise issue is here, because I think it's also interesting to think about how dance is racialized (who is allowed or expected to dance in certain ways?) and how people outside of street dance culture view the culture inside (why do they dance like that?).

I will admit that one of the reasons I decided to pursue house dance and break/bboy/bgirling rather than studio hip hop is because I just didn't want to deal with other people's perceptions of hip hop dancers. Which would be kind of a shame if I didn't have those other reasons, but yeah, I do realize that hip hop evokes certain negative images and values. It's really too bad because I think the people who are involved with dance culture see and feel it more as a positive form of self-expression more than a flaunting of sexuality, and because there's so much more to hip hop culture than what you see on MTV. I'm no dance historian or great dancer, but I would venture to suggest that if hip hop as it's portrayed in the mainstream media wasn't so strongly associated with the revealing clothing and a general culture of objectifying women, people would view the dance style in a generally more positive light. A lot of the basic movements in dances like house and salsa could be described as sexual as well - but these dances are viewed more neutrally.

One last thing - if you've got the time and inclination, I would definitely encourage everyone to consider learning about or trying other hip hop/street/club dance styles such as locking, popping, vogue, and house. Many of them don't have the strong stigma of objectifying women the way commercial hip hop does and have fascinating histories. Best of all, they're fun!

They're dancing the Black Bottom! It looks almost exactly like this dance from the 1920s. Interestingly, dances from this era such as the charleston are completely devoid of gender, being danced by pairs of the same sex as easily as mixed; and with the same movements. It was all about jazzing it up!

interesting conversation...i don't think that gendered or non gendered or gender neutral qualifications are necessary. no matter what bodies and clothing on those bodies are going to be read and categorized--but what is important is the way evoking certain gender codes can disrupt normative notions of what it means to be female or male bodied. most typically i think people either over perform their gender in parody style or perform the opposite gender (as in drag) to do this- what is great about this video is it doesn't do either of these things, rather Janelle gives both genders space to play--i think in this way the performance is recapturing agency, disallowing a female bodied Black woman to be the object, rather she is an active subject-- something really hard to do in pop music videos.

I don't see a connection at all. The dancing(mainly) in Janelle's video, as far as I know, is a kickback to pop and lock and James Brown. Even the song(the dance break where the horns come in, or when she's says "Shut Up"). All that is Mr. Brown.

I'm sure whatever the bottom video was may be the origin of James' style but it's hard to jump from the that, to 2010.

Dance scholar here! I really enjoyed the dancing in the Janelle video. It should be read as an homage to rhythm dancing of African-descent from the 1920s through new Jack Swing (kidding, not sure there is a cut off date). The historical footage is in fact cited in Janelle's video and as one poster pointed out, the dancing in her video is stylized as if it were being done on a tight rope. In essence, this is a sneaky dance-craze making video! I am getting ready to practice her "tight rope." There was also a dance craze called "The Tighten Up," I believe started by Wilson Pickett. In my opinion (cause other scholars might see different things based on their training) her dance has some Camel Walkin' mixed in with some dancehall hip articulation and a big dose of James brown, to be sure.

As for the claim that you cannot get from Al Minns and Leon James to 2010, that is shortsighted, very short! We get James and poppin and lockin and jazz itself from a peculiar mix of Bambara ethnic dances (modern-day Senegal, The Gambia,& Mali) and dance cultures of the people of the Kongo region (Angola, DRC, Congo among others) that intersected in New Orleans during the slaving period. You can also add in there "shipping music," hybridized forms of music that emerged on slave ships with their transnational crews drawn from Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean.

The hips and 6/8 syncopated shenanigans come to us from Kongo culture (but the Irish had some there, too). The Charleston, jitterbug and other high kicking dances come from the Senegal region and still reflected patterns from mandjiani in particular. Origins are always tricky, I try to avoid staking big claims based on them, but this conversation string was peculiar in that discussions of ethnic origin were not possible because race and gender were eliding the historical work done in Jenelle's video. Yes I know the question was about gendered movement. And like a lot of the other folks, I am wondering while a male normative is held as neutral.

That said, from a dance perspective, the moves in Janelle's video are without gender assignment, but there is an expectation that one's gendered identity will be, must be expressed through the execution of the moves. That is the evolution of these forms which still have strong gender-based repertoire in Senegal. The Congo, people tend to do the same moves. The men MOVE their hips. It is de rigeur in pop as well as "traditional" dancemusic.

The last bit of the two guys dancing together was a comedy routine, a send up of a very famous dance riff from a couple in Harlem. I think that original "duet" appears in "Stormy Weather," but I am not sure.
Thank you for putting up the two videos!

That was pretty amazing.

What a surprise! Thank you! Thanks to you all, I am now a certified Janelle Monae fan. I would like to add, that in addition to her homage to rhythm dancing, she is also a rather astute Afrofuturist. If you have not had the chance, please check out her Archandroid series of music video. This woman is up to a fascinating sociological examination of "future" as it intersects race and gender.

Fabulous comment by Anna. Thanks.