why didn't I say anything?

1.
I'm at a contact improvisation workshop.

The exercise the teacher gives us, goes like this:

Three people stand in the front of the room as the rest of us watch.

Two people slowly take off one piece of the third person’s clothing.

The third person can say stop at anytime, and then the two people have to stop removing the clothing.

One after the other, people stand in front of the rest of the group and their clothes are taken off by workshop mates, with everyone stopping at different stages of the undressing process. 

A young woman is up next, and the two who are assigned to undress her strip her completely naked before she has a second to make a decision about any of it.

No one says a word.

Not her, not the teacher leading the exercise, not any of us watching.

She stands frozen.

We sit and watch her being frozen.

Her undressers smirk.

I don’t remember how it ends.

The shame of my silence.

2.
My college dance students are performing.

We are all excited — it’s a different venue, in a new city, with an audience made up of people we don’t know.

The idea is that the performers will show their work once, then the “director” who is watching will ask the performers to do it again, and will make changes to the dance in real time.

Sounds great, and like it will be fun for the students to practice their improvisational chops.

The students perform the improvisational dance we've been working on, then they do it again, ready for the director’s comments and all set to make whatever changes come from him.

He gives simple instructions at first:

“Try it again, but slower.”

“Everyone on the edges, find stillness.”

Stuff like that.

Then:

“You in the front, take your shirt off.”

I freeze.

She does, take her shirt off.

“Now your pants.”

She unbuttons her pants, and they fall to her ankles.

I can’t get my voice to work and I can't get my body to move out of my chair and up onto that stage.

“Now your bra.”

She begins to unclip her bra, and from the audience another student of mine who is watching, yells STOP.

And then it's quiet.

The student who has been following the director's instructions is caught, with her arms reaching behind her back to unclip her bra, in her underwear, in front of all of us. She looks toward the voice that said stop, and they lock eyes. 

“Put your clothes back on,” says the student who yelled stop.

Nothing happens. 

The student in her bra and underwear is unable to move.

“Put your clothes back on,” the student in the audience says again, more quietly this time, and then she, the one that is undressed, does.

The shame of my silence -- especially, especially, as the teacher and leader of this group of young people.

3.
Huge performance, room is packed, high energy, everyone is buzzing.

The performance is interactive, with the performer asking the audience questions and engaging with us directly.

He walks up the aisle, and tells a woman he sees to take her shirt off.

She giggles, excited about the attention she is getting, caught up in the buzz.

“What?" she says.

“Take your shirt off.”

There is some stammering from her, some "come ons" from him and those sitting around her, and then finally a quiet, “No.”

“Then your bra, take your bra off. Come on…do it!”

"Do it!" everyone around her chants.

“Okay,” she says, and she unhooks her bra from underneath her shirt, slips it out of her sleeve and hands it to him.

I can’t watch.

I can’t watch.

I can’t watch.

The shame of my silence.

4.
I’m dancing with a group I’ve danced with for years.

The structure is that two people do a contact improv duet, and the others watch. We rotate in and out, dancing and watching throughout the evening together.

I get up to dance, not sure who I’ll be dueting with, when one of the men in the group gets up to meet me.

He’s really fun to dance with, so I’m looking forward to it.

But then he takes his clothes off — all of them.

“Um, so I can’t dance with you if you don’t have any clothes on.”

And he rages, ranting about how closed off I am to new experiences.

I stay calm and say:

“No, that’s not it. If you're naked, then it shuts down any opportunity for a contact duet because it makes me really uncomfortable.”

He continues to rage.

“Slow down for a minute and take a breath,” I say.

He stares at me, breathing hard, with his fists clenched, leaning forward, like he’s going to pounce.

“Slow down,” I say again.

He puts his clothes back on, the dancing continues, and no one who witnessed this encounter says a word, or ever does.

I never go back.

I am burning with shame that it took me this long to say something, and that I could only say something when it impacted me directly.

I really hope I can say something next time I see something.

I really hope I can.

Dance mission:

Turn the computer off and dance, for as long as you want.

To your favorite music or in silence.

Outside or in.

Slowly or in a swirl. 

Listen and dance, and dance and listen.

Warmly, 
Joanna
of
Joanna and The Agitators
sweetly agitating/persistently upending
www.joannaandtheagitators.com