Politely Different: Queer Presence in Country Dancing and Music

Abstract

I walked into the Round-Up Saloon and stood transfixed by the scene out on the dance floor. Surrounded by a wooden corral, the sleek and shining floor was filled with couples taking wide, gracefully fluid steps. Clad in immaculate cowboy hats, crisp work shirts tucked into jeans, and of course boots, the men spinning together around the floor were to me an entirely new form of queer dance. The comfortable intimacy of their bodies was unlike the bump and grind of the dance I was used to encountering at urban American gay bars, and the DJ's musical selections kept well away from pop divas and electronic dance music. At urban gay bars like Dallas' Round-Up Saloon and at other non-bar venues, queer two-step and line dancing, and country music itself, offers space for a performative queerness that counterbalances not only mainstream perceptions of country music and dance as heterosexualized and antagonistic towards other sexualities, but expands understandings of queer dance practice as well. In this article, I draw on my fieldwork in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I spent six months in 2016 and 2017 learning to two-step and line dancing with an LGBT country dance organization.