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Good afternoon everyone, thank you for coming.
I'm really happy to see you, a nice crowd of people here.
uh... I'm Steve Henry and i'm a librarian here at the University of
Maryland Libraries.
And I'm a member of The Speaking of Books planning team.
uh... Speaking of Books is a a series of book talks that was begun in 2005
to highlight the work of out faculty here at the University of
Maryland
Today's talk will close our 2012, 2013 season, which is our
eighth.
We'll be back in the fall of a brand new slate of talks and you can check
our website,
once the schedule is announced.
That said, our speaker today is Dr. Judith Hannah.
She is a affiliate senior research scientist in the department of anthropology.
She's an educator, writer, and dance critic and holds a P.H.D. in
anthropology from Columbia university,
an M.A. in political science from michigan state and a B.A. in political
science from U.C.L.A.
Dr. Hanna has devoted her career to exploring the relationship between
dance and society.
In African villages and cities and in American theaters, school, playgrounds, and
classrooms. As well as in adult entertainment clubs in their communities.
Her research has gained wide recognition and academia, court decisions, newspapers
radio, and T.V. networks in the U.S., as well as internationally.
And to her credit or several landmark books, including To Dance as
Human, a theory of nonverbal communication.
Dance, Sex and Gender Signs of Identity Dominance and Desire.
The Performer Audience Connection, Emotion to Metaphor and Dance and Society, and
many many more.
I want to also note that
many of the papers that Dr. Hanna compiled to do research on these books
are held in special collections for performing arts here at the University of
Maryland.
And that's located in the performing arts library across campus in Clarice Smith
Performing arts center.
And those papers are available for research if you want to make an appointment with the curator.
Informations on the website.
Today Dr. Hanna will discuss her most recent book, which is Naked Truth, strip
clubs democracy and the christian right. Published by the university of Texas
press in 2012.
Naked Truth takes readers on stage, backstage and into the community and courts to
review the conflicts, charges, and realities that are playing out of the
intersection of *** fantasy,
religion, politics and law.
We'll have a talk for as long as you like and we'll have plenty of time afterwords
for questions, and time to
purchase the book.
Please welcome Dr. Judith Hannah
Thank you.
And thank you all for coming.
How did I get to strip clubs?
That wasn't me by the way, I can't wear high heels.
In 1995
I got a call from a
a planner in Tampa, asking me if I would be an
expert court witness in first amendment cases
related to table dancing in Seattle.
I didn't know the man, I didn't know about table dancing.
The lawyer happened to go to Berkeley and that's were I went for
my freshman year and we start a dialogue.
And it seemed legit, of course I gave my husband all the details when I was going
to Seattle.
What I was asked to do
was to apply a semiotic paradigm that I used to study dance in
Africa, on school playgrounds, and in American theaters.
And to explain how exotic dance is expression
and plus protected
by the U.S. constitution.
Local governments were trying to,
they couldn't ban
the clubs, but they were trying to regulate them
to death, and they were claiming
all kinds of myths.
and I...
I had just won a case
against the U.S. government that had gone to the Supreme Court.
And I thought well, this was an honorary ban,
you might remembered,
um... you could published
articles
uh... you could not publish articles or papers that had nothing to do with your
work.
So I couldn't right a little dance
article and get paid.
And they're set up to pay you so I thought that was really
inappropriate.
And I figured that if I could take on the U.S. government up to the Supreme Court
I could take on local governments.
Little did I know
Since 95' I worked with 58 attorneys on a 126
legal cases
on striptease in 29 states.
I did what anthropologist do, I observed, I interviewed.
uh... dancers patrons management in 146 clubs.
Members of communities including legislatures of courtrooms
and I analyzed
videotapes.
There are a lot of myths about exotic dance.
I had them and I'm sure a lot of you have them.
The myths.
And why?
Well the media portrayals
of the old strip
joints, I don't know if you saw
Showgirls,
presented a really *** picture.
Striptease
by, with, Demi Moore
presented a more realistic
picture of what the clubs are about.
People
don't have any knowledge of
dance history or the evolution of the strip clubs.
Dance theory, choreography, what non-verbal communication is,
the literature on exotic dance, which has really blossomed.
And so you need to fill in
knowledge gaps.
The mythes are that the clubs incubate crime, drugs, prostitution.
They attract rif-raf,
the dancers are trafficked
they're exploited by the clubs and they're the object of the gaze and
therefore responsible
for women's oppression.
And that strippers can't dance. The only thing that's going on in the club is women
going there and wiggling.
Well, as anthropologists do,
I compared
clubs with other places of public assembly.
In other words if you have something in a strip club
is it really atypical of any other
business place.
And then what I also did was compare
the dance in the clubs with dance in theater
and social dance.
The theoretical underpinnings are the U.S. constitutions first amendment doctrine.
The cognitive science of religion, crucible of meanings in discourse and
action,
Victor Turner's concept of social drama.
That there's a breach of norms in a crisis in the legal redress of process and an
expression of irreparable schism
uh... conciliation
and Foucault's theory of: the body as a locus of power struggles.
This is one of the nicer clubs.
I should say that clubs,
there's a range, just like you have a greasy spoon and
you have a four star
gourmet restaurant,
you have the same thing in clubs.
And just as you have
some restaurants
that do things that they shouldn't do.
You have some clubs that do things that they shouldn't do.
This is
a,
the upscale clubs, the gentleman's clubs,
they're owned by
businesspeople, they're on Nazdaq, they're on the stock exchange.
They don't want to have
any problems. This is a metal detector.
In this club, there's a room
like every one of those squares was a camera
where you could see what was going on in the club
and outside of the club, and the different sections
of the club.
These clubs want to attract businessmen.
It's not the rif-raf coming off the street.
Of course, if you have a club
in a,
essentially a
low end club in low end neighborhood
you'll attract some of those people. But there are about 4,000 clubs
and its certainly not the norm.
Clubs,
this is one
um... the lodge which is a very fancy one, in fact owned
by a woman, and its run very well.
This is one of the less
upscale clubs.
This is a club that is in our area here, in Beltsville
showcase theater.
And this is a woman who went to a performing arts
high school here
and then she was
dancing in the clubs. She and her parents and medical doctors
bought the club and now she's
running it,
and this is a advertisement for it.
In prince georges county
they tried to eliminate the club
and I have a chapter
in the book
called "Rottweilers Lock Their Jaws".
And so this went on from
96 to 2007,
there were council hearings,
testimonies,
decisions,
and first, I love this, the person who really was causing all the
trouble,
he was motivated by
elements of the christian right, prince george's has a very
large component of people who were quite religions.
But he was the one who was falsely accusing the clubs of causing adverse
secondary effects of crime.
Prostitution,
property depreciation,
even AIDS.
But guess where Johnson is now?
He's in jail, for crime.
I mean he did so many dirty tricks it was unbelievable.
And Chapter 5 is all about that.
As dance,
exotic dance is
purposeful uses intentional rhythm, cultural influences, non-verbal body
movement, time, space, effort.
It communicates through body locomotion and gesture,
uses the senses,
employs its own standards, as does every other
dance style.
Exotic dancers is theater
that has a setting for
acting fantasy roles, it charges
the audience an entrance fee, it has a raised stage, uses special lighting,
a professional sound system,
dressing rooms, masters of ceremony, "ushers",
and sometime they look like bouncers.
I mean when I went to one club
they were the biggest men I'd ever seen, this was in Chicago.
Really big and all with walkie talkies. Those were the Ushers. Nobody would step out of line.
The clubs, as theaters, offer beverages.
And
the clubs are studied in University theater arts
and drama departments.
Exotic dance is art in the sense its a learned skill, its creative and imaginative, and it
communicates within an artistic style.
Exotic dance is fantasy.
It's an adult entertainment,
it's a style of dance and art in a theatre setting,
it contains risque play
in high heels.
And the climax
is nudity, its like the punch line of a joke.
The dancers perform close to and may touch a patron
and the patron directly tips a performer for effective communication.
This is a club here
in D.C., a woman is
preparing
just like any actress would prepare, the dancers prepare
to go on stage.
This is one of the dancers,
topless pole,
this was actually from the lodge.
A lot of the dancers have
burlesque type routines.
And exotic dance has evolved from burlesque which evolved from the
1893 worlds fair, where
americans for the first time
saw middle east dancers, belly dancers,
and at that time you had the corsets
sorta ruined your insides, right, and here the women were with flowing
costumes,
their dress. And they
moved in different ways then
the victorians
moved.
These are pole dancers,
some of them are
incredible athletes, many of them compete in pole dancing.
And there is an organization now
that's trying to pressure the olympics to have
pole dancing at the olympics.
Well nudity and exotic dance,
I mentioned its the climax.
And
it not
it represents not just
sexuality
but nature, health, simplicity, trust, being human,
the body as an art form,
nude sculpture in motion,
beauty,
demystification of the body,
honesty, innocence, independence, empowerment,
the body as god's gift and worthy of the gaze,
status of a well-maintained body,
and parody of pretention of clothing,
rebellion, and subversive.
Again this is one of the dancers in DC.
Now I compare,
people are really upset about the clubs
we're its adult entertainment, you have to be
18 to go.
This is Brooklyn academy of music.
this is a male and female
looks like they're engaging in a sex act,
the dancers are just females up there, nude.
But again, we see this in mainstream, we see nudity in Salome in the Opera.
This is Pilobolus, some of their performances are nude.
Exotic dance has two parts.
first the dancer performs on stage for an entire audience,
and the
patrons can
applaud or they can directly tip the dancer, put a
bill in her garter
on the leg.
Then there is the individual, what the dancer is really doing in contemporary adult
entertainment exotic dance, is she's auditioning for a private dance.
And in the private dance, the dancer performs
proximate to a patron for a fee and communicate a fantasy of special interest.
The patron can be the pasha for the moment, he can fantasize whatever he
wants.
and he participates through fees,
gestures, and direct tipping
oh, come on...
I meant to show you...okay right here...
we got it working before...
You have to be an adult to sign in...This is the first time at one of these things we've had to verify our age.
I should tell you, this is from not
the clubs I visited,
I have to admit, this is
Demi Moore in the film striptease, and the Washington Post
writer asked me and 3 or 4
strippers to watch the
film when it just came out.
And everybody thought she really
captured
what goes on in the
performance.
And she had gone to a lot of clubs, and she had interviewed a lot of dancers.
...
...
...This is a table dance in
DC, in DC you can't
sit at a table and the
dancer
perform for you.
What the table dance is in DC, is you go up to the states, and
you interact with the dancer and you tip her.
People were upset about lap dancing.
Well I mentioned that anthropologists compare
dances,
I went to a lot of clubs,
and
I don't know
if you seen it but it made the papers a few years ago about kids doing the
freaking.
The Da butt, *** dancing,
Doggy dancing, Waxing, Grinding,
essentially it,
people were saying not
dancing the way I would have been dancing,
no fusion of body parts.
We have freak dancing going on,
basically lap dancing, and basically what that is, is the woman bends over
with her butt rubs it against the guys groin. Now the kids
are doing this.
And they are saying adults
can't have someone sitting,
a dancer sitting in a patrons lap.
This is a picture of
*** dancing.
You know I mentioned the origin in the influences of exotic dance,
belly dance, burlesque
the vernacular and social dance, broadway theater dance, Jazz dance, music video dance
Hip-hop,
cheerleading and gymnastics.
And some of the dancers come from
these different uh... dance venues.
A lot of the dancers learn like most people learn, if they haven't gone to a
performing arts high school,
they learn like most people learn, and that's by watching in being coached.
But exotic dance has also influenced Ballet,
and modern dance.
You have Mark Morris's a striptease,
vernacular and social dance.
And people saying that the kids are essentially taking on
exotic stripper moves.
Broadway, dance theater, jazz, music video dance.
How many of you saw the
Beyonce at
her
at the football game?
That was stripper moves.
They have strip,
in the gyms they have strip aerobics for exercise, and
they have a lot of videos,
a lot for women who
for the everyday woman who wants to strip.
So the exotic dancers, I mentioned the woman who
went to the performing arts high school and had a background.
I met accountants, artists, athletes, ballet and modern dancers,
married women, single moms, stockbrokers,
university students and high school dropouts.
And all are professionals earning an income
doing a job.
Why are they doing it?
Obviously most people work because they want money
but the dancers have a flexible schedule,
they get exercise, they get attention,
and its a venue for self-expression and empowerment.
I interviewed 3 dancers in DC.
All had masters degree,
all had full-time day jobs,
and they said they were dancing, it was a very small club, and they were dancing
because it was fun,
actually it was like a
party, it was like a small living room.
And you know, they had a good time.
So what you have in exotic dance is seduction, it's sexy but it's not sex,
it's an advertisement but not a sale.
it's and illusory promise.
A lot of the cops,
the dancers fantasize and they say all kinds of things,
and so the cops try and ensnare them
because again
they're acting out of fantasy and
the cops accuse them of soliciting for
prostitution.
It's a metaphor, its counterfeit intimacy,
it's a fantasy that wets the appetite for reality and its a fantasy
fulfilling in itself.
I like this, I got this in
Amsterdam.
Fantasy.
So successful seduction, a patron tips a dancer onstage, requests an individual dance,
and a patron becomes a dancer's regular. In terms of the fantasy it's interesting
that a lot of men,
have a fantasy of a particular dancer as his girlfriends.
And he will give her presents and
I couldn't believe the presents.
You know, one dance got a car, and he
he would buy her costumes, I mean,
again it's the fantasy.
So okey, who are these patrons?
You can get riff-raff anywhere, right? But they are mostly youth workers,
businesspersons, and professionals and they are going for entertainment, adult play,
the beauty of the body,
and its sort of like the excitement of a transgressive informed adventure,
its the opportunity to relax.
Some of the clubs in the past actually tried it make them look
dingy,
right, so that
the adventure of going to this exotic dingy place. But that's not the case now.
Some of these upscale clubs, you know its real crystal, and real imported
woods.
And
excellent food and shoe shining,
humidor.
Then you have,
men who are essentially
going to the club
because
they have difficulty
having a girlfriend,
having the pressure.
So they can create their own *** script.
Some people also, who kept this
workplace political correctness about sexuality, so
they can
essentially be more,
be freer and compliment a woman. I mean you cant compliment, I mean look at what happened to Obama
complimenting
the attorney, no.
Best-looking one.
Well that was terrible.
Some of the patrons see
what a wife or girlfriend does not provide.
A lot of people are curious about the female body.
Some patrons are supporting women's *** liberation and empowerment.
Some people would like to have
you know sex with the dancer but that is
very very uncommon.
There were a couple cases and it was mostly with
big athletes.
uh... some patrons are party-goers they want to celebrate it's bachelor party
some patrons adjust lonely or unhappy man
i've seen a number of physically handicapped
uh... patrons
this was really surprising to me so many dancers
talked about the fact that
patrons would pay a fee for a private dance and what it really was, was a
listening, having an understanding,
non-judgmental emotionally supportive listener.
I'm saying a number of handicap
people go to the club so that they have interaction with attractive woman that
they wouldn't otherwise have.
well just to interact, to look, to have a good time.
No I think that because of the disability they might
not find a woman who found them attractive.
So you go to a club, and the dancer
pays attention to everybody who goes there.
Some people are going to the clubs to escape from stress, some
arousal to perform marital sex,
some men are going
to bond, they want to
display
social privilege,
and control of
women by spending
money ostentatiously.
Some of them through up bills, and what's called making it rain.
And they can feel superior to women
by being clothed.
Women go to the clubs, it used to be that women
were not allowed to go into the clubs unescorted,
because they thought the
woman was going after a
husband or
a wayward
boyfriend and there was a case
that apparently
got around, where a woman
had a beer bottle and cracked it over his head. So,
and then they also thought that some of the women going to the clubs might be
soliciting for prostitution.
Now you have women going to these clubs,
and they're encouraged, and
they
like to watch a female dancers as art in motion.
Some of them are checking out a club to see if they would like to work in the
club. Well
I mentioned the patrons, men and women.
there are also a fantastical spectators.
And these are the Christian right,
some feminists,
and some people who are just uninformed.
Now the Christian right is very opposed
to these clubs. You know I wasn't going to
study religion.
But the first case when we went to Seattle, I had to break through a picket line,
Washington together against ***. And here with these posters,
you know grandparents and grandkids, walking. And so I had to go through that and I
thought, huh,
we had the sixties,
what's going on?
Well then, next club I said, whose behind this?
and I would hear reverend so-and-so, or pastor so-and-so or
this particular church.
And it just seeing that
in all of these cases
it was,
the cases were instigated, the legislation,
by Christine right, why?
Well there's a scriptural mandate about modesty and patriarchy.
And there's also a need for prudential lifestyle rules.
In other words you eliminate the clubs so your not tempted.
And they
believe that
dances is arousing, that nudity evokes ***.
And I love this one.
I'm a mother of two sons and four male grandchildren.
Man have an uncontrollable *** nature,
Well Tim Lahaye, who writes a lot of the books,
wrote about men as having a
volcano of testosterone ready to go off at the site of a woman.
I mean, I've been to a lot of clubs, and I never saw...
Don't you think your singling out the
Christian right here, what about the muslim faith and other major religions?
Well,
yes, but in the US the people who have been active in trying to ban the
clubs,
have been the Christian right.
And they have been,
very active, and I'll talk about it in
just a minute. But what they have is, they have
this big coalition and they have
megabucks and they have their own
law schools and have their own lawyers,
and they essentially insinuate themselves into the legislature,
and into the judiciary, to
intact the laws, that
essentially would,
they can't ban them but they can regulated them to death.
...Yeah but I think the buck are truly trivial compared to the
buck that the *** industry makes.
Its one of the biggest industries...let her finish the talk...okay I'll shut up.
Okay,
the Christian right thinks that nude dancers are sinful or prostitutes or drug
addicts.
Undermine patriarchy, instigate crime,
and destroy patriarchy's idea of femininity,
harm married women's self-esteem, and compete with men economically.
They're really challenging patriarchy because
women is supposed to be subservient
to the man,
to the husband,
and only the husband should see a woman's
nude body. And here a woman goes out of the
household into the public domain,
shows her body
publicly,
and earns money.
So that's really a challenge to
patriarchy.
The Christian right,
in their literature,
and also
you find this talking to them, they have a...
...it's the call
to war and they have a pervasive rhetoric of militarism,
they talk about training warriors, building an army, battle plan,
lock and load for a holy ghost invasions, fight for Jesus,
put on the full armor of god, and engage platoons.
Now this is against
clubs, it's also against
other things that they disliked,
like abortion.
So the Christian right has a misinformation
campaign or subterfuge for morality.
And again they claimed that the dance
causes
negative effects but there is no evidence.
Now the courts have looked to quote studies,
it wouldn't pass
a research methods course
in high school.
I mean they're essentially, the studies are
just asking somebody about what they think.
And they don't have any controls like,
if a club is in a bad neighborhood of course there are going to be some problems
outside the club.
Anyways, there are some
good social scientists,
people who are in
public health,
who have looked at,
I mean who have conducted rigorous social science
studies. And there is no evidence that these clubs cause problems
disproportionate to any other place of public assembly.
now you look at where we've had
homicides were we've had crime.
Okay, what happens is,
these religious objections art
couched in
the phrase of adverse secondary effects.
and so what they're doing is manipulating the public with secular
reasoning
and if you keep saying something long enough it acquires a cache of truth.
And then they win,
backing for governmental regulation
quote for the public good.
A lot of the courts will except,
in legislation you have a where as,
we're doing all the things
to protect the public
welfare ect. So
again
the christian right acts through the government to impose its biblical views
and what's most frightening to me is to merge
church
and state.
So the christian right lobbies government they help members get elected
they have their own organizations and their own
lawyers.
So what are the kind of regulations, the court said you can't ban it.
So they license clubs.
And obviously there's litigation because
they don't grant licenses or they don't allow for appeal,
they say that the clubs have to be distant from churches, schools and
other clubs.
Where do we have cases of the most
*** assaults and ***.
Not in the clubs.
We've had a lot
in the churches.
And that's the catholic church and its at the protestant church, and the
christian right churches.
So
you also have stealing the name of the lord, that there was a club and they
tried to get rid of it
for years and years and years.
And so what they did was they said they had to have a road go through and they only
took away this part, where the club was.
Sometimes they even purchased a club,
when, you know, they tried all other kinds of things and they weren't successful.
They set the hours of opening.
Require specific lighting,
delineate, configuration of stage and seating.
Specify exterior
signage.
And then they have sintaxes,
fees for licensing of dancers and staff,
attacks on patrons, attacks on percent of club income. Then
they really interfere with the dancer patron expression.
They specify body parts that must be covered.
They restrict the dance style and movements.
They don't want stimulated
nudity. I mean I'd have to cut out
all my dance costumes virtually,
and ballet.
And they don't want simulated sex. Now whats that?
They said distances between dancers and patrons,
between dancers and dancers, and dancers and patrons, they prohibit touch and
direct tipping.
Oh, this is great, some people have asked me,
how many cases have you worked on
that you won.
And I said you know,
I really don't know, we could win at this level and loose at this level,
and then if the club's comply with an ordinance and thrive,
then they change the rules.
And they can change the rules right before
the court decision is made.
so that it just throws it out and they don't have to pay
lawyers fees.
And sometimes
they know that it's very costly to have these lawsuits and a lot of the local
people don't want to pay for it.
So sometimes the religious group,
one in particular had to raise 100,000 dollars before
they would enact the ordinance.
Then they harassed the clubs, they inspect them
for health, building code violations, they raide the clubs.
I have a lot of descriptions in the book of some of these things that went on.
You know
it would almost be funny except that it's true.
They cite patrons for jaywalking, parking
over the lots private lines,
Ant then there are street
tactics.
I mentioned that they
picket clubs,
they distribute
anti-club literature,
they block club
entrances.
Then one tactic is that they photograph
patrons auto license plates to get patrons names
and then they post those names on the internet and
they call the families and workplaces. Again
it's not considered
respectable to go to the clubs in many communities.
And then they vandalize the clubs.
So okay, so what are the clubs defense? What can they do?
Well what's going on is they have to fight against
the attempt to strip the first fifth
amendments. The fifth is due process, the first is
freedom of expression and separation of church and state,
and the fourteen is equal opportunity.
You know the dancers, exotic dancers are required to do things that no other
dancers are required to do.
They want to corset of the exotic dancer,
they want to micro-manage businesses,
and they're assaulting women by dismantling a club industry.
So the clubs have organized
and they pooled resources.
They have a club bulletin, they have an exposition annually where
they have a a legal section,
they have an economic section,
they have their own lobbyists
and lawyers who try to be proactive. In other words their lists of
essentially
laws that have just come up.
So they're going to committee and what will happen is the
lobbyists will go and try to
talk them out of
pursuing
the legislation.
And of course the lawyers litigate.
They have expert court witnesses conduct research and testify.
They have their advocates run for political office.
The club's organize referendum
against the regulations.
There have been two of them and one was in Washington, and
people didn't want to be known is that prude state.
And
in Scottsville, people
supported the clubs.
And the clubs counter protest. There is one
situation where
that church would always go
in front of the club,
and they'd protest outside and they'd tried to
button hole the dancers to save
their souls.
And finally the club owner got really
annoyed and what he did was he took his big truck with the dancers
and loudspeaker,
and the dancers were outside
in front of the church, right,
and I mean
they had their Bikini's on,
but nonetheless,
I mean they
were doing what they thought they could do.
Well all this
adversarial attack
on the clubs
is really a recipe for demagogy and cynicism.
You know 80% of the publics,
of the electorate,
electorate is on the sidelines, and those with an agenda plus money whisk
laws.
Its opportunism, its special interest politics, and it's not just with regards to
strip clubs, but it's with regard to a lot of things in our country.
Bill Keller just had a
states gone wild.
Laws don't reflect popular views.
So why should you care about what's going on with these clubs.
I don't go to them, I don't like them. You don't like them, don't go. Right.
But some people do. But you should be concerned because Nadine Strossen
pointed out
once we cede to the government the power to violate one right,
for one person,
or group.
Than no right is safe
for any person or group.
So I think you know, let you ask me questions.
*applause* Yes. So you think that exotic dance is a particular focus for that, bridging that, breaking that first amendment right, first amendment separation of church and state? or do you feel looking at the larger picture of abortion, exotic dance...? Well I think it's part of a larger picture.
But I feel very strongly that women who are
dancers, are being unfairly stigmatized,
and they're being unfairly stigmatized because of the focus...
I mean the media has had a large impact on that. When something happens,
if the woman has ever ever been a dancer
they'll mention that, as if that's horrible. right?
One of the things I found very interesting. I mentioned that there's kind of a literature on exotic dance. There are a number of women who are dancers who use their experience and for the research
and for their dissertations, in
anthropology, sociology, criminology, social work,
I mean it goes on. Right? And it seems that
the kinds of movement that they're doing are not different from the movements you see
elsewhere.
The kind of bodily exposure is not different.
And the object of the gaze.
I mean look at the movie stars.
Look at the models. Right? I mean..
And I guess some of us would be unhappy if we walked down the street and we
weren't looked at... Can you address the fact that most of these clubs are owned by men, and that man are in fact profiting significantly from what might be considered the exploitation of the women, looking at it
Well first of all,
women own clubs.
The club here in Beltsville is owned by
a woman who started out as a dancer,
and then she became
a part owner, and now she's running the club. The lodge that I showed is run by a woman, and women
are not exploited in the sense that
they're exploited more so than any other worker in any other position.
I mean I think
that comparative perspective is important.
Some of the women do very well.
They
have to pay in some clubs, a fee
to use the stage like a barber would in a
beauty shop.
I mean they can home 6
digit incomes,
and have a flexible schedule.
Some don't, I mean
some are in clubs where they can go home with nothing.
Nobody's forcing them to dance.
And its an option
that a lot of women find
better than other kinds of options that are available.
But yeah, men make money,
you know, Wall Street makes money, look what they do to the workers.
They're exploited.
And I would say that there are good bosses and
bad bosses.
I mean sometimes some bosses are like
the father.
I mentioned the small club where
the three women
were dancing who had masters degreas and full time day jobs.
He was just incredible, I mean he was making sure that the dancers who didn't
finish their university training were doing it and if somebody was sick
he was paying. And then you have other people who are s.o.b.'s
I mean they're just
not nice people.
Some of the
club owners actually help
students get through school.
They give scholarships,
and they do a lot of good social work, some don't.
...I think that as with most things, what really matters is how you conceptualize it. Your intention. People go to a doctor and have a test and they don't really think about it as ***....In fact last night I have it somewhere on my website, on how different cultures look at salsa dancing, and I think it was Japan, they look at it more as very athletic, and then in America we look at it with a sort of *** connotations with it, just a way our culture tends to look at it. So really I think there is a cultural thing to it.
What matters is your intentions. And how do you signal what you are doing...I think there was another question here. Yes. In the midst of christian rules you shared earlier, how many of those do you agree with?
I'm a researcher, I don't have to, I mean,
I'm just observing and reporting,
doing my research. Your not obligated to tell me that. Right. Christian right is very specific organization in the United States.
Well there's a,
I should say, wait, I should clarify it. It is a
segment of the politically active
Christian right. And that group of people are different from the members of the Christian right who are interested in
taking care of the poor and
helping our environment.
This particular group,
and it has members who really want to impose a theocracy.
I mean it's in their literature,
I mean it's in their...
And they're doing what they can. I mean they've infiltrated the military training academies.
There have been a number of articles and books on that. So again
not all Christian right,
and my apologies for not saying that in the beginning,
That it is a segment
of the politically active
Christian right.
And these are the people,
the alliance defense fund. They're the people with Pat Robertson and the people who are
with...
ect.
They're the people with
focus on the family
they're the people with Wileman
in Mississippi
who was responsible for causing the arts a lot of problems.
So again,
it's a group that is very specific,
well organized, and have lots of money.
I mean I read church and state and they do
reports
on these organizations and these people,
and the amount of money
they have, its amazing. I'm really curious, when going into do your field work, did you have any expectations or preconceptions yourself, and if you did, what was the moment when you started, that you had an 'ah ha' moment. Well,
I had been to strip clubs in Los Angelus.
They were essentially beautiful
dancers auditioning for the movies.
And once in Paris and
in Thailand.
I expected to find Bimbos.
The university students, the law students,
the people,
you know
with professional degrees ect.
That was my main
surprise. And in terms of,
it was funny, sometimes
I would be in a club and if I were taking notes,
you know people would ask...A lot of people thought I was like a house mom,
in a lot of the upscale clubs,
there's a woman who's
called a house mom,
and she's in the dressing room, and she
helps the dancers
get dressed and provide snacks and
they can cry on her shoulder if they
have a bad
evening or something...What happens, I'm interested in your exchange with juries. Judges have to pay attention to the constitution, but Juries are somewhat random selection. How do you interact, or how do you think about what your saying when you not talking to a judge, your not talking to another academic, but your talking to people who probably never heard of this before, have never thought about dance
in this way.
Well the first time I see a blank,
I'm giving dance 101 and I think just this blank.
A lot of places don't have power point but
some of them have slides, so I start making charts like I did
these slides.
And then, I try to give them out and I do this for the Judges. Some of them are as ignorant as anyone else. So, I
try to
use my Texas style
of slower speaking as apposed to my New Jersey style
of faster speaking.
I try to,
i mean I have to look at,
its usually the Judge that I'm looking at
and the Jury is listening.
I have two chapters in the book.
One is
the court case
that traces
Prince Georges county
episodes through.
I mean, you wouldn't believe what you read there.
I mean, I have transcripts of what went on in the council.
They almost came to
...they were accusing..I mean
it was wild.
Okay and then I have one
where I was able to be there
from the selection of the
Jury through
the decision. And then
I called
Jourers to talk to them.
and uh...
I mean that was interesting.
There's some people,
they just didn't like it.
And so if you don't like something,
people are guided by likes and emotions
which sometimes prevent reasoning from getting through.
And in some of the cases,
like the cops,
when they were trying to
get somebody for rudeness or
obscenity,
they'd come into a club,
and they'd, say this is the stage, they'd sit here
and they'd have a hidden camera, so
if the dancer's nude,
what are they gonna get? They're gonna get a
picture of the genitals,
so they'll get a shot like that.
The dance is three minutes,
you don't see anything else. ...???...
First of all,
before I forget what you said, first of all I didn't ever claim that
it was a high art. I mean you can see, you have
a range of arts from high art to sort of
popular art. right? Just like you have sex and you have fantasy. Just like you have kids play and adult play.
What I was doing was giving the definition I used for dances in Africa or children's playgrounds, I mean its a definition
I ran by so many different cultures you wouldn't believe.
I mean does this fit for what you think of as your dance. So it wasn't putting it as
high art, but it was putting it as a form of performance.
You know we have popular arts, so it would be a form of popular art in a theatrical setting, and it has its own criteria, which
ballet has its standard, tap has its standards, hip-hop has its, and exotic dance has its standards
and its ways of evaluating. So what I'm doing is really putting it as,
is it equal under the law. In other words are you discriminating against it?
Is it a form of
artistic expression? So that was the way it was framed.
Which is a reality from an objective point of view.
Nice to see this part of your work, um, yeah, can you just say a little bit more about how you position yourself when your talking to the performers and the patrons...are you like yeah, I'm an anthropologist?...no...Cause you got a lot of people to open up.
Well, first of all the best place for interviewing
dancers I found,
I mean I did some one-on-one, and you know I don't look threatening,
I look like a house mom or right...but essentially going to the dressing room and asking
one person a question loud enough so that
everybody else will hear,
it was a focus group. And that is where I got so much information.
Because everybody had their own point of view, and shared. So that was the richest. The way you went into the dressing room, how did you present why you were going there?
The club owner usually introduced me.
When I went by myself and I would have to talk to a club manager,
and tell him what I was doing, and then get
permission to go in. In terms of in the general area with the patrons, a lot of them,
I mean I didn't want to interview patrons because they're there for a purpose and I don't want to interfere with their pleasure and their fantasy. So I would get
people when they were sorta like
at the bar, when they were walking out.
Sometimes they would ask me things. One young man as I'm walking by,
he said I'm not being unfaithful to my wife, am I,
by looking? So
it was just sort of like being there and....so I don't know if I answered...
So in court
sometimes there would be people in the community who were sitting there, and If I had free time, I'd turn around and be like
how you doing, right?
Why are you here? and so I would get a lot of feedback like that, and of course I'd talk to club owners and managers and bartenders and DJ's.
When you hang around a place, you know,
if you like to talk, if you like to be with people, you know, your active...
If a patron sorta looked at me and said hello,
there! so some of them
were just fixated on
what they were there for, which you know, was fair enough. Some of the people would come in there just to hang out, you know, they're sitting around the bar. People would go to these clubs on the way home, just like they'd stop by a bar for a drink. I mean some of these strippers were also burlesque dancers. Some of the burlesque dancers
disdain the strippers. So you have these kinds of divisions...What's the difference?...
Well in burlesque they don't go completely nude. So they'll wear pasties and they'll wear g-strings, they might flash, I mean that's what Sally ?? did with her feather.
You know 1842 you could be nude onstage if you didn't move. Right, and then you'd have burlesque and
the story is that someones, part of their dress got loose and the crowed went wild, so they decided, well they'd loosen something else
and the crowd went wilder, so then you got the strip tease. Originally burlesque shows were, you know they had fire eater, they had comedians, and they had singers and that whole kind of thing. But when television came in, that sort of killed burlesque.
And so they would talk about has-been dancers in
*** little clubs where it's a bar and
the dancer
walks on a bar like this, and does some kind of dance...Well I should say there are two kinds of dancers.
One dancer's called a house dancer and some of them just come out and with a dress and one song they're topless and one song
they're completely nude.
Now not all localities
allow that. So that, I mean its different than the kind of thing that the features would have. The features are more like burlesque dancers and they put on a show. I mean
they travel with all kinds of equipment and costumes and I mean its really very dramatic.
More like the old fashion burlesque. and the people who are features do very well. And to be a feature you usually have to have been a center fold or in a pent house, or you'd have to been, there's competitions for miss nude, right, and there's competition for
best dancer, and the best pole dancer. So you'd have to have won some of these things so it makes
you very special, so people are willing to come. And not only do you put on your show, but then you sell
pictures with a patron
sitting on your lap, or you sitting on
a patrons lap, or
sometimes they even sell
their underwear, I mean,
concerts have their t-shirts and dancers have their's.
But again, it varies tremendously...so what your basically saying is dance is a form of expression and as such they should be protected...yes...
I mean some people say that your comparing, your putting strip tease in the same category as
ballet. Yes, under the law.
And dancers similarly, under the law. And there are some ballet dancers who perform.
Toni Bentley who was with New York City's ballet,
you know, tried stripping because
George Balanchine, who is a renown choreographer, who was with New York City ballet, he, when he would go to Paris, he would go to,
and he'd bring strippers back, because he said
nobody fell asleep durring a strip show. The liveliness of it. Actually a lot of choreographers
and performance artists have been influenced by strip clubs and the kind of activity.
Well when I first started going to the clubs,
they would just sort of walk around it.
And I guess the first time I saw the athleticism was
with the good guys here in Washington.
But that's something else, you know people in these clubs, you have to have distance. On Wisconsin ave. in Georgetown, high scale business and residence communities. Those clubs were there that even
Arthur Cotton Moore who was writing about development of cities
didn't know that they were down the street from him,
where he worked.
Well I think if you watch MTV, if
you watched Beyonce doing her half time show, you see all those movements. And the kids picked up some of it. I don't know,
it's hard to know origins because in school days
Jones had that *** dancing, right? And my daughter in law who was, she said,
we were doing that in Long Beach, long before it got to white communities, and then
parents got...
Did I answer your question?...Given human trafficking...it is true, what percentage of dance clubs are underage girls dancing?...Well, I haven't come across any underage girls dancing against their will. I mean there are dancers who use fake ID, but to the perspective of trafficking, now I've been doing this study since 95, and I went through the criminal justice system and reports ect. and I didn't find anything about trafficking, except one case in Alaska that had to do with eastern european women. And because people are saying that the dancers are trafficked, which we don't have evidence, there is now, the clubs have a training program with the FBI
to identify, to look for the clues that a woman might be trafficked. I mean they're very terrible about checking ID's.
So I don't, again it's one of these things that, a segment of the politically active Christian right says that its trafficking and its prostitution, and I don't think that prostitution is anymore common in clubs than it is in the University.
And I mean we've had cases where the University, where women are prostitutes.
Usually the clubs, they will fire a dancer who goes out with a patron. And one patron who was in one of the pictures, she came from...the father used to, the preacher would pray outside the club. But anyways she fell in love with somebody who was a patron and she immediately quite and went to another club. I mean a lot of these clubs don't want to have problems
they want to be in business.
Given the fact that the adversaries are waiting to pounce on them, they do what they can....well some people think that kids shouldn't see the nude body, but there are nudist camps with children. Kids love to show there bodies off, they're comfortable with it.
Its only when adults start telling them that that's not right that they pick up those kinds of norms.
She's also a product of a culture... What would you say is the biggest discovery of your research in that line of attack on dancers and the Christian right agenda to...
Well that it was there. I mean
I couldn't believe it, and I couldn't believe it, and the tactics that they use. The street tactics the legal tactics. And, oh,
the other thing that really surprised me was the corruption of the police and the judges. The police did a lot of things that were really unethical. I'll just give you one case, in Seattle,
they raided the club and
they told all the women, the male police, to change and get into street cloths, and one of the dancers wanted the females to be there and the men out, and the cops said treat it like its your brother. And the woman was just really, she never went back to dance again. And the cop said
we see here you signed in, they have a sign in for the days you sign in, so the cop has the book and he says, you signed in...so he faked it, they do a lot of things like that.
And then some of the judges, they they are going to be up for re-election, and some of these conservatives are really active, most people are passive, they're active. So It's rough...Lets stop there and give Dr. Hanna a round of applause.