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An exotic area of dance expertise

When strip clubs need a witness, they call Judith Lynne Hanna.

By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published September 11, 2006

Hillsborough County commissioners passed new regulations for strip clubs Thursday. They did so against the advice of a gray-haired anthropologist who testified that exotic dancing is much like other forms of dance, except with fewer clothes.

Judith Lynne Hanna, an expert witness at last month's hearing on the issue, is a senior research scholar in the department of dance at the University of Maryland. She testified that regulating strippers and not other dancers would amount to discrimination.

Hanna, who turns 70 this month, compared exotic dancing with "da butt," "booty dancing," "freaking" and "doggy dancing," all moves that are common at high school proms.

Hanna has published six scholarly books and more than 300 articles on dance. She is a critic for Dancer magazine.

Hanna takes classes in Afro-Cuban dance, flamenco and Jazzercise, among other dance forms. She has testified in more than 100 cases involving the adult entertainment industry.

She talked to the St. Petersburg Times by phone from her home in Bethesda, Md.

How did an anthropologist come to specialize in dance, and how did a scholar come to study lap dancing?

Back when I was a student at UCLA, there was an African student who used to have dance parties. All these African students would come, and their dance was just so different, so wonderful. So when my husband and I got an opportunity to go to Africa, I decided I should study African dance. When I went to Columbia to get my Ph.D., I researched the dance plays of Nigeria, from a sociolinguistic approach.

Back in 1995, because someone saw my book Dance, Sex and Gender, I was asked to be an expert witness in a suit about table dancing in Seattle. It turned out it was legitimate; I was asked to look at exotic dance in terms of its history, its meaning, how it relates to society.

Once you began to research exotic dance, what surprised you?

I expected to find bimbos. It turns out some of the bimbos come from Harvard.

I found dancers who were college students, graduate students, professional women. In many cases, they danced because they enjoyed it. They liked the exercise. They liked the bucks. I've talked to dancers who studied ballet, dancers who were cheerleaders.

Another thing that surprised me was that we had this sexual revolution in the '60s, so why was there so much opposition? I wondered who's behind this, and at first it seemed like it was just Rev. So-and-So, this church over here, that church over there. Of course, we have a history of opposition to dance, going back to taxi dancing, even the waltz.

But I kept seeing the same people, and I finally came to the conclusion it's part of a grand alliance of the Christian right to impose theocracy. . . . The Christian right has training programs for lawyers who fight these clubs. They provide legislation.

They keep claiming there are adverse secondary effects from these businesses, but there is no scientific evidence. They cloak morality in academe.

The adult clubs have been learning from the Christian right. Now there are alliances of owners fighting these ordinances, sharing what they've learned.

What about the opposition from some feminists to stripping, lap dancing and the like?

That was another surprise, some of the feminist hostility. Feminists are divided on this. But we look at models, we look at sports players, we look at movie stars. It's all commodification of the body.

To say being the object of the male gaze is the source of the problem - the gaze has given women lots of power, and many of them use it.

The dancers I talked to really felt empowered, in control. The biggest problem the dancers have is the stigma attached to what they do.

How do you conduct research on this subject?

I've interviewed more than 500 people. I've talked to dancers, to club patrons, to club owners, to community members. I've been to over 128 clubs.

I do a lot of observing. What is it they're doing onstage? I've found it meets the criterion of dance, of nonverbal communication. It has its own aesthetic norms; there are ways of judging how what they do has serious artistic merit.

I found that some customers go not for the eroticism but to hang out with friends. Some of them are men who would never get the attention of an attractive woman otherwise. I've met men who had cancer, who were disabled. Some happily married men are just looking for a nonjudgmental listener. The women tell me sometimes they're paid not to dance but to listen.

How different is exotic dancing from mainstream dancing?

I can't see the difference between what kids are doing in nightclubs and in high schools, grinding their behinds, all that stuff. Some parents don't know what their kids are doing. I don't like it myself. I'll stick to salsa.

But the only real difference in the clubs is they're less clad. And even that isn't true if you go to beach bars.

One place in Florida wanted to require more clothing in adult clubs than what people wear on the beach. So I went around the beach shooting butts, brought the pictures in.

How much are you paid for testifying as an expert witness?

About $200 an hour. That's a lot less than I get when I give lectures. Who works for nothing?

Colette Bancroft can be reached at (727) 893-8435 or bancroft@sptimes.com.

[Last modified September 10, 2006, 22:49:49]