Author Archives: Audrey Looby

Ballroom dance should be awkward

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: PhD student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 3/10/15
Primary Language: English

“In ballroom dancing, especially in the Smooth category, there is uh, mostly for Foxtrot, but with Latin too, there is this that, if you are doing something, uh, and it feels weird, there is this idea that it should be hard, and it should be, like, difficult to make your body do it. That’s what Lorena tells me, since that’s what a lot of other people tell us, too, but Blue, who was back on the team before, he had a different approach, which is not the standard approach, which is that if you are doing something, it should be easier, that you do something right in ballroom dancing by doing it the easier way, which makes more sense to me, and it seems to hold true. I believe that’s how you look at it, but there is this systemic notion that doing things the hard way or in the way that is the awkward way is the correct way.”

 

The informant is a PhD student at the University of Southern California, studying linguistics. He is also a member—and next year’s president—of the University of Southern California’s Ballroom and Latin Dance Team. He specializes in the American Smooth dances (Waltz, Viennese Waltz, Tango, and Foxtrot), though also knows the International Latin dances and many social dances, like Hustle and Salsa. He has been in the USC Ballroom and Latin Dance Team for 2 years, and did ballroom dance at the University of Michigan for 2 years. He competes in the Silver and Gold level Smooth dances, and has placed highly in numerous competitions.

 

The folklore was collected by asking the informant what some of the general customs or ideas of ballroom dancing are, that are not universally taught or understood. This custom he speaks of is often spoken of, or left as an unspoken understanding, throughout the ballroom dancing world.

 

In the paragraph above, the informant mentions Lorena. Lorena is one of the two coaches and teachers for the USC Ballroom and Latin Dance Team. The informant takes classes with both with the club and privately along with his dance partner. She has been dancing ballroom for ten years, and is a professional ballroom dancer and instructor. Blue is the name of a previous member of the dance team, who was an amazing ballroom dancer and now competes at the amateur level. He had danced for 5 years before leaving the club the previous year.

 

Competitive ballroom dance, like the American Smooth category that the informant competes in, is not a folk dance, as there are specific standards for it, and a syllabus of acceptable moves for each level of competition, and the competitions themselves are judged and organized based on official regulations. There are, however, many aspects of ballroom dance culture that can be considered folklore, as it is stuff one learns from other dances, without being official rules or concepts, and this culture can change and adapt itself to each person.

The folklore the informant speaks of is a common concept of ballroom dance: in order to be considered an amazing dancer, it is necessary to be uncomfortable. Ballroom dance requires a lot of awkward positions that are unnatural to do, and can be quite hard to accomplish. This includes the left-side lead of the body, the head tilt, and even the steps—forward steps in Smooth are meant to feel like one is falling forward without correcting for balance, for example. The dance frame, in particular, is exceedingly “uncomfortable” and difficult to maintain.

This discomfort is felt, and even encouraged, by many ballroom dancers. There is a saying that “if you feel uncomfortable, then you are doing it right.” This is what the informant has heard from Lorena, his instructor, and many other ballroom dancers.

What Blue argues takes this concept a step further, and there are those that agree with him, like the informant. Blue believes that although the position and steps feel uncomfortable compared to normal body motions, when done perfectly, they should also feel right. When you have a perfect position, and perfect footwork, dancing should be easier. It should be easier to lead what steps to do, and easier to follow your partner when you are in this “uncomfortable” state. This is also an understanding of many ballroom dancers that some believe and teach, though each dancer has his or her own way of looking at it.

No women on boats

Nationality: American
Occupation: captain of the Miss Christi
Residence: Two Harbors, CA
Performance Date: 4/19/15
Primary Language: English

“Women in boats are bad luck. I’m sure you’ve heard that. [The reason:]Just distract sailors, yeah, because there’s always something that goes on and someone falls in love and love triangles or… Nothing against women, that’s just… Tempers flare very quickly. Um, ‘It’s not gay if you’re under way.’ Hahaha. ‘It’s only queer if you can see the pier.'”

 

The informant is one of the captains of the Miss Christi, the boat that ferries people to the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina island. He came to the island a couple of years after graduating from high school in San Diego. He worked at the general store in Two Harbors, then as a housekeeper at WIES. Twelve years later he became a captain. Originally, he wanted to study marine biology, but fell in love with the island when he came there and has never looked back. He still enjoys marine studies, and he is a certified scientific scuba diver. He has loved the water his whole life, but did not start boating until he came to Catalina. An avid spear fisherman, he has a lot of contact with the other fishers on the island, and many of his friends are involved in sea life in some way.

 

The informant was asked if he knew any superstitions of mariners, what is good luck or bad luck for a ship. He had heard of this folklore from his friends, who are boaters and fishermen.

 

Women not being permitted on boats is probably the most well-known seafarer superstition. Many boaters who are going on long trips out to sea consider it horrible luck to have a female on board. This belief has continued to present day: women were not allowed on submarines until a few years ago. This belief has also made its way into popular culture. It is often a part of any pirates or sailor movies, like in Pirates of the Caribbean and the fear the dress creates for the ship. This superstition is incredibly well-spread, if not fully followed.

There are some good reasons for this belief. Most sailors are just men like any other and are prone to falling in love or lusting after members of the opposite sex. If more than one man develops feelings for the same woman, then things can get ugly fast. As the informant says, love triangles can form, and feelings can get hurt—and unlike normal love triangles, there is no hope to avoid the other members of it as all are stuck on the same ship for months or maybe years at a time. Because the working of a ship requires such steadfast teamwork between sailors, any hard feelings between team members can put the entire ship at risk. This guideline of not having women on ships to complicate things soon progressed to women bringing bad luck to the ship.

Sailors, boaters, and fishermen are notoriously superstitious. Most groups who are the most superstitious are those who have a trade that is heavily reliant on nature. Farmers are one example, as the success of their crops relies on variability in the weather. Seamen, similarly, rely on currents, winds, and weather to take them from place to place. All it takes is one storm, and their ship could sink. Because they have so little control over their trade, they attempt to create good luck through superstitions. Things become associated with good or bad luck, and all sailors must follow these superstitions for fear that their boat will sink. Women is one such source of bad luck.

Men do get lonely after a long time away from wives and women company, so men have been known to turn to their fellow sailors for company. They may also prefer male company in the first place. On land, any male-male relationships would not have been acceptable even 20 years ago, but out to sea, with little societal constraints, then men could have relationships with each other and not be shamed the same way they would on the mainland. Seafarers even have sayings about this, as the informant shares, that prove this is not an uncommon occurrence.

Red sun in the morning, sailor take warning.

Nationality: American
Occupation: captain of the Miss Christi
Residence: Two Harbors, CA
Performance Date: 4/17/15
Primary Language: English

“You know the whole like ‘Red sun in the morning, sailor take warning.’ or some shit like that. I don’t believe that. Look at, look at the uh forecast. That’s usually the most accurate is what’s going to happen.

 

The informant is one of the captains of the Miss Christi, the boat that ferries people to the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina island. He came to the island a couple of years after graduating from high school in San Diego. He worked at the general store in Two Harbors, then as a housekeeper at WIES. Twelve years later he became a captain. Originally, he wanted to study marine biology, but fell in love with the island when he came there and has never looked back. He still enjoys marine studies, and he is a certified scientific scuba diver. He has loved the water his whole life, but did not start boating until he came to Catalina. An avid spear fisherman, he has a lot of contact with the other fishers on the island, and many of his friends are involved in sea life in some way.

 

The informant was asked if there were any common sayings of seamen that he was familiar with. He has heard this folklore from his fishermen friends and people whose family has had the ocean for their trade for generations.

 

Though the informant does not believe in these sayings, he still remembers them and knows many sailors who do believe in them. If the sky is red in the morning, then there is a higher chance of storms or just bad luck for sailors. this may have something to do with the sun reflecting off clouds in the east, and as storms move east to west, then there is a chance of storms passing over the ship. Red sky at night, on the contrary, is perfectly okay as that means the storm has already passed the ship.

Sailors, boaters, and fishermen are notoriously superstitious. Most groups who are the most superstitious are those who have a trade that is heavily reliant on nature. Farmers are one example, as the success of their crops relies on variability in the weather. Seamen, similarly, rely on currents, winds, and weather to take them from place to place. All it takes is one storm, and their ship could sink. Because they have so little control over their trade, they attempt to create good luck through superstitions. Things become associated with good or bad luck, and all sailors must follow these superstitions for fear that their boat will sink. Red skies in the morning represent bad luck.

With modern technology, boaters can rely on radar and weather forecasting to determine if there is dangerous weather that day. The informant is one such, who feels he does not need to look at the color of the sky in the morning to determine if he will survive the day. There are others, though, who use both. They will look at forecasts and use that for the majority of their weather knowledge. If the sky is red in the morning, however, they are much less likely to risk the ocean regardless of what the weatherman says. Science and superstition can exist in the same belief system.

No bananas on boats

Nationality: American
Occupation: captain of the Miss Christi
Residence: Two Harbors, CA
Performance Date: 4/17/15
Primary Language: English

“No bananas on boats. It comes back, there’s a couple things, different reasons they claim for that certain superstition, um going back to when banana boats literally, coming from the Mediterranean, I mean not the Mediterranean, but the Caribbean and stuff like that. Um, one would be that, uh, spiders, venomous creatures liked to live in bananas, in the bunches and what not, so it was apparently kind of a bad thing, like oh, you got a bunch of bananas on a boat, you’ve probably got a bunch of nasty stuff living in there. Um, another one that I heard is that bananas float, and whenever you, a boat would sink, then that’s the only thing you would be able to find, would be a pile of bananas floating around. And you can go online, they’ll show you, there’s literally people who will not let you on their boat, they won’t even allow Banana Boat sunscreen on their boat. I mean seriously. Especially fishermen, they’re a very superstitious bunch, of course. It’s very interesting like why…? Yeah, and some people, I have a friend who’s boat name is No Bananas, and I’ve got another friend whose boat is called the Tipetina, but on the back has a picture of a marlin and it’s got a banana on its bill. So it’s just kind of a weird, like what the heck’s going on here? Banana boat. Google it, I’m sure there’s plenty of folklore online about it.”

 

The informant is one of the captains of the Miss Christi, the boat that ferries people to the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina island. He came to the island a couple of years after graduating from high school in San Diego. He worked at the general store in Two Harbors, then as a housekeeper at WIES. Twelve years later he became a captain. Originally, he wanted to study marine biology, but fell in love with the island when he came there and has never looked back. He still enjoys marine studies, and he is a certified scientific scuba diver. He has loved the water his whole life, but did not start boating until he came to Catalina. An avid spear fisherman, he has a lot of contact with the other fishers on the island, and many of his friends are involved in sea life in some way.

 

The informant was asked about some superstitions of fishermen—things you should never do or bring on boats. He has heard of this particular superstition from some of his friends, and has seen the stickers for it and has read about it.

 

As the informant says above, there are many boaters who do not allow bananas on boats. Even Banana Boat sunscreen is often forbidden. Though contemporary boaters likely follow this superstition because they have heard about it from their family or fellow boaters, there are some good reasons for the origin of this superstition. First of all, merchants bringing bananas from South America and the Caribbean would carry poisonous spiders and disease with them from these tropical locations. Bananas, and anyone who carried them, began to be associated with disease and vile things. Any reasonable boater would not want to carry bananas on their boats when they could easily be associated with these negative ideas.

The second reason that the informant mentions is a bit creepier. If a boat carrying bananas should sink, the bananas would remain floating on the surface to mark the location. Death is obviously something that sailors would wish to avoid, so anything that is related to death in anyway must be avoided. The bananas would outlive the sailors carrying them, and take on this eerie image. If a ship were to come on a pile of bananas floating in the middle of the ocean, they would know a ship had sunk there, and that their ship might be next.

Sailors, boaters, and fishermen are notoriously superstitious. Most groups who are the most superstitious are those who have a trade that is heavily reliant on nature. Farmers are one example, as the success of their crops relies on variability in the weather. Seamen, similarly, rely on currents, winds, and weather to take them from place to place. All it takes is one storm, and their ship could sink. Because they have so little control over their trade, they attempt to create good luck through superstitions. Things become associated with good or bad luck, and all sailors must follow these superstitions for fear that their boat will sink. Bananas are just other creators of bad luck, that must be avoided.

This superstition has even made its way into popular culture, through stickers that are sold (like the one on the informant’s boat). When businesses realize that many sailors believe in one superstition, then they will create products that will create good luck or bad luck. There may be talismans that stop the bad luck created by bananas, just as there are signs sold to prevent the bringing of bananas on boats.

Changing the name of a boat

Nationality: American
Occupation: captain of the Miss Christi
Residence: Two Harbors, CA
Performance Date: 4/17/15
Primary Language: English

“It’s bad luck for you to change the name of a boat up. But, if for whatever reason you do decide to change it up, there is the rite of passage, so to speak. Um, a couple people have different ways of doing it. The most common that I’ve heard is to drive it around in a circle, backwards, three times. Yeah. And that’s to get the bad juju off, I don’t know if it’s really a left turn or a right turn, but that’s what I hear is if you’re going to be changing up your stuff, that’s what you do. Sign it off, write your name, get your new CF numbers and you put that thing in reverse to get the bad juju off. God speed.”

 

The informant is one of the captains of the Miss Christi, the boat that ferries people to the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina island. He came to the island a couple of years after graduating from high school in San Diego. He worked at the general store in Two Harbors, then as a housekeeper at WIES. Twelve years later he became a captain. Originally, he wanted to study marine biology, but fell in love with the island when he came there and has never looked back. He still enjoys marine studies, and he is a certified scientific scuba diver. He has loved the water his whole life, but did not start boating until he came to Catalina. An avid spear fisherman, he has a lot of contact with the other fishers on the island, and many of his friends are involved in sea life in some way.

 

The informant was asked why the boat WIES uses is called the Miss Christi. Apparently, the boat had been sold to WIES for cheap to the Institute as a kind of donation. It was called Miss Christi after the original owner’s wife. When WIES bought the boat, they had considered changing the name to make it more related to the University of Southern California or the Institute itself, but the staff argued that the rituals necessary to make the boat safe to drive on the water again were to complicated, and that it was just too risky to change the name. The informant then went on to explain the process to change the name, if absolutely necessary.

 

All boaters would agree that it is incredibly bad luck to change the name of a ship. Once a ship is named, it is named for life, and to change that name would disrespect the boat’s history and make light of the ship’s nature.

That being said, sometimes it cannot be avoided and the name of the boat must be changed. In that case, there is a certain ritual to go through to get rid of the bad luck. As the informant says, once the captain changes the name and gets the new registration for it, he must take it out in the water and drive it backwards in a circle. This is fairly dangerous, especially since there is still bad juju is still on the boat when driving it out on the water. It would be especially difficult if the ship was a sailboat or had oarsmen, as boats had in the past. It is not impossible, however, so it can be done if necessary.

The informant did not know what direction the turn should be, but if it is like much other Western folklore, it is likely counter-clockwise, sometimes known as widdershins. Whenever a ritual is trying to get rid of negative energy or change things that are already there, then it usually involves counter-clockwise movement. This name-changing ritual would likely use the same principle.

Sailors, boaters, and fishermen are notoriously superstitious. Most groups who are the most superstitious are those who have a trade that is heavily reliant on nature. Farmers are one example, as the success of their crops relies on variability in the weather. Seamen, similarly, rely on currents, winds, and weather to take them from place to place. All it takes is one storm, and their ship could sink. Because they have so little control over their trade, they attempt to create good luck through superstitions. Things become associated with good or bad luck, and all sailors must follow these superstitions for fear that their boat will sink. Respecting the name of the boat to make sure the boat will not sink is no different.