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Everybody Gance Now!
Got an urge to shake it like a Polaroid picture but no girl to do it with? Just grab your buddy! The latest club trend makes ladies’ night about as relevant as France’s postwar interests in Iraq. (Hooray for current events!)
Stuff,
3/10/2004
By Bill Schulz
Drew Lerner is having the time of his life. The 26-year-old travel agent is in a hip New York City bar, his favorite song is playing, and he’s dancing like a madman…with another man. And neither of them is gay.
Welcome to the formerly hidden world of gancing (aka, guy-on-guy dancing). While a woman hoofing it with a member of the same sex has never been an eyebrow raiser, the idea of two straight men following suit has historically been frowned upon. You know, like when you see a dog wearing a sweater? It’s not normal, so you frown.
But as far as Drew is concerned, it’s as simple as a love of shaking his groove thing versus a lack of receptive skirts. “I couldn’t get any girls to dance with me, so I decided, I’ll just dance with this dude,” recalls Lerner. “But it works on other levels. When I’m doing moves like the Dog with a buddy, girls at the club not only form circles around us, but they actually want to join in.”
Indeed, many of the moves are more performance art than actual choreography. For example, the aforementioned Dog involves one gancer using his belt as a leash around the neck of another and walking him around the floor on all fours like, well, a damn dog.
“Gancing usually elicits one of two responses: amusement or disgust,” says 26-year-old dental-supply salesman John Lauerman. “And its the meatheads in the club who feel the latter. Whatever. They’re the ones feeling stupid when the chicks start forming circles around us. Women totally love it!”
Members of the fairer sex seem to agree—to a point. “It’s funny, I guess,” says NYC-based graphic designer Flora Splio. “But I went to a club recently and I thought it was a gay night—all these white-collar guys dancing with each other. One guy was pretending to be a shark, putting his hands above his head as a dorsal fin, while another dude rowed away. I was weirded out, but my girlfriend ended up going home with the guy who played the shark.”
“It is a trend,” concedes Callin Fortis, co-owner of the New York- and Miami-based überclub Crobar. “But you know what? It’s all good. People go nuts for it. It adds to the party,” he says.
The fate of this movement is unclear. Will the world play John Lithgow to this Kevin Bacon of a trend? Will legions of lasses put the kibosh on the crazy cabaret before it leads to declining birthrates? And, less to the point, when will somebody give the epic that was Hidalgo the kudos it deserves? Omar Sharif’s performance was a tour de force!
Stuff doesn’t have the answers. (But we do have half a box of Triscuits, if you’re hungry.) One thing we know for sure is that gancing is a lot of fun! To paraphrase the seminal group Snap!: We’re as serious as cancer when we say that rhythm is a gancer.
Gancing for Beginners
In our tireless efforts to make you cool, we present several easy-to-learn gance moves.
Move No. 1: The Lumberjack
Gancer No. 1 stands in the middle of the dance floor with arms raised to indicate that they are branches and he is a tree. Gancer No. 2 pretends to be holding an ax and hacks away at the fleshy tree. Gancer No. 1 bends backward until finally toppling—trust fall–style—into gancer No. 2’s arms. Gancer No. 2 catches the tree, throws him into the air again and, together, they start boogying wildly.
Move No. 2: The Bull
Gancer No. 1 uses empty beer bottles as horns and ominously begins to kick up imaginary dirt as he eyes gancer No. 2’s waving red cape. The cape—which gancer No. 1 should be constantly rushing—works best if it’s the shirt off the back of manly matador gancer No. 2.
Move No. 3: The Birth
Gancer No. 1 lies on the dance floor on all fours with his stomach facing the ceiling. He begins to pant wildly as if going into labor. Gancer No. 2 lies down opposite the expectant mother’s head and uses his legs to slide under Mommy. His head comes out below No. 1’s crotch, and he cries maniacally. Gancer No. 1 then squeezes gancer No. 2 out—it’s a boy!—and pretends to cut the umbilical cord. Expect a negative reaction from fellow clubgoers, since there is no move in the gancer’s canon more disturbing than the Birth.
Move No. 4: The Diana Ross
Gancer No. 1 pretends to be drunk-driving across the dance floor, while gancer No. 2 runs away from him so as not to be the victim in DUI Diana’s soon-to-be vehicular homicide. As the song ends, gancer No. 1 runs over gancer No. 2 and then flees the scene of the crime. Note: Only to be performed during the playing of any Supremes song, ideally “Stop! In the Name of Love.”
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