I am the director of a dance company that draws on local talent who aspire to become professional. We have a good reputation and attract a wide range of interested people from the surrounding communities. After a performance last fall, a major supporter of our program commented that my particular style of choreographing highlighted the differences between the male and female body. I hadn't really thought much about it but didn't think that I consciously intended to do so. She insisted that it was the major impression that she took away from my work. She challenged me to put on a performance, which she offered to fund, with myself as one of the lead dancers.
I accepted but asked her to say more. After insisting that she had given it much thought but hadn't reached many conclusions, she offered the observation that, in her order of dramatic unveilings, the display of a man's penis ranked highest followed by revealing a woman's pubic region and, the finally, uncovered breasts, which now seemed the norm on most European beaches. I followed with, why this order? She hummed and hawed, but really said nothing. Finally she stated that this was what she wanted me to explore.
The next morning I began constructing the performance and was soon dismayed at what I had gotten myself into. The performance had to revolve around a contrast. As the lead female dance, I would be standing in opposition to another male dancer. This much I knew right off. It was the next thought that shook me up. Since I was contrasting the male and female body, it made sense that I would be NUDE! I immediately dismissed this logic out of hand. We, as a company, had never performed anything so risquΓ©. There had to be another way.
As the morning wore on, I hit one major roadblock after another. I knew that there had to a way around my dancing nude, but what was it? I would ... I could ...I might .... Nothing. No matter where I started, I ended up without a stitch on. I became more and more desperate. About mid-afternoon, I gave up and gave in. If I was going to be nude at the end, I might was well start out that way. Reluctantly, I accepted my fate.
I began the next day thinking about the other point of contrast -- the male body. What was distinctive about it? It was bigger and more muscular, and it had a penis. I took my nudity and these three defining facts about the male body and began to play with them. By lunch, I realized I was getting nowhere with this and felt that maybe I should just give up and start again.
This time I began with the male body. What was different about the human male and other male animals? The answer was obvious to me as soon as I asked the question. The human stood up, and when he did, he made his penis a much more prominent feature in his physique. In fact, when compared with other primates, the human male was less muscular and closer in size to females. The main difference was in the center stage that uprightness gave the penis, which was also much larger than our cousins. Now, I had an idea with which I could work.