ABSTRACT
Concepts of masculinity in American popular dance developed and diversified immensely during the 1980s. Dances from Bay Area gay clubs were screened across America by male dancers performing Punking/Waacking. This chapter explores how these diverse embodiments of masculinity moved together to reimagine the visions and spaces of danced masculinities. It considers the steps that enabled qualities of beauty, grace, ferocity, and flexibility to be widely recognized as appropriate for a male dancing body today. The chapter argues that the mediatization of male street dancers from the east and west coasts between 1982 and 1984 presented a diversity of movement that challenged American masculinity while creating new danced masculinities. The popular appeal of these dances placed both heteronormative and queer movements on suburban male bodies, who were otherwise unlikely to encounter street dances. This period is fundamental in widening the palette of masculine movement and the number of male-identifying dancers today.
