ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the author's canceled movements in dance journey, which make to continuously work toward unlearning his macho sensibilities. Canceled movement is any sort of corporal movement or gesture that becomes erased, oppressed, and/or condemned for not being “manly” enough. In the patriarchal society, this strategy helped to self-regulate and navigate heteronormativity, as dictated by social gender norms. Dance scholar James Moreno explains that “through bodily postures, movements, and spatial relationships with the ballerina, the male ballet dancer sutures his gaze to the gaze of male audience members in viewing the ballerina, which helps to construct his subjectivity.” Machismo, which can be broadly defined as a “socially constructed, learned, and reinforced set of behaviors comprising the content of male gender roles in Latino society,” provided the author with the “appropriate” ways he should act, talk, and move in this world.
