When Two Men Dance

As a 10-year member of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, I would like to thank Terry McQuilkin for his June 12 review of our 10th-anniversary concert.

We have worked toward mainstream recognition as a legitimate musical ensemble, capable of doing Stravinsky “straight” as well as campy theatrics for our own community audience, and McQuilkin clearly recognized that this program was designed to represent both aspects.

However, I contend that his description of our dancers as being “sexually explicit” is misleading to potential concert-goers, and probably would not have been applied to a male-female duo performing the same actions.

In comparison to recent Music Center Opera productions--including helium-heeled nuns in “The Fiery Angel,” Maria Ewing’s G-string-less “Salome” and quite explicit sex in “Wozzeck” (the latter two activities are definitely not in the original scripts)--I think that suggestive is the strongest term one could apply to a balletic dance involving extensive affectionate body contact between two men (who engaged in no sort of disrobing or pelvic thrusts). Unless, of course, the reviewer was a nervous heterosexual who didn’t want to be reminded that such things go on in the real world and that he happened to be in the minority in this particular audience.

MISHA SCHUTT

Sherman Oaks