A feminist anthropologist goes to zumba

There are frenetic gyrations, hands clapping off-rhythm to the pulse of Latin beats, unrealized attempts at body-rolls. There is the instructor – matron, demi-goddess – poised at the front of the room and bodies that shudder in response, aligned in rows of fairly equal spacing, attempting to understand the choreography without any verbal cues. How am I, an outsider, to follow these wordless instructions, dictated by gestures as subtle and specific as a swift movement of the head, or even merely the eye, in the direction of the foot intended to kick? The instructor offers no answers, merely pelvic thrusts and the shrill cry of an “arriba.”

As the first track nears its conclusion, our leader removes the outer layer of her exercise apparel. Behold! A toned set of abdominals, a declaration of her authority. She has silently communicated her physical prowess and the accumulation of what is surely hours of exercise and conditioning. So much of this ritual, it seems, relies on the unsaid. “Ladies,” she booms over the marimbas. There are a handful of men speckled into the mostly female crowd like eyes on a potato, staring back into the long mirror at the front of Dillon Gymnasium’s Group Fitness Room at the sways of their cha-chas. Does our leader not recognize the male form or has she simply cast aside its existence in the interest of a new hegemony? At last, man is “other” in this group that seeks to encourage women to want to exercise. Here, a lunge masked as a hip new dance move. There, oblique exercises disguised as a meringue. It is a utopia of the female form in motion, a celebration of the body in extremis from ceaseless squats to “Mr. Saxobeat.”

However, just as the child who has consumed too many sweets will eventually learn, paradise is never pure. So we are brought to the music of Zumba, the declarations by male artists of the observed’s capabilities of moving her body, a comparison of the posterior of the singer’s intended with the presumed male listener’s partner. Hence, the women of Zumba attempt to form a relationship with their bodies in motion amid the chanting of “my girl got a big ol’ booty, your girl got a lil’ ol’ booty,” all the while seeking to satisfy their Amazonian leader by drawing their own rear ends beyond their physical limitations and closer to the floor.

They will never, ever get low enough to appease her.

Perhaps there is no respite — not even within the eager shimmies of Zumba class — for the women of Princeton, who are shown to participate less both in student leadership and precept settings. Here, too, a man’s voice booms through the room as the female instructor, in spite of her physical strength, conducts most of the class in silence. Everywhere, the male gaze rests upon the women who, in a mixture of stoic determination and sheer confusion, attempt to keep up with the choreography. They stumble across the laminate floor as Enrique Iglesias hollowly chuckles, “She’s a five when she drinks, but she’s a 10 when she’s on top of me.” The stare of misogynist imperialism of the body is unyielding.

Nonetheless, the interlocutors appear to be unfazed by both the content of the lyrics and the absurdity of the movements. In the mirror, rows of staid faces attached to twerking booties and rocking pelvises carry out the choreography with not so much as a giggle. This ritual appears to be of utmost seriousness.

Now, there is a track for ab work.

At the end of the Zumba class, the instructor applauds and the women follow suit. But for what, I ask, are they clapping?