Only one of six female identities in Wollongong’s version of “Dancing with the Stars” - the Cancer Council’s “Dance for Cancer” - was able to be partnered with a man because there’s a shortage.
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For the six male stars, finding a female dance partner was no problem.
Equality has come a long way in recent times but there are still pockets of society where stigma still exists, males choosing to pursue dance is one of them.
An Illawarra Mercury Facebook poll found 86 per cent of people would allow their son to attend a dance school, though some comments acknowledged the stereotype was still there.
“Most boys want to play football, most girls want to dance,” wrote Garry Harvey.
“Dancing is seen as a girl’s sport. If a boy is dancing then he is seen as gay unfortunately,” commented Margaret Inness.
Byron Leitch, 16, from Towradgi spends hours each day perfecting his craft at Linda Shaw Dance Centre, where the girls outnumber the boys about 25 to one.
Despite having a girlfriend, he has often copped flak from his male peers who have labelled him “gay”.
“The guys at my school just didn’t understand and they thought because I did ballet and was hanging out with girls that makes me automatically gay,” he said.
“I find guys have problems expressing themselves, like they all have to be rough and tough.”
The Illawarra Grammar School student said he would have assumed many teenage boys would jump at the chance to spend hours with beautiful women.
Regardless, Leitch said both his high school and dance school were extremely supportive of his aspirations to have a career in musical theatre.
Principal dance teacher Linda Shaw said while there is a vast shortage of male dancers, attitudes have slowly started to change over the last decade - especially as more high schools teach performing arts classes.
“I feel it’s becoming more accepted, and the numbers of boys taking on dance classes has elevated,” she said.
“I feel the stigma has become less and I’ve been teaching nearly forty years so I have seen the change.”
Ms Shaw said she would love to see more boys encouraged to take up the sport as they should be allowed to feel comfortable in whatever they choose.
She said the dancers who do become successful don’t care what others think, just like her aspiring student Byron, who she believes will go far.
“I know they’ll still get called all sorts of nasty names [at school] ... but they’ve just got to have broad shoulders like any athlete and take what’s thrown at them.”
