The stereotype of male dancers automatically being gay-not to mention the myth that dancing makes you queer-is a concept that Americans, in particular, love to embrace, as if to protect their own macho image. “It was like a white suburban Grace Jones look,” says O’Connor. That inspired act of creativity was probably his first choreographed performance. When he was 7 years old, future choreographer Tere O’Connor donned a white V-neck tennis sweater, a pair of very short shorts, and his father’s trout fishing boots and sashayed down the street of his blue-collar neighborhood in Webster, New York.
