The Emerald City Hoedown in Seattle has made headlines, and not because of the high level of competition. The Borderline Dance Team, a regional all-female country group, claimed they were kicked out of the dance convention. The reason? Wearing T-shirts with the American flag.
The dance group reported this situation through a post on Facebook. They explained that they had been invited to leave the event since several attendees claimed to feel "triggered and unsafe."
As explained in the statement, the organizer of the event, Rain Country Dance Association, an LGBT dance community, claimed that attendees felt uncomfortable with their clothing since it reminded them of the war between Israel and Hamas or certain transgender issues. It seemed like it was simply a warning but, moments later, the organization assured them that they had to change their shirts or they would not perform:
At first we were told we would just be boo’d, yelled at and likely many of them would walk out. This did not deter us. But then we were given an ultimatum. Remove the flag tops and perform in either street clothes (which most didn’t bring as they traveled there in their uniforms) or they would supply us with ECH shirts from years past… Or, don’t perform at all, which effectively was asking us to leave.
They refused to comply with the order since, as can be read in the post, they are not affiliated with any type of political ideology but do consider themselves patriotic: "My team doesn’t take a political stance. We came to dance. We’re a patriotic group. We support our military, our veterans, our first responders. We’re a group of patriots," they stated.
However, they were still kicked out for their American flag shirts, and another dance group, West Coast Country Heat, also wore American colors and were asked not to perform:
Our friends, West Coast Country Heat, who were also scheduled to dance for the convention that evening also did not perform as they too proudly don the colors of our country in the same spirit of patriotism that we do. Both of our teams stood in solidarity and put actions to words.
Seattle dance organization denies the events
The organization declined to respond to the request for comment officially. However, the president of the board, Ziadee Cambier, stated in a Facebook comment reported by The New York Post that the Borderline Dance Team was not asked to leave:
We will be in continued communication with the captains of the dance teams that were slated to perform Saturday. To clarify, as this was not a competition, no one was disqualified and no one was asked to leave. While we are mending our relationships directly with the dance teams we will be disabling comments on this post. We will be sharing more information later this week, to hopefully clear up any misunderstandings.
