Introduction: Dance as Social Life and Cultural Practice

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2015

Dance as a topic for systematic anthropological investigation was established in the 1960s. As the Western category of dance did not always work in a cross-cultural perspective, bounded rhythmical movements were identified, as well as dance events. Dance is an expression of wider social and cultural situations, often indicating transition or conflict, as well as unity. Dance anthropologists study all forms of dance, Western and non-Western, ranging from ritual dance and social dance to street dance and staged dance performance. Dance and movement are understood in relation to theories of the body and gender, and to ethnicity, nationalism, and transnationality.

This short paper was written as a response assignment, reflecting on material covered in the middle of the course. The course was called, "Looking At Dance" and took an analytical and philosophical approach to viewing and defining dance and its relation to culture, identity, society, ideologies, demographics and values. In this particular portion, I address my subjective perceptions of the development and evolution of dance and the social impact of those developments, supported by objective evidence and analysis.

Comelles J M, Van Dongen (szerk.) Medical anthropology at Home contributes to health studies. Themes in Medical Anthropology Lecce: Argo, 2001. pp. 352-372., 2001

Medical anthropology has to contend with problems of the Cartesian gulf of mind/body dualism dealing with symbolic healing, psychosomatic phenomena and the anthropology of the body. Dance holds its own relevance in this framework because dance has multilevel, bio-cultural adaptive role as social practice. The fact that dance has induced limited interest among social scientists may reflect the extension of this Cartesian gulf between verbal culture and physical culture, incorporating non-verbal communication systems (Polhemus, 1993). This urges the reconsideration of our exclusive logocentrism, and the reintegration of the "bodily logos" (Sheets-Johnstone, 1983). On the other side-lining the dance-anthropological literature, we find abundant sources from the very beginning, from Spencer (releasing emotional tension, 1857), through Marrett (religion and dance, 1914) and Radcliffe-Brown (dance among Andaman Islanders, 1922). The list of classics can be continued with Evans-Pritchard (beer dance of Azande 1928), Franziska Boas (functions of dance, 1944), Mead and Bateson (dance from the perspective of culture and personality 1942) up to Blacking, Lomax, Williams, Lange, Hanna and Thomas and the contemporary anthropologists. To reveal the health related aspects of dances, we need the "tales of dancers", and the experiences of those who learn, teach, research or heal through dance. The embodied personal experiences of the observer with these dances are just as crucial as the reports of the others. What medical anthropological aspects are relevant based on the earlier anthropological interpretations? The dance might be seen as catharsis, or a release. One of the first anthropological concepts of dance had a covert health psychological framework. Spencer (1857) called dance a "safety valve for releasing emotional steam". We shall try to trace this release or "stress-manager" function back to its original setting in traditional societies based on the reports of researchers. This concept of release from tension or repression appears in other anthropological concepts, too. Such connotation of the dance implies the "release from children's rigorous repression and subordination" in Mead's (1928) interpretation. Langer writes about the "relief from the burden of actuality" (Langer 1953), and Gluckman sees dance a "release of tension following a period of economic anxiety". (1959; cited by Spencer 1985). The individual bodily benefits and psychological gains may be obvious, but dance is also serving as an important regulator of the "social body", as a help in learning social skills, gender roles accepted by the given society. Sometimes, according to the reports of our informants, dance may help to overcome barriers created by social rank in mate selection. Dance as stress-releaser, modifier of mood, source of joy, and preserver of physical fitness at the individual level may gain health related importance. Dance is body language that certainly has a pivotal role in socialization processes regarding the process of learning gender roles, empathy based cooperation and regulated social behaviour. In traditional societies, the dialects of dances lend cultural personality or identity to communities living together. The traditional collective learning process of dances is a fine tuned socialization process full of coded messages on how to behave and communicate in the gifted community. However, these health aspects of the dance are not represented as a principal theme in the mainstream discourses of dance research. Giurchescu and Thorpe compared continental European choreological and American anthropological perspectives on dance, emphasizing that the anthropological approach concentrates on "dancing people" while European choreology deals with comparative research, systematization and classification of the observed dances. As a sign of mutual convergence, folklore theories in Europe were directed towards the study of "dance reality" in its social and artistic dimensions after the Second World War (Giurchescu and Thorpe 1998) while American anthropology was extended by Alan Lomax's cross-cultural Choreometrics Project. It is obvious that the hidden "biocultural" functions of dance are not much articulated in these monographs. Also, less attention is directed towards the health or wellness aspects of folk and popular dances, and other non ritual everyday dance and musical social practices.

In a paper that I presented at Atarau Academic Symposium, and later developed in an article for Dance Research Aotearoa (Ashley, 2015), I argued that the colloquial understanding of dance as one universal language provides insufficient philosophical grounds for fostering a full understanding of contemporary, indigenous, intercultural dance. Nourishing an awareness of how dance can be understood not as one but many languages is important because it can, I contend, inform ethical practices in dance, and foster better understanding and appreciation of dance practices from diverse cultures.

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research, 2008

This Epilogue discusses the new directions in the field of the anthropology of dance since 2002, and includes a bibliography of the field.

Dance Research, 1999

Ethnologies, 2008

Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. Érudit offre des services d'édition numérique de documents scientifiques depuis 1998. Note : les règles d'écriture des références bibliographiques peuvent varier selon les différents domaines du savoir.

Dance Research Journal, 2013