Week 4 ~ Out and about

This week saw a change from the usual routine as we headed to Belfast's 'Beat Initiative' - an organisation, set up in 1994, which aims to bring a two carnival parades to Belfast each year. Met initially with some hostility by various sectors of the Nortern Irish community, the Beat Initiative is now a thriving arts centre which provides creative opportunities for people from all sectors to get involved in. An important aspect of this organisation is the working with different groups and thus initiating good relations between communities.

These Carnivalesque parades might seem out of place in a climate such as Northern Ireland - but this is precisely the point; by introducing a phenomenon which was not part of the Northern Irish cultural sphere one enables the bridging of social schisms - the very fact that 'carnival' was foreign and didn't belong to any part of the Northern Irish community it had no past or connotations associated with it, thus it was open to everyone.


It is interesting to see how carnival is being utilised here - and one could well argue that it is not far from the roots of the carnival concept as originally conceived in Brazil itself (the carnival of Bahia forming the template on which The Beat Initiative based its carnival parade concept).

One can not talk about Brazil without mentioning the flamboyant pre-Lenten festival of carnival. Carnival is celebrated throughout the country; however, it’s most extravagant rendition can be seen to take place in the city of Rio de Janeiro. By the early decades of the twentieth century escolas de samba (samba schools) were being formed in the city of Rio. These schools were in a way an extension of the community parading groups or blocos of the poorer neighbourhoods, although they synthesised the pageantry like structure of the elite male parading societies of the mid 1800s with the samba of the blocos. The schools drew members from far and wide, were professionally managed, and funded by the city’s tourism department. It was thus that carnival came to be seen as the “true” expression of the “mixed” identity of Brazil and its racial democracy [Sheriff 1999:12-15]. The use of African-Brazilian music and dance as well the abandoned and demonstrative interaction between peoples of all classes, reasserts the imagery of samba as the ideological Brazilian racial democracy (however, there are those that see carnival as the way “Brazil ought to be”, not how it actually is [Sheriff 1999:22]). This sentiment allows one to argue that, although only for a short amount of time, the festival of carnival offers the segregated society of Rio to cast aside the distinctions of class and social status, and emerge as a people united as one by the spirit of the festivities. Seen in this context the embodiment of music and dance brings about the levelling of differences, creating a sphere of neutrality or equality - which was and is precisely the aim of the Beat Initiative when they instigated the Belfast Carnival Centre in the 1990s, ot bring together a devided community.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7A4c1JxfQY

After our visit to the carnival we were all energised and ready for some dancing - unfortunately it would be another two days until our Salsa class with Bea.

Wednesday brought another great salsa class, I think there had been a rescheduling or merge of classes as there seemed to be alot more people this week than any before. The class went very well and everybody seemed to be getting fairly comfortable with set-up and steps. We ran through the 'dile que no' steps as well as the mambo - both introduced the week before - and spent the rest of the session just 'dancing', that is trying to sequentially fit in all the steps which had been taught over the past few weeks. I must say, although the ewnrgy and atmosphere was great, I still hads some problems with trying to anticipate what the leaders wanted me (the follower) to do, and more than once went into a 'rumba' step when a 'chica vuelta' was apparantly meant.

That evening several of us had organised to meet at 7pm in order to take the train to Hollywood (NI) to attend a beginners ballroom class hosted by 'Ballroom Blitz'. It has to be said, we arrived late, so we had to jump in straight away - it was the chacha which was being dealt with today. I don't know how this happened but somehow I ended up leading, which was deffinately a new experience for me - especially where the chacha is concerned, a dance which I was taught quite a long time ago (I remember when I first danced this dance with my brother who is very tall and tended to take rather large steps - i was always exhausted after trying to match his footwork). I found it very odd having to mirror the movements I was used to - not so much with the footwork but especially when it came to the arm/hand movement which accentuates the 'newyorker' step, having to really fight the urge to throw out my left arm.

Overall I very much enjoyed the dance class - although an extra half hour or so for freestyle/practice would not have been overdoing it. The class was very regimented and not alot of personalisation was possible but for the teaching of footwork it was very effective. Compared to the ceroc of last week I guess I probably enjoyed that better, solely for the lively and exuberant atmosphere and provided opportunity of practice/freestyle.

Week 3 ~ Initiation into the world of Ceroc

7.15pm on the 18th of Febuary and I found myself walking down Stranmillis towards the Belfast Boat Club - we were going Ceroc dancing! I remember vividly about four months ago when I had stumbled upon the Ceroc website when I was looking for some ancing in the area and had thought it to be some sort of cult group! But I am glad to say that my perceptions of it had been very wrong.

So, I get down to the venue and meet up with the others of the module, there were six of us if I remeber correctly. After paying the fee and having received my Ceroc membership card (there was no choice in the matter) we sat and talked at the side waiting for the class to begin.

A few minutes later we all are asked (by the lady with the head-set) to move onto the dance floor, there was quite a large crowd - there must have been well over fourty people there, and not that unbalanced male/female wise which came as a huge surprise to me. Anyway, the class begins by the 'instructor' showing us the basic 'swing' move, after a quick run through of that she says "everyone get a partner" - of course this is the dreaded moment as all the regulars move towards their usual partner, and the new recruits look around slightly nervously, however the tension was soon eased as everyone partnered up and repeted the basic move in tandem. As per usual I am totally engrossed in the movement and fail to hear that the ladies are supposed to move up (clockwise) four partners, however I am soon shuffled along and find myself faced by a new dance partner - the instructor talks us through the moves once more "swing to the left"..etc.; again we are urged to move down four partners and the 'ritual' is repeated. One of the things I had greatest difficulty with was that there was no set foot pattern to the moves, stepping out was stepping out, whether that was with the left or the right foot didn't seem to matter.

To be honest my first thoughts were that this was the oddest experience - the females moving from partner to partner, the men staying in the same spot simply observing as the women walk past until the fourth stops infront of them and introduces herself. But once you looked past this it was actually rather great. There was no seperation of regulars and new comers, rather the more experienced helped out the new comers whilst the dance itself broke the 'ice' so to speak as it was fairly hands on.

Two more 'basic' moves were taught in the same manner and then followed the practice, or more accurately, the 'freestyle' time. My own experience of this has always been that those with regular partners stay on the floor and that those who are new to the scene stand at the sidelines and observe. However this was not the case here; as I moved across the floor with the intention of going and find the others, I soon found myself in the midst of the twirling and twisting bodies, myself twisting and twirling with a more experienced dancer - and this appeared to be not the exception but the norm; the men asked the ladies to dance without hesitation. I was amazed at how relaxed, free, and exuberant an environment this was - every one was there for the same purpose, to dance!

Though this was to be both for enjoyment as well as informational purposes, I have to confess that there was alot more participation going on on my part than there was observation, but then isn't that the best way to gain knowledge?

One thing I did pick up on (on my several tours of the floor in the arms of yet another dance partner) was that the Ceroc space was very much one of male/female hierarchy, as one of my partners said that evening "it is one of the few occasions we actually get to tell you what to do" - the 'you' referring to women, this was emphasised by another who said "you have to let me lead".

But I would argue that any couple dance, in order to be executed succesfully anyway, requires this hierarchy. I am a very independent and strong female, but couple dancing is one of the few occasions where I welcome the man taking the lead (or so I thought I did, but perhaps the above quote shows that I find it more difficult to let go than I imagined!). Recently I have come to question whether the male is perhaps more adept at leading a dance? or is that just my preconceived idea of what couple dancing entails? The reason I started to query this is due to the salsa workshops which take place on wednesdays. As mentioned in week 1's blog the females greatly outnumber the males in these workshops and as a result some of the females have had to become leaders, but I have found that the female leaders just don't 'lead' strongely enough - they are not assertive in their movements and thus make it difficult for the followers to interpret what their intended steps are. But this could well be due to the fact that they are beginners and uncertain; as there is only one male in the class it is difficult to compare male/female leads.

Getting back to the Ceroc evening; after the freestyle came the 'intermediate' dance class, which was intended for those who had been attending Ceroc for eight to ten weeks or more. Whilst this class was going on the beginners were taken by the 'taxi-dancers' (these are experienced ceroc dancers whose responsibility it is to ensure the new-comers know what to do) to practice the three basic steps moves once again - I would say that I found this the least enjoyable of the eveing, it was just too long to spend on such basic moves. However, after the intermediate class was over there was another freestyle session. Again no hesitation on the males' part to ask the women to dance.

The overall experience, I have to say, was fantastic. The whole atmosphere in the place was just so welcoming and lively, and what I really enjoyed was that everyone there was there for dancing! There seemed to be an atmosphere of camraderie, all present were there to enjoy themselves. If dance is a language then this evening the conversations were flowing, and on a personal level this evening re-awakened a part of me that had been silenced for quite some time.

Week 3 ~ Dancing and the teaching of dance

Into our third week and we've come to the teaching of dance, a topic which will be dealt with in week five also thus I will not delve in too deep just yet.

The reading material I looked at for the class in question presented three ethnographers' view points of what they perceive constitutes the 'correct' way of undertaking ethnographic research.

Commencing with Helen Thomas's article, which focuses specifically on dance ethnography, we get a great insight into the the issues relating to this type of research. By introducing us to various dance forms, customs, and events by means of case studies, we can perceive what challenges the ethnographer faces when it comes to description and representation. Thomas highlights to us the influence feminism had on the social sciences, but especially within the anthropoligical idiom, leading eventually (alongside postmodernism) to a self-reflexive ethnographic method, that is one in wich the ethnographic narrative is not merely a representation of an 'other' but rather a narrative of the researchers' attempts to represent others and themselves [see Thomas 2003:70-5]. Thus, by looking at several studies undertaken by dance ethnographers (with particular attention to Sklar(1991) and Ness (1992)) we come to learn the importance of self reflexive participant-observer methodologies, as Thomas argues "movement analysis by itself could not give rise to an understanding of both content and the form of the dancers' inner-focus; instead conceptual and kinaesthetic frameworks had to be combined" [Thomas 2003:84], by including the researcher in the event or act she/he is researching the opportunity for gaining insight into embodied knowledge is all the greater, as is the possibility of self-reflexivity.

Thomas's article was nicely supported by the two which followed; Jill Flanders Crosby applies the above approach to her ethnography of Jazz and Ghanaian Dance, as does Roy Dilley to his ethnography of cultural forms of learning with a focus on his experience as a novice weaver with the Mabube of Tukulor, Senegal. Whilst Crosby's article points to the "deep physical understandings" [1997:65] she gained by using participation as her research method, Dilley's article wants to examine how learning is a cultural conception, and as such uses apprenticeship to uncover theories of learning.

Both being inspiring articles, they left me sith some questions: How much deeper is the knoweledge gained through participation? And how do teaching methods affect the level of knowledge gained? Moreover can one teach oneself, or does embodied knowledge have to come from an 'expert' source?

If I consider these questions in relation to my own experiences would it reveal something of the European conception of learning?

Two days after the class relating to the above, and with these questions still very much in my mind, I found myself in our Salsa workshop - a class which uses both active mimesis (something Dilley referred to) as well as aural instruction to teach us the intricacies of cuban salsa - and I came to wonder whether there would be a difference in my learning the moves if I solely observed the class, would I be able to execute the movements several days later if I merely watched and not participated? To be honest I had answered my own question quite instantaniously, NO! And thus commenced the workshop.

I was slightly dissapointed at first as we seemed to be beginning not from where we left off last week, but rather from the very start! We seemed to be back at walking through the basic casino step. What's going on? But I soon learnt that this was for the benefit of those who had not attended last week. So after several run throughs of the casino step, we moved on to some new moves: the mambo, and the dile que no - the prior being very similar to the casino step except for the couple stepping in tandem with eachother (thus starting with same foot) and the stance being one very similar to a 'relaxed' ballroom hold; the latter steo being somewhat more intricate I find it difficult to verbalize, thus if you want it explained check the following (the 'dile que no' is approximately half way down). http://www.salsaracing.com/steps.asp

So after including these two steps in our repertoire we now had a go at practicing all four in combination with eachother, this was a challenge not because of the steps themselves but (speaking as follower) it was often difficult to interpret which step one's partner was intending to do.

Over all it turned out to be a great worshop session, and a fairly productive one at that.

Week 2 ~ Dance histories

This week's material was focused on the history of dance mainly from the swing era. The 1900s was a time where the social climate was far from easy, and one where racial and class segregation was the norm rather than the excpetion.

Paul Cressey [1968 (1932)] provides us with an overview of the social climate of the USA during the early to mid 1900s when mass urbanisation brought people from thoughout the country to urban centres such as Chicago, LA, and New York. Believing that these evolving urban centres brought with them many challenges to the expression of peoples' identity and personality, Cressey set about to research the dance-hall climate in Chicago in 1925, for according to him "among the recreational institutions of the American city none perhaps reveals with as much clarity as many of the perplexing problems which make difficult the wholesome expression of human nature in the urban setting as does the public dance hall" [1968: ix]. Cressey goes on to provide insightful descriptions and observations of the dance-hall climate; the 'taxi-dancers' (women paid for a dance) that work there; and the patrons that attend the event; as well as a typology of dance-halls present at that time (he identifies fourteen). Overall I find that the article provides for interesting reading, however I find it difficult to bring it into dialogue with other material and experiences as Cressey is not proposing any theory or debatable statements - he is merely identifying what the social climate of the dance-halls represented at that time. Lewis Erenberg's [1998] article also focusing on the swing era in the US and provides a beautifull overview of how the era itself came about. Erenberg looks at this time in history from a mostly musical perspective - namely looking at how jazz came to be replaced by swing. He poses the argument that swing came to break down the boundaries of segregation, that it "represented a cultural phenomenon that bridged the significant gap between races and classes" present within American society at that time. The key of swing was that it integrated African derived rhythms, and thus dance movements, into a performance genre which appealed to both American and African-American youths. With this new music, and the signing of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the new youths of America were called on to have fun, party, and experiment - this led to a surge in dance venues and with that the pushing of societal boundaries through music and dance; amongst which were the jive, jitterbug and the lindyhop.

Having read this material I couldn't help wondering whether the dances at that time really did have the effects mentioned in the social climate at that time - did swing really break down bariers? Is dance able to bridge the gap between a divided community? Personally I have seen how powerful music and dance can be in the bringing together of people, that it enables people to forget about the norms and regulations impossed by society - but how long does this 'power last'? Does the experience of 'spontanious communitas', to use Turner's phrase, extend beyond the moment of the event? This question continues to puzzle me, for if one is to believe Erenberg one would think that once swing appeared on the scene all social segregation was abonlished - however we all know this is far from actuality. But on the other hand, it could well be arguable that the dancing together of people whom outside the dance-hall may never have interacted could lower the sense of 'difference' between them - that through sharing that time and space of leisure activity a sence of camraderie is initiated.

By way of talking about Ceroc (also referred to as today's version of jive which is not far from the truth in my opinion, altough if you watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am3jbZv5un8 you can see that it is alot less bouncy than jive and includes some ballroom moves), we landed on another topic which raised the issue of globalisation and the diffusion of dance movements/steps across geographical boundaries. Gottschild [2000] argues that there are elements of African derived dance movements in almost all of todays dances. I am not sure that this is not somewhat of an exaggeration, but I do belief that the cross-pollination of dance styles is inevitable in todays highly mobile and interconnected world.

This week's salsa workshop was absolutely fantastic. There being only four or five leaders amongst us this week we spent the session focusing on the follower's move and learnt the chica vuelta - basically an underarma right hand turn which occurs on beats 4 to 6 - as well as the 'rumba' step - which envolves both dancers stepping sideways instead of backwars and forwards, the step is signalled to the follower by means of the leader holding on the the left hand instead of letiing go on the last beat of the preceding bar. We danced in a circle dividing the leaders amongst us and those without partner going it solo. There was a great energy in the room this week and people seemd alot more at ease and 'up for the challenge' so to speak.

For those who just cant keep still and want to try their hand at some jive here's a link which is, to be honest, pretty funny - "school of cool"? are you serious??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKBNbKWCPII

And for those who want to practice their cuban salsa...here's what it should look like!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6jSioQ5MWc

Week 1 ~ introduction

Monday the 2nd of Feb. brought with it the first lecture of ESA3011 - that is The Anth. of Modern Social Dance. To be honest I had absolutely no idea what to expect of the module; I'm glad to say I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard and experienced. The lecture itself was mostly focused on providing an overview of the module itself and the elements it entailed, the expectations of us, and the aims of the lecturer.
The second half was dedicated to the readings of H. Wulff, P.Spencer, W. James, and J.Skinner - the reading were intended to provide an overwiew of the actual field of dance anthropology; it's main teachings and problems, it's areas of enquiry, and methodologies used by those in the field. As none of us had yet read the readings there was very little discussion possible. However, after having read some of the readings later in the week one point in particular intrigued me; that was that most of the authers argued for 'dance', or bodily movement/gesture, to be the 'mother' of all language - that any other form of communication can be regarded as a derivative of "dance" [See James 2004, and Wullf 2001]. It is an argument I find very interesting and would like to learn more about.

Another aspect which compelled me was that of the aestheticisation of everyday/ "street" [Skinner2008] movents - that is how the everyday processes and actions we go through can be identified in the movements of dance. It is a point I have never really thought about, but one which I can honestly not argue against.
The workshop (or 'dance ensemble') which forms part of this module is to take place on every Wednesday of the week; and as such today saw its initiation. The dence ensemble, lead by Ms. B. Prentiss, is to focus on the teaching of salsa (Cuban style) - taking us from beginners to (hopefully) advanced over the duration of 12 weeks.

Today's session introduced the different styles of salsa (of which there are many - divided mainly into two categories: Casino, or Line. In the prior the partnership between the two dancers is equally divided, in the latter the male/lead dancer becomes the centre around which the follower travels in a linear format. The Casino style can be sub-categorised into Cuban, Miami, and Columbian style; the Line format encapsulating L.A., New York, an Puerto Rico styles.) and explained the style we would be aiming to learn and comprehend. Thus, Ms. B will be teaching us the Cuban (casino) style in which the partners both travel around a central space which exists between them; the hold is rather relaxed and functional with the leader holding the follower's right hand by placing thumb in the palm - both palms facing (more or less) downwards. And so we progressed into our first salsa lesson - the remainder of the class being focused on the teaching of the basic step for both leaders and followers. [As the dancers mirror eachother's movement here, the step woulod be the same for each, just the leg used would not i.e. the leaders starting with left, the followers with right.]
The rhythm for salsa is always counted in eight - thus the steps being as follows: Back Forward Forward Pause - Forward Back Back Pause.

Having danced some latin and ballroom myself before (several years ago) this class brought back many many memories. It was also fun to see how the teaching methods differ or are similar. One of the apsects I found particularly interesting was to see how differently individuals cope with learning to move to rhythm, and how each finds certain aspects easier than others. For me the main difficulty was that of hearing the 'one' in the intricate rhythms of the salsa music, as well as the constant changing of parners -which although alot of fun, it posed a challenge at the same time. An aspect I have not touched on is that of the male/female balance in the group - which is non-existent; the females greatly outnumbering the males (of which there are only three). Thus more often than not the dancing parner is of the same sex; to me it didn't seem to pose any problems, but it may be too early to comment on the significance of this.