Dance, Authenticity and Cultural Memory: The Politics of Embodiment

Abstract

The recent shift of scholarly focus towards the body and performance has helped to raise the profile of dance as a significant academic site for cultural investigation and to open up channels for dialogue with other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Chapters on dance may now be found in collections on gender, the body and ethnography, for example and there is abundant evidence of the impact of poststructuralist and postmodernist thinking in mainstream dance literature itself. This interest may engage with ethnographic approaches to dance to formulate questions around “whose body in performance?” so that issues of gender, social status, kinship, ethnicity and power can be addressed, as well as more reflexive concerns related to bodily experience. From an ethnological perspective, such contemporary aspects of study in relation to the moving body may be examined diachronically, particularly in dance practices where the past is perceived as being of key significance.

Place and Institutional Work

“…Peter's life in and around his apartment provided a connection to viewers through their shared experience and understanding of the everyday institution of home. The ability of places to act as signifiers for proximal concepts depends on their connection to the signified (the concept of ''home'' in this case) being both interpretable and authentic: the narrative in which the place is embedded needs to provide a frame through which the relationships between places and proximal concepts and distal institutions can be interpreted sensibly (Weick, 1995) as well as accepted emotionally (Hochschild, 1979;Buckland, 2001).…”

Pontic dance: Feeling the absence of homeland

“…Recent theories approach dance from a variety of perspectives. As a cultural manifestation (Kaeppler 1978) and the 'embodiment of cultural memory' (Buckland 2001), dance is seen as a 'rhythmic movement done for some purpose transcending utility' (Royce 1977:5). Other writers study dance from the perspective of 'the moving body' (Farnell 1999), its unique manifestation forming one part of the whole sphere of human movement (Williams 1997;2004).…”

Emotions, Senses, Spaces: Ethnographic Engagements and Intersections

“…Recent theories approach dance from a variety of perspectives. As a cultural manifestation (Kaeppler 1978) and the 'embodiment of cultural memory' (Buckland 2001), dance is seen as a 'rhythmic movement done for some purpose transcending utility' (Royce 1977:5). Other writers study dance from the perspective of 'the moving body' (Farnell 1999), its unique manifestation forming one part of the whole sphere of human movement (Williams 1997;.…”