Social Dance: Contexts and Definitions
Social Dance: Contexts and Definitions
复制标题
社交舞：背景和定义
DOI：
10.2307/1477809
复制
发表时间：
2001
影响因子：
0.6
通讯作者：
B. Cohen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
B. Cohen
现在什么是舞蹈？不再被问到，我们有时间讨论什么是流行的或社会的。在欧洲学术传统中，popular翻译为“民间”或“人民的”，指的是传统的或依附于传统行为的舞蹈。在美国，流行的意思只是“人民的”，指的是新的和与年轻人有关的舞蹈。即使是基本的主题也受到文化偏见的挑战。在舞蹈史（以及民俗学、民族志和人类学）中，一个团体所做的舞蹈被认为是流行的/社会的/本土的，除非特别说明是表演的，创造的和/或编舞的。这种假设不太可能是准确的。流行舞蹈是阶级结构的表现语汇。如果我们认为舞蹈与真实的生活是相容的，我们就会发现它就像语言、衣服和食物一样是在社会条件下的一系列自由选择。人们在一系列选择中选择是否、何时以及如何行动，他们可能意识到，也可能没有意识到，这些选择受到他们在社会等级中的地位的限制。对舞蹈及其在这些历史等级中的地位的研究一直是该领域的主要关注点。然而，社会历史学家已经认识到等级制度是暂时的。人们可能会打破等级制度，选择"向上跳"或"向下跳"。“适当性倾向于渗透到阶级结构中，因此，一代人的精英活动在下一代人中变得流行。舞蹈历史学家很难确定，如果没有相应的文献，一个流行的舞蹈是否适合它的表演者。关于社交舞的一个假设是它服务于社会目的。在人种志模式中，它通常被视为一种社会组织者，在庆祝或交配仪式的背景下加强社会规范。传统的欧洲和非西方社交舞被认为可以在没有直接金融交易的情况下发挥社区统一者的作用。舞蹈的许多社交用途之一是每个人都聚在一起庆祝某事。舞蹈研究中曾经有一种文化偏见，认为加强社会规范是一件好事，也是流行/社交舞蹈的适当功能。在目前的领域，似乎有一种偏见，支持舞蹈在加强替代社会观念的作用。这两种偏见都依赖于一个可疑的假设，即可以确定社交舞的背景。背景随着时间而变化。在民间/社交/流行舞蹈中，它们几乎不断变化。在决定舞蹈的用途时，我们需要非常小心地区分语境和再语境化。民间舞蹈的复兴有多层次的目的。对20世纪广场舞的研究可以揭示它的许多用途：保守的社区团体加强性别和阶级的"传统美国价值观";高地学校的人民阵线消除传统的性别观念，统一工会和民权组织者的班级;幼儿园教师向他们的班级介绍几何学;或者研究人员到绗缝。对20世纪广场舞的研究也可以揭示它在地方歌剧中的应用，当然，还有新古典主义舞蹈。
Now that What is dance? is no longer asked, we have time to discuss what is meant by popular or social. In the European academic tradition, popular translates as "folk" or "of the people" and refers to dance that is traditional or attached to traditional behaviors. In the United States, popular means only "of the people" and refers to dance that is new and associated with the young. Even the basic subject matter is challenged by cultural biases. In dance history (and folklore, ethnography, and anthropology), a dance done by a group is assumed to be popular/social/vernacular, unless specifically stated as performative, created, and/or choreographed. It is unlikely that this assumption is accurate. Popular dance is the performance vocabulary of class structure. If we think of dance as compatible with real life, we see that it is—like language, clothing, and food—a continuum of discretionary selections within a socially conditioned set. People choose whether, when, and how to move from within a set of choices that they may or may not realize are limited by their place in social hierarchies. The study of dance and its place in these historical hierarchies has been the major concern of the field. However, social historians have learned that hierarchies are temporary. People may break the hierarchies and choose to "dance up" or "dance down." Appropriateness tends to seep down the class structure, so that an elitist activity in one generation becomes popular in the next. It is difficult for dance historians to determine, without corollary documentation, whether a popular dance is appropriate to its performers. One of the assumptions made about social dance is that it serves a social purpose. In the ethnographic model, it is generally seen as a form of social organizer, reinforcing societal norms within the contexts of celebrations or mating rituals. Traditional European and non-Western social dance is believed to function as a community unifier without direct financial transactions. One of the many social uses of dance is that everybody gets together to celebrate something. There once was a cultural bias within dance studies that reinforcing societal norms was a good thing and an appropriate function of popular/social dance. In the current field, there seems to be a bias supporting the role of dance in reinforcing alternative social ideas. Both biases depend on the questionable assumption that it is possible to determine the context of social dance. Contexts shift with time. In vernacular/social/popular dance, they shift almost continuously. When determining a use for dance, we need to be very careful to distinguish context and recontextualization. Revivals of vernacular dances have layered purposes. A study of twentieth-century square dancing could reveal its adoption for any number of uses: by conservative community groups to reinforce "traditional American values" of gender and class; by the Popular Front at the Highland School to dispel traditional notions of gender and to unify classes of union and civil rights organizers; by kindergarten teachers to introduce their classes to geometry; or by researchers into quilting. A study of twentieth-century square dancing could also reveal its use in vernacular operas, and, of course, neoclassical dance.