easter catch up

According to Skinner in social dance, one can play, fantasise, come together and create new feelings of sociality. So what is dancing? For Langer it is a much misunderstood art form, whereby the play of Powers are made visable. However it is not 'plastic art, nor music, nor a presentation of a story'. Thus social dancing could thought of as a pull of intuitions, tension between how one is interpreting the music, how one's body wishes to move, how one's partner is moving, how others on the dancefloor are moving, the atmosphere and mood of the dance space. Thought about in this way dancing depends alot upon one's imagination. For Kant the imagination is a mechanism by which the chaos of sensation is ordered. For Kant this mechanism was a faculty of the soul. Perhaps this explains why Harris suggests that there is something inside us that makes us all want to dance. But how does the imgination work in terms of our dancing?

Skinner suggests that this happens in two ways. Firstly by imagining similar movements in alternative setting, the imagination helps with the learning and teaching of dance. Such as when B, asks us to imagine crushing cockroaches as we step left, right, left, right. Secondly the imagination allows for a certain element of fantasy to be associated with the dance. Such as imagining meeting some kind of latin sex god in the Empire on Friday night.

With regards to the first type of imagination, Skinner suggets that as students mimick their teacher they are assisted by their imagination. The imagination has a close connection with the reality of the dance class, as it is being used to achieve a dance end point. The end point of 'crushing cockraoches' is to get the appropriate step movement. The execution is the visible manifestation or approximation of the imagination in these teaching and learning example.

On the other hand with mental representations that approximate the fantastical (such as the latin sex god), the imagination is not the desired endpoint. However I would contend that by allowing ourselves these imaginations we feel our selves transformed and this allows us to connect and communicate on a different level to the everyday. Which could perhaps be considered a different end point. We use our imaginations to depart from reality and experience the freedom Satre thought was intimately connect with the imagination. Possible narratives trancend our selves first in the mind and then in the body as we move onto the dancefloor. Here we see Langers play of powers made visable.

expanding week 5's blog in week 8

After leaving oxygen, and striding past late night revellers, with our bad attitudes (following our week 5 experience) and tequilla slammers keeping us warm we find a bus we think is going in the right direction to our desired destination. well it wasn't exactly but we did end up in the general area . and got in a taxi to finish our journey. We pay the fare and jump out walking under the railway bridge to the club. By now its past 2 am and as we hang up our coats, take another tequilla slammer and we feel our sleves change as the club starts to warm up.

But as Jackson notes the everyday habitus is not so easy to escape. Another tequila slammer and we try to shake of our 'civilised bodies' (Elias) discontented with the patriarchal world we experienced in oxygen we were seeking to find the opposite in our new location - a club called Fire, which had a repuation for being a wild night out. We were looking for the carnal and seeking out passion, which we began to tune into, as we listened to the bass reverberating in our chests. With the boom boom boom of the music we pushed our earlier experiences out of our minds and into our chest, with the next boom we pushed them out of our chests and into our arms, into our hands and 'boom' out into the atmosphere as we punched the air above our heads. With each boom we pulsed more until our whole bodies became one with the music as we transgressed into an experiential state of being. We didn't think about how to move we felt it. We let the music guide as as our bodies became slaves to its highs and lows. We transgressed or went beyond the boundaries of our everyday. We had no idea what we looked like but we knew how we felt. We had no telos or end goal and we knew the music wouldn't stop, tracks would simply merge into each other just like the differences between our selves now and our selves before were not solid or objective but fluid and dynamic.

I have no idea how long we danced. Loosing a sense of time was part of the process of releasing our tension, freeing oursleves and becoming part of the sensual landscape around us. Bodies were learning and feeding into one and other. We were making friends with everybody. Chatting to strangers as we went out for a smoke. Everybody having a good night. No body feeling threatend. We felt a release that had been denied to us a few hours earlier. We ate up this feeling of freedom, exileration, of physical being because we knew in the morning, we would be leaving this hedonism and debauchery. We would be returning to the ascetic, regulated, safe, checked and restrained behaviour we observed during the daylight hours. So we made the most of the few hours we had left.

week five

do you know what? this week has been crap for dancing! Went to B's dance ensemble of wednesday and the empire on friday night and that was it! And actually this week in both B's class and the empire I didn't 'feel' the dance or the atmosphere or the night as much as i have in previous weeks. Yvonne Daniels says that it is through dancing that we understand the dance. well not this week. My feet may have been moving (and i might have actually danced better in the empire as someone i danced with a couple of weeks ago noted i wasn't holding on to him for dear life anymore ha ha) but i wasn't feeling the music. and i wasn't feeling the dance. am actually sure most of the music wasn't salsa as i couldnt here the beats i'm used to.

But the kinesthetic understanding wasn't there this week. well i'm sure it was since i havn't lost my body but my body might have lost its voice. But thinking about it. The many of the mix of people there were also not 'salsaing' only a few. many of the people i danced with were just freestyling. perhaps i wasn't 'feeling' it this week because nobody else was either. There wasn't the sense of communitas implicit in other nights and in the readings of dance and the dance scene.
So what can i say? are there any theories on dance for when people just aren't in the mood but do it anyway? or to descibe a misfitting audience? or for when dance just doesn't feel like yourself? or for when you dance to keep your friends happy? or for when there's not much option? or when is embarrasing and aukward? or when is just an automatic responce?it must be more than just habitus. but what is it?

week four

Dancing as subordination or emacipation?
Consenting to patriarchial practices or rebelling against them? Self expression or an expression of the system? The body a sight of empowerment or a sight of oppression?
These contradictions will be discussed in relation to last saturday's night of clubbing.
After a long bus / tube journey where disapproving looks were glanced towards our bare legs and high heels me and my friend Carina arrived at picadilly circus. it was nearly one in the morning and the perfect time to start the nights dancing. As we headed central a club promoter appraoched as and promising us discount tickets and club that has something for everyone we headed towards a place called oxygen.

According to Gotfrit pleasure is a key element in structuring the relationships of the individual to the cultural form. The physical delight in dancing allows you to think more than feel. in the club a space is opened up which makes knowing one's self differently possible. There is a sense of daring to be (potentially) bad, stepping out of the 'good girl' territory. For Gotfrit the intersection of desire embodied and sanctioned contibutes to the potential of dancing as a sight of resistence for women. The body is so often a place of oppresstion both within cultural discourse and practise. However in our willingness on the dance floor to take risks and move boldly subverts the self regulation that is oppressive to women in our everyday lives. By embracing our desires and sexuality on the dance floor we can contest dominant notions of sexuality and ignore social conventions. Through dance we can struggle against being tied to identities of self which which subject us to domination.
But what if we can't?
What if inside the club you get harrassed? and hassled? what if the attention which allowed Gotrit her emancipation on the dance floor actually feels threatening? What if you get crowded by groups of men? What if they grid agaisnt you without you inviting them to dance?What if despite to attractive decor and expensive cocktail list the place is actually very sleazy and not welcoming to women unless you very very drunk.
Were the girls inside (of which there were quite a few) actually rebelling against(as Gotfrit was), or consenting to the dominant patriarchial practices of our society? We're they reproducing ideologies, culture and histories that subordinated women or we're they rebelling against them? We're the girls turning away from commoditised images or turning into them?
Either way we left the club.
We complained to the management about the sleazy guys and the crap music.
We got a refund.
We used to refund to pay into a gay club.
We danced all night (and most of the morning)
We made friends with fellow clubbers.
We let our selves go out of control.
We had a brilliant night.
Its just a shame we had to go to a gay club in order to feel freedom and pleasure in our movements, to take risks and defy the social order and to put passion into our dancing.

Week 3

bring on the hard house!!since last night is freshest in my memory i will begin at the end and end at the beginning with this weeks blog.

So last night finished with some happy hours of hard house in thompsons garage. Thompsons Garage is not a super club, it does not have multiple rooms, great decor, sofas, chill out areas, cocktail bar or podium dancers. Its that other kind of club. the kind that is small, cramped, dark and dingy and with the kind of dirt where you stick to the wall if you lean against it long enough.

It is not a the kind of place where people dress designer and go to be seen. but it is the kind of place to go if you want a bit of proper clubbing. Or as Phil Jackson puts it a bit of transferable knowledge created when people move from one socio-sensual state to another(2004:115). in other words from one bodily felt knowlegde framework to another.What is ‘learned by body’ is not something that one has, like knowledge that can be brandished, but something that one is.(Bourdieu 1990: 73). Jackson notes that this experiential shift expands the parameters of clubbers'sensual landscape and moves them beyond their own habituated social practices,
emotional boundaries, fears, insecurities and their ingrained perceptions of the
world in which they are immersed. I notice this exemplified in the different persona I take on as enter the club. Its a persona I have embodied many times before. A persona that is a bit wilder, more dangerous, more street wise than my usual self as I move confidently with my shoulders back through the crowd and push my way to to the bar. I dance with attitude, creating a space around around my refusing to be elbowed of the dance floor and body popping to the techno beats. i was not out of my self, just a heightened version of myslef. Its a far cry from the person I was just an hour before at the empire salsa night.

At the empire I was unsure of my self, well unsure of my feet more specifically. I had gone spur of the moment when my friend text saying it was his last night in belfast. I made my self up and called a taxi. i felt abit nervous in the taxi, what if i couldnt find my friend? I walked in, ordered a Corona and moved to the balcony to see if I could spot him.I see him down on the dancefloor with a group of friends and I move over to say hello. So far so good. all his friends are cool and I get know everyone - its going to be a good night. However my feet don't work! I listen to the music and I try to repeat the steps we learnt in B's class but its just not working quite right. I have pins and needle coz i just came in from the cold and the music is fast and my parter is clearly and advanced dancer. for some reason I just can't get the steps. I am definately still at the salsa periphery. But different partners grabbed my hand (once i put down the corona)and spun me around so perhaps maybe although novice my particpation was legitimate.

It was definately legitimate in the more standardised format of the ceroc evening I attended on Wednesday night. Ceroc is the Macdonalds of dance (Skinner,2003). This I definately agree with. The men were lined up in rows of six and the women (of which there was a slightly larger number) moved along the assemberly line, a certain number of places as instructed, to be processed as the moves were practised and then turned out for mass consumption after 45 mins, for 15 mins free style. as each move was taught instructions were shouted out which read like the back of a microwave ready meal. 'step back, take the hand, move right hand to ladies left hip and left hand to ladies right hip and turn so that the left hand is at ladies right hip,balh blah blah and microwave on full ower for 3 1/2 mins'. after being cooked on full power and after responding to several signals to spin I felt decidedly dizzy!

Ceroc was fun but it was sensible, it was a night out of the ordinary but it was dull (especially when repeating only 3 moves over and over), it was an alternative reality of hyper-sexuality (Skinner, 2004) but it was tame, it was perhaps for many an articulation of identity

but it was not my identity.

Week two

Am filling in week two's entry a little late. i didn't do much dancing last week only B's tuesday lucnch time salsa class and the wednesday ensemble. It is interesting to watch how other people are picking up the dance and whether people concentrate more on the steps or on feeling the music. Its also interesting that its a different enjoyment in the classes than if i'm in a club or dancing in a personal space at home. In the lessons satisfaction comes from being able to recognice the first beat in the song and keeping my steps in time to it. or in remebering the right way to chnage my hand position to lead a step.But it stills feels a bit aukward when i dance unlike when i dance at home and do moves that i've done over and over again which feels more like sklars idea of kinesthetic knowledge. Even if I am copying moves of MTV the dances i copy are similar to dances i've copied in the past the process of mimesis is different to that which happens in the salsa classes. the moves at home are more known. haha at least sometimes.

the music i dance to at home is generally dance music (my choice)or hip hop (my housemates choice). Erenberg wrote about how jazz, the crooners annd swing music reflected the moods and sentiments of that era. I think that still holds true today as songs (especially british hip hop)reflect social circumstances and tell tales of life. whilst dance music refelcts the escapism of the ibiza generation.

dancing week one

So this is the first entry in my online learning journal for anthropology of dance. Funnily enough i don't know what to say. The first lesson we discussed approaches to the study of dance. The meaning centred approach suggested by Wulf in which dance is looked at as a cultural practice and in terms of what it means to the individual is probobly the most interesting approach. It is certainly the easiest to answer in terms of my own self reflexion of my Salsa experiemce this week. On Tuesday I went to the beginners salsa lesson in Mandela Hall, Skinner's idea of becoming aclimatised to movement was evident as the instructor had the students doing the 'karate kid' move, 'the cowboy', 'the sunrise' and 'the shimmy'. The class although a mix group of ages and sexes all seemed to have fun. However I did not get a sense of 'groupness' in the same way as during the Dance ensemble with my anthropology class on Wednesday. The teaching style on Wednesday was more technical and the steps practiced were harder but the class wasn't as aukward as the night before. It felts like something more towards Webers trancendence idea. Finally Friday night took me to Salsa in the Empire. We arrived late so just had an hours dancing before it closed but in that hour we all spun round the dance floor with several strangers, something we would not have done in a normal club as boundaries were lowered for the night. That hour in the Empire was not enough and we went on to a house party where Salsa tunes were DJed and we danced till morning. As Drid Williams suggests there is something inside us which makes us want to dance.