Social Dances

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-77
Author(s):  
W. G. Archer
Keyword(s):  
Social Dances

‘Tout, dans ses charmes, est dangereux’: music, gesture and the dangers of French pantomime, 1748–1775

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-268
Author(s):  
HEDY LAW
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Claim ◽  
Potential Danger ◽  
Binary Opposition ◽  
High Culture ◽  
Social Dance ◽  
Social Thinking ◽  
Musical Syntax ◽  
Social Dances ◽  
Harmful Effects

AbstractIn 1779 Chabanon noted the potential danger inherent in gesture because it might produce instantaneous and harmful effects. This article examines how Rameau, Rousseau and Grétry incorporated putatively dangerous gestures into the pantomimes they wrote for their operas, and explains why these pantomimes matter at all. In Rameau's Pygmalion (1748), Rousseau's Le Devin du village (1752–3) and Grétry's Céphale et Procris (1773, 1775), pantomime was presented as a type of dance opposite to the conventional social dance. But the significance of this binary opposition changed drastically around 1750, in response to Rousseau's own moral philosophy developed most notably in the First Discourse (1750). Whereas the pantomimes in Rameau's Pygmalion dismiss peasants as uncultured, it is high culture that becomes the source of corruption in the pantomime of Rousseau's Le Devin du village, where uncultured peasants are praised for their morality. Grétry extended Rousseau's moral claim in the pantomime of Céphale et Procris by commending an uneducated girl who turns down sexual advances from a courtier. Central to these pantomimes are the ways in which musical syntax correlates with drama. Contrary to the predictable syntax in most social dances, these pantomimes bring to the surface syntactical anomalies that may be taken to represent moral licence: an unexpected pause, a jarring diminished-seventh chord, and a phrase in a minuet with odd-number bars communicate danger. Although social dances were still the backbone of most French operas, pantomime provided an experimental interface by which composers contested the meanings of expressive topoi; it thus emerged as a vehicle for progressive social thinking.

Harlem Nightclubs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Templeton
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
African American ◽  
York City ◽  
Black Identity ◽  
Big Band ◽  
Artistic Creation ◽  
Black Artists ◽  
Lindy Hop ◽  
Tap Dance ◽  
Social Dances

In the 1920s and 1930s, Harlem became a major hub of New York City nightlife and a prolific space for African American artistic creation. It was in Harlem’s nightclubs (also known as cabarets) that big band jazz became a sensation and where theatrical dance forms like tap dance, and social dances like the lindy hop and the Charleston, gained widespread popularity. These artistic developments contributed to an emerging modern black identity among the intellectuals and artists of the Harlem Renaissance. While the artists in these nightclubs tended to be African American, the more elaborate and expensive clubs catered almost exclusively to white patrons; black artists were often faced with the challenge of catering to white expectations while creatively developing their own art. The music and dance that emerged in these nightclubs also became the inspiration of many black modernist authors.

Switch

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas F. DeFrantz
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
The Political ◽  
Black Aesthetic ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Social Dance ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
Gender Conformity ◽  
Social Dances ◽  
Political Economies

Moving from the political margins toward a black mainstream, many African American social dances often emerge in queer communities of color. This chapter explores politically embodied consequences and affects of queer social dances that enjoy concentrated attention outside their originary communities. J-setting, voguing, and hand-dancing—a form of queer dance popular in the 1970s–1980s—offer sites to consider the materialization of queer black aesthetic gesture, in dances that redefine gender identities and confirm fluid political economies of social dance and motion. These queer dances simultaneously resist and reinscribe gender conformity in their aesthetic devices; they also suggest alternative histories of black social dance economies in which queer creativity might be valued as its own end. Ultimately, the chapter suggests a haunting presence of queers-of-color aesthetic imperatives within political mobilizations of black social dance, continually—and ironically—conceived as part and parcel of rhetorics of liberation and freedom of movement.

Creole Dances in National Rhythms

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Class Group ◽  
National Level ◽  
French Caribbean ◽  
Dance Movement ◽  
African Dance ◽  
National Imagination ◽  
Social Dances ◽  
Haitian Dance

This chapter examines social dances that display national dance formation and how they rise to national status in one country, while other nations identify only one dance for hundreds of years. It first considers examples of Creole dances that have become synonymous with island identity, such as Jamaican reggae, Trinidadian calypso, Dominican merengue, and French Caribbean zouk. It then explores the Cuban dance matrix and its various segments, including Native American dance, Spanish dance, African dance, and Haitian dance. It also traces the development of Cuba's national dances, focusing on danzón, son, and rumba and suggests that national dance depends on relevance to historical conditions, which class/group is in power, and the pertinent cultural values that are encapsulated within dance movement. The chapter concludes by noting how Caribbean dances surface toward the national level, match national concerns, and become attached to the national imagination.

Caribbean and Atlantic Diaspora Dance

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Daniel
Keyword(s):  
Economic Globalization ◽  
Regional Tourism ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Social Dances ◽  
Professional Dance ◽  
Sacred Dance ◽  
Historical Examination

This book provides a sweeping cultural and historical examination of Diaspora dance genres. The book investigates social dances brought to the islands by Europeans and Africans, including quadrilles and drum/dances as well as popular dances that followed, such as Carnival parading, Pan-Caribbean danzas, rumba, merengue, mambo, reggae, and zouk. The book reviews sacred dance and closely documents combat dances, such as Martinican ladja, Trinidadian kalinda, and Cuban juego de maní. In drawing on scores of performers and consultants from the region as well as on the author's own professional dance experience and acumen, the book adeptly places Caribbean dance in the context of cultural and economic globalization, connecting local practices to transnational and global processes and emphasizing the important role of dance in critical regional tourism. Throughout, the book reveals impromptu and long-lasting Diaspora communities of participating dancers and musicians.

The Politics of Quadrille Performance in Nineteenth-Century Martinique

2006 ◽  
Vol 38 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique O. Cyrille
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
African Descent ◽  
Caribbean Islands ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Social Dances ◽  
French Colonies ◽  
Strong Resemblance ◽  
The Caribbean

Much has been said of the tradition of quadrille dancing that exists in the Caribbean. This dance and music repertory was first introduced there in the late eighteenth century by European colonists who wanted to recreate some of the aristocratic lifestyle they would have enjoyed in their country of origin. But soon after its introduction, people of African descent whom the Europeans had forcibly introduced in the Caribbean appropriated the dance and transformed it to fit the new environment.In his overview of Caribbean music, Kenneth Bilby noted that the most ubiquitous music traditions of the Caribbean seem to be the ones that grew out of the European social dances and music genres of an earlier era (1985, 195). Establishing a parallel with the Creole music of the Seychelles, which bears strong resemblance to Caribbean forms, John Szwed and Morton Marks (1988) suggested that the French contredanse and quadrille were instrumental to the emergence of the Creole repertories, primarily because, just like many of the Caribbean islands, the Seychelles were French colonies in the eighteenth century.

Frenzied Flappers: The Hysterical Female in Early Twentieth-Century Social Dance

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-350
Author(s):  
Hope Margetts
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Dance ◽  
Social Dancing ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Tensions ◽  
Social Dances

Abstract It is widely acknowledged that the freer, more sexualized movements of social dancing in the early twentieth century (1900–1929) accompanied the beginnings of female emancipation both socially and politically. However, less explored are the similarities between the provocative, inelegant choreography of such social dances and the symptoms of female hysteria, a medical phenomenon that saw the body as a canvas for mental distress as provoked by social tensions. This essay will address the possible alignment of hysteria and popular social dance in relation to the evolving Modern Woman. It will examine the motivations of modern, ‘hysterical’ dances, and discuss their progressive status in terms of gender by considering perceived psychosomatic interactions within the female dancing body.

International Jazz Musicians Flock to Shanghai: 1920s–1930s

Jazz in China ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Eugene Marlow
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Jazz Music ◽  
Social Dances

This chapter discusses the presence of foreign jazz musicians in China between the 1920s and the 1930s. According to bassist Da Ren Zheng, the rise of the dance halls led to the prominence of a large number of foreign, i.e., Western, jazz musicians. There were around fifty to sixty establishments in total. All these dance halls needed to hire jazz bands to accompany social dances, but at that time in Shanghai there were almost no Chinese jazz musicians; hence, a great number of foreign jazz musicians were contracted to play in Shanghai. The large-scale dance hall jazz bands were made up of around ten to fifteen people, and even small-size dance halls had five or six members. In a few years, more than 500 foreign musicians had surged into the Shanghai concessions. This huge contingent played jazz music day and night so that the entertainment life of Shanghai people was influenced unconsciously.

Foundations of Musical Grammar

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Zbikowski
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Social Dances ◽  
Musical Analyses

This volume makes a unique contribution to music theory by building on recent research in cognitive science and theoretical perspectives adopted from cognitive linguistics to present an account of the foundations of musical grammar. Musical grammar is conceived of as a species of construction grammar, in which grammatical elements are form-function pairs. In the case of music, basic constructions are sonic analogs for dynamic processes that are central to human cultures. This volume focuses on three such processes: those related to emotions, to gestures, and to dance. The first chapter introduces the volume and explains how this approach connects with previous work in music theory. The second chapter reviews research on analogy and shows how it provides a basis for analogical reference, which is fundamental to musical grammar. The third chapter describes the connection between music and the emotions facilitated by analogical reference. The fourth chapter explores connections between human gesture and musical utterances, and shows how both rely on the infrastructure for human communication that is also exploited by language. The fifth chapter demonstrates how music provides sonic analogs for the steps of social dances, and how music combined with dance has been used to structure social interactions. The sixth chapter focuses on the combination of language and music that occurs in songs, making clear how the different grammatical resources offered by music and language shape how meaning is constructed in songs. Detailed musical analyses are offered in each chapter, as well as summaries of the basic elements of musical grammar.

The Social Life of Dances

Valuing Dance ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 89-140
Author(s):  
Susan Leigh Foster
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
Wild West Shows ◽  
Studio Instruction ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Dances ◽  
Private Studio ◽  
Historical Moment

Chapter 3 pursues the thesis that commodity and gift forms of exchange are interconnected and inseparable. It does this through an examination of three case studies: hip-hop, private dance studio instruction, and powwow. The recent histories of these three examples is examined alongside some of their antecedents at the beginning of the twentieth century. Hip-hop is located along a continuum with the early twentieth-century African American social dances that fueled a dance craze taking place in the urban United States. Private studio instruction is traced back to the social and modern dance instruction offered by entrepreneurial teachers who codified and sold those dances. Powwows are connected to the Wild West shows and other exhibitions of Native dances that brought Native peoples into greater contact with one another and with white audiences. Analyzing the development of these dance practices over time enables a more focused inquiry into the values and belief systems that infuse dance in a given historical moment and the ways that these connect to larger systems of shared values. Each example also calls attention to the way that commodification yields values that collude with forms of social and political domination including racialization and racist ideologies, Orientalism and exoticism, and colonial settler logics.

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