Chapter 6: New Worlds of Dance
"But that's not the way you're 'supposed' to move!" "It's not traditional to dance it that way!" "You're doing it all wrong!" Although anyone who has ever seen someone else practice or even perform a dance has heard these words, it is important to remember, before one judges the dancer harshly, that just because a dance is danced differently, doesn't necessarily mean the dancer is dancing 'wrong.' The observer may simply come from another cultural tradition that dances differently, and perceives the dance's meshing with other cultural traditions as 'wrong.' America is a diverse, rather than a pure culture, and thus has produced a syncretism rather than a pure culture of dance.Dance is, first and foremost, in a performed medium. Thus, author Gerald Jonas stresses that no dance can truly be replicated. Every dance is different and new, even when the basic steps are the same, as dance is always in dialogue with the audience-and therefore, in a less immediate but no less dynamic fashion, with the social environment
Thus, imply to dance is a creative act of cultural participation, and can transcend the culture that produced it by crossing space, place, and time, as the people who dance it change. Also, as different community needs arise, from dances to summon the harvest of plant-based culture, to Christian revivalist meeting's dances of frenzied ecstasy, to the more decorous dance of a controlled Christian community-all of these different needs create different dances and different ways of moving through dance space, even when they come from the same community and basic traditions. Secondly, Gerald Jonas stresses again and again, that the cultural social component of dances are always acts of syncretism, works in progress. Although social dances may come from traditions that are specific, dance is by its nature a creative and evolving art form when it is enacted in a community context. For example, take the dances that evolved from African cultures. Every tribe and nation had a particular array of traditional dances. But
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Approximate Word count = 689
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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