Women S Performativities and Gender Poli
Women S Performativities and Gender Poli
Women S Performativities and Gender Poli
Contributors ................................................................................ 61
News.............................................................................................. 63
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 5
A Word from the
Guest Editors
Dear Reader,
This special edition of Conversations across the Field of Dance significance of an archive for a national dance form; they provide rich
Studies emerges from our discussions as members of the international movement description and cultural analysis; they ponder the politics
research network PoP [Performances of the Popular] Moves which of identity, nation, location and gender in a variety of dance forms. All
focuses on popular dance and performance. At one of our meetings the while, they remain attentive to showcasing how dance forcefully
in London we thought it urgent to address the political potential of articulates politics of affect, representation and community.
popular dance practices. As the rise of populist nationalist sentiment
This volume features geographic and historical diversity. It also
takes over in countries on both sides of the equator, we are primarily
features a vibrant swath of dancers and dance practices: New Zealand
interested in how popular dance, broadly conceived, emerges as a
– polyswagg; USA- African American second lines; Spain – flamenco;
mode of communication, citizenship, and resistance.
Ecuador - contemporary and Afro-Ecuadorian bomba choteña; Puerto
In this publication we wanted to highlight how the inescapable Rico and its diaspora – bomba; Greece- hip hop; Argentina – ballet;
connections between political ethics and aesthetics must be and the UK – street dance/hip hop. Additionally, it offers a collectively
questioned, not only in the analysis of the practices of representation authored critique of Netflix’s documentary series We Speak Dance
and/or creation, but also in the analytical power of dance to subvert, (2018) in the hopes that we, as scholars (dancers, activists and
reaffirm and amplify ideologies, subjectivities and processes of educators), can help direct attention to the need for public advocacy
sociality in specific contexts. Popular dance becomes an effective tool and critical perspectives about dance beyond its associations with mass
to visualize forms of social organization. It mobilizes ancestral and entertainment. If we consider our commitments to the political potential
popular knowledges that, in difficult contexts, become invisible and of critical dance studies, we must develop strategies to have broader
tacit. Popular dances allow for ritual reconfigurations and sometimes impact. These issues go beyond the scope of our collaboration around
the dance(r)s become mediators of these knowledges. This re- We Speak Dance, but we offer that critical dialogue as a starting point
signification of popular knowledges opens up new ways of producing for future strategic discussions on this platform or elsewhere.
and questioning knowledge about the social in very palpable, felt
and lived ways. In these essays, our contributors think about the
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 7
“The Patter of Our Feet”:
Parading and Political
Organizing in New Orleans
Rachel Carrico
The Africanist music and dances performed at New Orleans’s Congo that provided social aid in the form of burial and medical insurance and
Square during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have been pleasure in the form communal celebrations.3 Second lines may look like
credited as a major foundation of African American culture—and thus nothing but a party, but in reality, are doing deeply political work. Nearly
U.S. popular culture at large.1 The continued relevance of Louisiana’s every Sunday, SAPCs create pleasure for themselves and onlookers
Afro-Creole music and movement for U.S. pop culture has been made gathered in public spaces, while simultaneously asserting a political
evident most recently in Beyoncé’s 2016 music video sensation, statement about the value of black life. Afro-Creole parading traditions
Formation. However, the city is less often credited for its important role rhythmically reclaim New Orleans’s public spaces from political and
in U.S. histories of activist organizing.2 One may assume that the city’s economic forces of white supremacy.
image as the “Big Easy” obscures its histories of grassroots struggle,
and while this is partly true, I urge readers to see New Orleanians’ play The histories of New Orleanians’ cultural parades and activist
and picketing not as independent activities, but as inextricably linked demonstrations are deeply intertwined. Cultural communities such
pathways to freedom. as Mardi Gras Indian tribes and second-line clubs can themselves
be seen as examples of organized resistance while explicitly political
In New Orleans today, vestiges of Congo Square live on in uniquely organizing strategies in New Orleans have long been influenced by
local forms of popular music and dance, such as second line parades. local cultural traditions. This interdependence expresses itself in the
These brass band-led processions gather a majority black crowd of dual connotations that the term “marching” holds in the city: walking in
thousands to dance through the streets nearly every Sunday afternoon. protest through the streets or dancing with a brass band. Histories of
Second liners improvise syncopated footwork while moving forward over marching in New Orleans embody the politics of pleasure. Here I refer
pavement and snaking between parked cars, while the most intrepid to “politics” as the everyday negotiations of power that occur through
showcase their moves atop elevated structures such as rooftops. human interaction and symbolic representation. As Randy Martin
Second lines have long been (and still are) planned and financed by urges, “Politics goes nowhere without movement.”4 While this may be
black voluntary organizations. Today most call themselves social aid obvious in examples of protests, I argue that it can also be seen in
and pleasure clubs (SAPCs), an evolution of eighteenth-century groups pleasurable marches such as second line parades. The second line’s
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 9
and grooved past urban renewal developments, such as freeway However, Mayor Schiro drew a false line between cultural parades
construction projects, that frequently displaced poor people of color. (pleasure) and activist demonstrations (politics), and in so doing,
Still today, second liners dance through, underneath, and around brick- underestimated the organizing power inherent in black cultural
and-mortar manifestations of racism, capitalism, and the structural traditions, or the politics of pleasure. Attorney Revius O. Ortique, Jr.,
violence that upholds their articulations. a featured speaker at the Freedom March, alluded to the inextricable
links between culture and politics in Afro-Creole processions. He told
In 1963, black New Orleanians were not only dancing to survive and the crowd of 10,000 that the Freedom March’s purpose was to “have
thrive within the trenchant racist power structures of the Jim Crow the patter of our feet ring out to the community, to our state, to the
South; many were also actively working to demolish those structures. nation and to the world, in unison, carrying out, shouting out that we
In September of that year, a group of black community leaders known wish only for that liberty and the freedom which our constitution states
as the Citizens Committee planned a large “Freedom March.” One of should be for all Americans.”11 Whether second lining for pleasure or
their demands included desegregating the white-only bars and music marching in protest, the patter of feet rings out wishes for freedom.
clubs such as those that the Independent Club members paraded Activist-led processions demand future liberties through legal action
past but could not enter. Then-Mayor Schiro denounced the Freedom and economic changes. By contrast, second lines poetically enact
March, declaring his opposition to unruly demonstrations. But he those liberties and freedoms in the present time.
conceded, “anyone has a legal right to stage a parade providing he
complies with the city ordinance regarding parades”—which the Generations of second liners and community organizers have literally
Citizens Committee did.9 Ordinances regarding parades would have and figuratively transformed New Orleans’s cityscape. Recent
been very familiar to Freedom March organizers and endorsers, many organizing efforts reveal the historic reciprocity between the city’s
of them members of various organizations, such as Masonic lodges black popular culture and political organizing. In 2015, the black-led
and social and pleasure clubs, that regularly hosted parades. Thus, effort, Take ‘Em Down NOLA, successfully pressured the City Council
protestors could leverage their familiarity with one kind of marching to to vote to remove four visible confederate monuments, including the
organize another. Lee statue. These events are part of a nationwide outcry against public
symbols that laud the confederacy and enshrine white supremacy.
The mayor’s response illuminates complex conceptions of race, Before spearheading Take ‘Em Down NOLA, activist, teacher, and poet
rights, and popular dance in 1963 New Orleans. Whereas the mayor Michael “Quess” Moore organized a march with Black Youth Project
could publicly defend the legal right of “anyone,” including non-white 100. The march began at Lee Circle because, in Moore’s words,
residents, to “stage a parade,” he could not as easily defend the rights “That’s the symbolic epicenter of our pain in this city. And it ended
demanded by Freedom March organizers, such as access to equal job at Congo Square, which was the symbolic center of our healing.”12
opportunities and adequate housing, the right to patronize businesses The pathway he choreographed utilized the kind of symbolic mapping
of their choosing, and to serve on city boards and commissions.10 practices perfected by second line groups for more than a century.
Mayor Schiro conflated the terms “march” and “parade,” and cast
both against “demonstration,” thereby displacing the politically The intertwined histories of marching for political gain and marching
motivated march into the seemingly benign realm of popular culture. for collective healing crystallized one early morning in May 2017
Thus, in defending the rights of black New Orleanians to participate during the Take ‘Em Down struggle. Opposing camps of protesters
in the city’s hallowed parading tradition, he gave the appearance of surrounded the statue of confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard
tolerance while simultaneously denying the outcomes demanded by as workers prepared it for removal. Around 1:15 A.M., a brass band
activists. He protected the right of black citizens to move through the marched up the street, surprising the crowd. In time with tuba thumps
city’s segregated and unequal landscape in parades—as long as and trombone wails, a chant pealed through the anti-monument group:
those parades did not seek to topple the very physical and ideological “Take ‘em doooooowwwn, take ‘em down!” The rhythmic intervention
structures that framed their routes. “appeared to at least temporarily disperse a large portion of the pro-
The Lee statue no longer stands in Lee Circle, but, at the time of
writing, its replacement remains undetermined (see Figure 2).
Take ‘Em Down NOLA and the TBC Brass Band, as recent actors in
New Orleans’s long history of marching, invite further consideration
of how the politics of pleasure are articulated in anti-racist protests
across cities nationwide and worldwide. I write this essay four years
after Ferguson, two years after Standing Rock, and one year after
Charlottesville. In reflecting on these more recent events, I am inspired
by groups whose organizing and dancing take cues from one another.
Examples include Black Lives Matter’s use of the “Hands up! Don’t
Shoot!” gesture and ACT UP inspired die-ins;14 Dancing for Justice,
a network that, since 2014, has choreographed public actions in
U.S. cities such as Philadelphia and New York to reenact and mourn
the deaths of unarmed black men and women;15 circles of dancers
and drummers who welcomed new groups of protestors each week
at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota in 2016;16
and WERK for Peace, which emerged following the PULSE Orlando
nightclub shootings in 2016 and most famously held a dance party
outside of now-Vice President Mike Pence’s home in DC just days
before the inauguration of Donald Trump.17
As we move forward (the second line demands it), how many ways
can the patter of feet ring out wishes for freedom—and even more,
turn those wishes into a reality? Populist governments continue
to embolden nativism, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia
in the U.S., Europe and beyond; dance offers the possibilities of
choreographed resistance and daily defiant acts of pleasure.
Figure 2: The pedestal that once held a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee
remains empty. Photo by Rachel Carrico.
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 11
.......................................................................................................................................................
8. Jules Cahn, “Marching,” 16mm, color, silent, recorded June 1963,
Bibliography The Jules Cahn Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection
1. Brenda Dixon Gottschild employs the term “Africanist” to refer to Acc. No. 2000.78.4.7.
African-derived aesthetic qualities, such as embracing conflict,
9. John E. Rousseau, “Peaceful Freedom March Gains Momentum,”
polycentrism/polyrhythm, high affect juxtaposition, ephebism, and
The Louisiana Weekly vol. XXXIX no. 2 (September 28, 1963): 8.
the aesthetic of the cool, that are central to yet invisibilized within
U.S. popular culture. Digging the Africanist Presence in American 10. Ibid.
Performance: Dance and Other Contexts (Westport, CT: Praeger,
1996). On Congo Square, see Daniel Fischlin, Ajay Heble, and 11. “10,000 in ‘Freedom March’ on City Hall,” The Louisiana Weekly
George Lipsitz, Fierce Urgency of Now: Improvisation, Rights, and vol. XXXIX, no. 3 (October 5, 1963): 7.
the Ethics of Cocreation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
2013), 157; Robert Farris Thompson and Joseph Cornet, The 12. Brentin Mock, “How Robert E. Lee Got Knocked Off His Pedestal,”
Four Moments of the Sun: Kongo Art in Two Worlds (Washington Citylab, May 29, 2017, accessed December 9, 2017, https://www.
D.C.: National Gallery of Art 1981), 149. citylab.com/equity/2017/05/how-robert-e-lee-got-knocked-off-his-
pedestal/528378/.
2. Notably, Formation does suggest New Orleans as a potent site
of both black culture and resistance. Amidst images of marching 13. “Video: Brass Band Arrives for 1 a.m. ‘Take Em Down’ Rendition at
bands, second lines, Mardi Gras Indians, and bounce dancers, Beauregard Monument Removal,” The Advocate, May 17, 2017,
we also see an African American boy facing a wall of police in riot accessed December 8, 2017, http://www.theadvocate.com/new_
gear, all of them holding their hands up. orleans/news/article_6ef0030e-3acb-11e7-9e1a-bbd1e3e26f92.
html.
3. Claude F. Jacobs, “Benevolent Societies of New Orleans Blacks
During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” 14. Anusha Kedhar, “‘Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!’: Gesture, Choreography,
Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical and Protest in Ferguson,” The Feminist Wire, October 6, 2014,
Association 29, no. 1 (1988): 21-33. accessed October 31 2018, https://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/
protest-in-ferguson/.
4. Ibid., 3.
15. Gregory King and Ellen Chenoweth, “When Dance Voices
5. Reed, “Introduction: Black Pleasure—An Oxymoron,” in Soul: Protest,” Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies vol.
Black Power, Politics, and Pleasure, eds. Monique Guillory and XXXVI (2016): 55-63.
Richard C. Green (New York: New York University Press, 1998),
169. 16. Kimerer LaMothe, “Dancing With the Standing Rock Sioux:
Defending the Sacred Earth,” Psychology Today, September 30
6. Camp, Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday 2016, accessed October 31 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.
Resistance in the Plantation South (Chapel Hill: University of com/us/blog/what-body-knows/201609/dancing-the-standing-
North Carolina Press, 2004), 62. rock-sioux.
7. Helen A. Regis, “Blackness and the Politics of Memory in the New 17. Meghan Quinlan and Natalie Zervou, “Moving in Solidarity:
Orleans Second Line,” American Ethnologist 28, no. 4 (2001): 765. Thinking through the Physicality of Recent Protests,” Dancer
Citizen Issue 4, accessed October 31 2018, http://dancercitizen.
org/issue-4/meghan-quinlan-and-natalie-zervou/.
Introduction this First Peronist period, ballet became a popular expression capable
of “appropriations,” i.e., what in Ginzburg’s terms could be defined as
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Argentine cultural
“making one’s own what is someone else’s, what one does not hold”
elite was made up of a Buenos Aires oligarchy that wanted Buenos
from what you have or know (Zubieta 2004, 45-46).
Aires, and by extension Argentina, to be the most modern nation in
Latin America. They needed a concert dance that distinguished itself In this article, I use the term “popular” to analyze the democratization
from popular forms like folklore, circus, and tango (See Pasolini 1999). of culture and the art consumption that this policy promoted. In this
Consequently, dance as “elite culture” was shaped by a Eurocentric context, I understand art consumption as a “second degree production”
model of cultural modernity, with the Ballets Russes —in 1913— as (de Certeau 2000, XLIII). That is what de Certeau (2000) named
the most representative form of the time (Tambutti 2011). However, this as a “use” (36) of cultural goods by the popular classes, something
universalistic, elite background was challenged by the Peronist cultural which constitutes the place of freedom created by the “tactics” of
policies that promoted not only a “popular/mass” culture, but also micro-resistance (43). In this sense, consumers cease to be passive
enabled working class-access to “high” culture events (Cadús 2017). recipients but rather develop secondary productions. In opposition to
this meaning of “popular” within the context of Peronist cultural policies,
In its first two terms, the administration of President Juan Domingo
I use the term “high” culture to refer to the universalistic classic culture
Perón (1946-1955) introduced a cultural project that mirrored his
that symbolically belonged to the elite intellectuals of the time. Peronist
“welfare democratization” (Torre-Pastoriza 2002, 304) state policy,
cultural policies aimed to democratize this elite/high culture, and as
which focused on expanding social welfare programs. Through
a result, educate the people. Notwithstanding, I understand that the
cultural diffusion, these policies promoted greater access for the
consumption of art as a tactic of appropiation by the popular classes
working class to cultural goods and created access to areas previously
does not necessarily imply indoctrination by said classes.
established as the exclusive patrimony of middle and upper classes,
such as the Teatro Colón (Colón Theater), the most prestigious opera Although the aesthetic or the agents of the Colón Theater Ballet
theater in the country and one of the most prominent of the region. Company did not completely change during Peronism, ballet’s
Thus, a new “cultural consumer” arose (Leonardi 2010, 67). During reach extended over a wide and massive audience through the
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 13
implementation of the cultural policy of democratization of culture.
Ballet became a populist tool used by Peronism in its attempt to
democratize culture. This change was expressed in the government
bulletin entitled Cultura para el pueblo (Culture for the People), where
popular culture was defined as “to give the people everything that was
once reserved for wealthy circles, and stimulate the national identity”
(n.d., 33). The text continues to explain this meaning by stating the
policies introduced at the Colón Theater:
The Colón Ballet mirrored the dialogues and tensions between elite
and popular culture and politics. Ballet still represented elite culture
and the privileges of the upper class, yet in its appropriation as a
populist tool by Peronism, it could achieve some democratization. One
such example of this attempt can be identified in the play Electra.
Electra (1950)
In 1950, the Colón Ballet performed in the political and artistic event
that concluded the festivities of “Loyalty Week.” These festivities
commemorated the events that took place on October 17, 1945. That
day, Perón was imprisoned on Martín García Island by an internal coup
of the military government that had been in power since 1943. Perón
had been the Vice President, Secretary of Labor and Social Welfare
and Minister of War.1 Perón pretended to be ill, and was moved to the
Central Military Hospital in the capital city. Meanwhile, thousands of Photo 1: Published in newspaper Noticias Gráficas October 23, 1950, 12. Caption explains:
workers marched on the Plaza de Mayo to demand Perón’s release. This “Two moments of the brilliant performance of ‘Electra’ presented last night in the atrium of the
historical mass demonstration ended that evening with the release of School of Law. Above: Iris Marga as the miserable Electra, who regrets her house tragedy,
where her father’s murderers are in charge —the unfaithful Clytemnestra and Aegisthus
Perón, a political agreement to conduct elections, and Perón’s speech the traitor. Below: Ángeles Martínez as the cruel queen who celebrates the news of her
from the balcony of the presidential palace reaffirming his popular son Orestes’ death. She saw him in her dreams, get revenge on Agamemnon murder. In
leadership. October 17 became a key moment for the construction of the photographs it can be seen the chorus’ attitude that highlights the nature of the classic
tragedy situations.” Located at the Biblioteca del Congreso de la Nación Argentina.
a Peronist identity, and it was celebrated throughout this government.
As political propaganda, workers’ spontaneous mobilizations were Kinsky and the stage designer, Mario Vanarelli. The cast consisted of
transformed into annual rituals of communion between Perón and the popular actors and actresses from radio, television, and revue theater.3
people. This day became known as “Loyalty Day.” Peronism led people There were two danced scenes: “Sunrise”4 and “The Furies,”5 both
to use urban public space, encouraging “a kind of symbolic occupation choreographed by Serge Lifar, then director of the Paris Opera Ballet.
of the city and public areas previously considered inaccessible to the
masses” (Ballent 2009, 51). This use of public space reaffirmed the Electra was presented on October 22, and it took place on the
October 17 myth: “the irruption of the masses in the city, which meant expansive steps in front of the School of Law and Social Sciences of
also its irruption in politics” (Ballent 2009, 51). The 1950 celebration the University of Buenos Aires. Due to its neoclassical style, the front
was an impressive arts festival presented as “culture for the people” area of the building was used as scenography (see Photo 1).
(Gené 1997, 185). The festival took place between October 14 and
This picture reinforced two messages: the audience could imagine
21, and was based on the concepts of “national culture” that Peronism
entering into spaces traditionally restricted for educated elite classes
promoted. The programming included folkloric and workers’ choirs as
that the University represents, and the space of classical Europeanist
well as classical theater, symphonies, and ballets. The Colón Ballet
culture — represented by the play (Gené 1997, 189). Therefore, the
performed in several parks and provided the closing performance of
performance had at least two effects that embodied Peronist ideology.
Sophocles’ Electra. This version was an adaptation by the renowned
Firstly, it engaged a mass public with signifiers of high culture such
Peronist writer and intellectual Leopoldo Marechal.2 The play was
as classical literature and ballet in a play with a cast of popular actors
directed by Eduardo Cuitiño. The musical director was Roberto
whom the audience already knew. Secondly, the event represented
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 15
a symbolic occupation of the city, with working class audiences choreograph Electra, but as Lifar stated in the local press, he had to
accessing an academic place and privileged neighborhood that actually audition for the position. However, his sympathy for Perón’s
was normally out of reach for the populist classes. It was an act of government and his international fame made him a good candidate.
“democratization of intellect and spirit” (Noticias Gráficas 1950a, 6) During Lifar’s first visit to Argentina in 1934, he had a negative
considering that “Culture is[was] no longer a privilege” (Noticias impression about local dancers and the status of dance in the country,
Gráficas 1950d, 5).6 Here, culture operated as a marker of bourgeois which he attributed to politicians (Lifar 1987). Nevertheless, in 1950
attainability, something the populist government sought to undo. he said to the press that he found Argentina socially transformed, with
people showing “the joy of living” (Noticias Gráficas 1950b; 1950c).
There exists no comprehensive information about how the dance He emphasized the labor of Juan and Eva Perón and highlighted the
pieces in Electra were performed. There is only one photograph “spiritual and intellectual” atmosphere among the Argentine audience.
available (see Photo 1) of a dance that shows the chorus performed Moreover, in his second visit, the Paris Opera Ballet performed for
by the corps de ballet, in which the dancers’ posture recalls Nijinsky’s the labor unions at the Colón (see Photo 2), and for the students at
Le Sacre du Printemps. The titles are suggestive, invoking an abstract the República de los Niños.8 Additionally, the company visited various
subject like “Dawn.” For example, the Sunrise scene was described by social aid institutions of the Eva Perón Foundation.
the newspapers as a rhythmic dance, while the mythological characters
known as the Furies call to mind the irrational, tempestuous entities from Lifar wrote: “Dance is no longer the patrimony of a selected class
other classical works of literature and ballet. In the Aeschylus tragedies or of a ‘dilettante’ audience, as it used to be. Due to its universal
The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides, the Furies constitute the language, it has become an essentially popular art (…) Thus (…) it
dark past. They represent vengeance and retribution against human became a magnificent medium to know and love at home” (Noticias
crimes against the natural order. The Furies are described as horrifying Gráficas 1950b, 24). Lifar’s statement demonstrated his interpretation
and nasty. In this sense, Furies were catalyzed to represent the dark of a Peronist understanding of culture where the debate around elite
past that changed with Peronism and the creation of a New Argentina and popular culture and the negotiations that were part of this debate
based on social justice through the intervention of a Welfare State. during Peron’s first term materialized through Electra. That these
Nevertheless, the use of dance to represent this could work against reified cultural divisions between “high” or “popular” or “low” art were
possible Peronist “indoctrination” as Plotkin (2007) suggests, allowing not completely deconstructed through the government’s discourse
potential secondary interpretations by the audience/consumers. They (or its appropriation of ballet) does not discount the fact that dance
could have easily read other meanings into the presence of the Furies, (regardless of its origins or style) serves as a powerful tool for enacting
yet I want to stress that the use of Furies to represent Peronist social popular and populist sentiments.
changes might not have reinforced Perón as a leader or Peronism as .......................................................................................................................................................
a “regime,” as Gené (1997) describes in her analysis of the play and
Notes
the October 17, 1950 celebrations.
1. While being in charge of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare,
That Serge Lifar was the choreographer of this piece is of significance Perón achieved unprecedented improvements in the legal and
here. Lifar came to Argentina for the second time in 1950 as director of social conditions of workers such as the creation of labor courts,
the Paris Opera Ballet, presenting Phaedra (1950) and Icarus (1935) paid vacations, Christmas bonus, and maternity leave.
making a great impact on the local art field. Perhaps, the dances
performed in Electra might have had a similar style of movement to 2. Electra’s libretto by Marechal remains unknown, but it is possible
that of those plays which were created according to Lifar’s Manifeste to imagine that the play recalls relationship with his next adaptation
du chorégraphe.7 His use of an all male ensemble to perform as The of a Greek tragedy, Antígona Vélez, premiered on May 25, 1951.
Furies stemmed from his development of the male dancer’s roles This play was requested by the government, and it merged the
during his tenure at Les Ballets Russes. Given his success with classical Greek tragedy with a religious dimension, and the
performances about Greek mythology, the government chose him to nativist genre. Thus, it allowed the author to create a play that
was both national and universal (Leonardi 2009).
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 17
Noticias Gráficas. 1950a. “Actos de alta jerarquía artística se realizarán en Plotkin, Mariano. 2007. El día que se inventó el peronismo. La construcción
celebración del 17 de Octubre” [Acts of Artistic High Hierarchy Will Be Held del 17 de Octubre. [The Day that Peronism Was Invented. The Creation of
in Celebration of October 17]. Noticias Gráficas, October 3. Buenos Aires. October 17] Buenos Aires: Sudamericana.
____. 1950b. “Antes de partir, Sergio Lifar escribió para Noticias Gráficas. Tambutti, Susana. 2011. El “nosotros” europeo. [The European “Us”]
‘He encontrado transformado socialmente este país, con un pueblo que Seminar class for “Reflexiones sobre la danza escénica en Argentina. Siglo
muestra toda su alegría de vivir’” [Before Leaving the Country, Sergio XX,” Department of Arts, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de
Lifar Wrote for Noticias Gráficas. ‘I Have Found Socially Transformed This Buenos Aires.
Country, With a Nation That Show All Its Joy of Living’]. Noticias Gráficas,
October 10. Buenos Aires. Torre, Juan Carlos and Elisa Pastoriza. 2002. “La democratización del
bienestar.” [The Democratization of Welfare] In Nueva Historia Argentina.
____. 1950c. “Elogio la obra del Gral. Perón y de su esposa. Guardaré un Vol. XIII. Los años peronistas (1943-1955), edited by Juan Carlos Torre,
recuerdo inolvidable de la Argentina, dijo Sergio Lifar” [I Praise General 257-312. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana.
Perón’s and His Wife’s Work. I Will Keep An Unforgettable Memory of
Argentina, Said Sergio Lifar]. Noticias Gráficas, October 15. Buenos Aires. Zubieta, Ana María (Ed.). 2004. Cultura popular y cultura de masas.
Conceptos, recorridos y polémicas. [Popular Culture and Mass Culture.
____. 1950d. “La cultura ha dejado de ser un privilegio” [Culture Is No Concepts, Itineraries, and Controversies] Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Longer a Privilege]. Noticias Gráficas, October 23, Buenos Aires.
In the hours after Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico—leaving incantation, mobilizing it as a cultural product to amass the economic
a wreckage of land, house and body that would astound the world— capital so needed.3 Because of this, the Bomba Wiki project I was
Puerto Ricans on and off the island desperately scrambled to survive working on suddenly took on a new meaning.
and piece together remote semblances of a pre-Maria, pre-September
20, 2017, island life. This had, of course, already been a life framed When my project partner, José I. Fusté, an Ethnic Studies scholar and
by colonialism and austerity, struggle and precarity, an ethos of bomba collaborator first proposed the idea, I was deeply skeptical and
“getting by” buoyed by a culture invested in quotidian sociality.1 In the reticent.4 The Bomba Wiki would be an online platform to gather existing
diaspora, the bomba community instantaneously jumped into action bomba knowledges into a public space where individuals could upload
organizing fundraisers that first fateful Wednesday. On the island, it content, a place where various complementing and contradicting
was within a week that evidence of organized community bombazos versions of history could co-exist. Attending to the absence of a
became known. Bomba is our oldest extant autochthonous Caribbean bomba archive, it would cover a vast body of knowledge and key terms
dance and music form.2 Once driven underground by the island’s including instrumentation, names of rhythms, song lyrics, historically
particular—though by no means original—brand of anti-black racism recognized practitioners, names of groups, descriptions of bomba on
and later “rescued” by the folkloric stage, new generations of varied plantation society, the stage, in the 21st century batey, in the diaspora.
race and class backgrounds have recently re-popularized it. They look It would have hyperlinks to names and places referenced in song
to bomba as a way to be and do Afro-Puerto Rican, or simply Puerto lyrics (barrios, plantations, sugar mills, Boca Chica, La Verdaguer,
Rican or Diasporican. They use it to produce relationality, to suspend La Recholaise, the American sugarmill superior known for attending
temporal demands on racialized and gendered laboring bodies, to bombazos, Mister Lowe). It would serve to map the forced and
corporeally connect to history, to disrupt and occupy space. In those voluntary migratory movement of bodies across space. It would also
first post-Maria days, while some bomba elders left their drums silently be 100% bilingual, disrupting both currents of power that over-privilege
mourning, many others on the island and its diaspora (from Florida to US institutional knowledge-making, as well as those that dismiss
New York, Chicago to the Bay Area, Seattle to San Diego) activated Diasporicans as culturally impoverished Puerto Rican knock-offs. We
bomba as a site of gathering and lamenting, of cathartic release and could challenge the masculinist and racist nationalism through which
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 19
bomba has historically been framed and include a section describing What eventually convinced me was the value and necessity to organize
the genres from other Caribbean islands with which bomba shares and curate a section of videos that featured the scores of exceptional
not just aspects of nomenclature but embodied vernacular. The wiki dancers (as well as singers and drummers). As a diasporic bombera I
could credit composers of songs often popularly circulated without can attest to how developments in technology (YouTube, social media
knowledge of their origin and the content would be largely written by and most recently Facebook Live and Instagram stories) have played
non-academic knowledge holders. It would center and name the work an important role in accenting and extending real-time embodied
of so many important women, queer folks, ghosted in official bomba exchanges in the batey. They have been a conduit for studying and
histories. Yet, I was still ambivalent. tracing movement vocabularies as well as for creating communal
links across geographies, including the island’s own municipalities.
I thought about the fifteen years of embodied encounters and The videos would bring embodied knowledges into bomba history
relationships through which my still relatively limited bomba knowledge in a way that attended to naming the specifics of their contributions,
had been gained. The trust established, the dancing, singing, drumming, granting these figures improvisational authorship while attempting to
eating and drinking framed and defined the learning, something that track the interconnected genealogies of movement styles. Identifying
exceeded the actual information shared. I thought about the economic tags for each video would include: the name of the featured dancer,
means these knowledges represented for people attending or hosting the rhythm being danced, the name of the song, the type of space
workshops. I reflected on how knowledges are both shared and (stage, batey), the use of skirt work or footwork (detaching gender
hoarded, and on how much of the understanding comes through noting identity from movement), the name of the particular regional style, and
that which is not spoken. I considered the purpose and value of having if appropriate, the names of teachers whose distinct techniques are
slippery protocols for traditions that are orally and aurally maintained emanated.
across centuries. For instance, bomba is framed unequivocally as
having no “religious or spiritual” valences, but song lyrics chanted The global circulation of bomba videos on social media may lend
in ritual repetition speak of the loas of the Dominican-Puerto Rican themselves to fueling anything from cultural nationalism (tinged with
vodun derivative, Sanse, and many bomberxs practice some variant both Afrocentrism and anti-blackness), to sincere appreciation, to
of an Afro-Caribbean religion. I questioned the desire to centralize fetishistic voyeurism. The fact that bomba dance is inoperative without
knowledge, catalogue, and enshrine for posterity, problematizing the being in direct conversation with drumming, generates a layer of
need to preserve even while acknowledging that the politics of resisting protection from appropriative and extractive gestures. Notably, the
erasure and forgetting are more urgent than ever. I acknowledged increased digital presence of bomba has come at a time when folkloric
the dynamics of power in terms of light-skinned privilege, class, and stage groups structured around the choreographic presentation of
geography that inevitably play out in such a project. I realized that I various dance styles have been outnumbered by smaller musical
was missing embodiment and lived experience, that words on a page ensembles playing in more communal bombazo settings. Thus, a
would only ever be that. The batey, the place of dancing, needed to concurrent replication and “stealing” of choreographies has been
somehow be present, not just described. limited. Furthermore, without an understanding of how the steps fit
into the rhythmic and musical dynamic, simple reproduction of steps
Dance, as bomba’s gravitational center, distinguishes it as a practice will be just that: steps, not the dance practice. Indeed, upon arriving at
and has fundamentally driven the growth and popularity of the genre a bomba event, it is not uncommon to “hear” the dancer before seeing
in recent years. It is the mechanics of the music-making dance that them, and one is often able to surmise the quality of the dancing by how
destabilize the long-time gendering of dance (female) and music- it “sounds,” its rhythmic complexity as articulated by the drumming.
making (male) as dancers line up to become unprecedented aural and
visual protagonists. Thus, bomba dancing needed to define the project In its most ideal formulation, the Bomba Wiki Project, a project now well
in some substantial way. underway, will be a digital batey. We envision this as a site that is as
capacious of information as it is of ways of relating to information. We
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 21
Women’s Performativities
and Gender Politics in
hip hop and street dance
cultures of Greece1
Dr Natalia Koutsougera
This essay is excerpted from an article length manuscript that examines to participate in street and hip hop culture was the search for familial
the amalgamation of hip hop and urban dance styles in formal belonging, group adoration and authenticity, as well as alternative
and informal hip hop contexts in Greece and its implication for the ways to view and experience their bodies, and their Greek and gender
challenging of dominant and normative hip hop discourses. The longer identities. They sought to distance themselves from the mainstream
essay explores the ways hybrid and contested—as to whether they female models of Greek society. They both have strong black and non-
belong to hip hop—styles and choreographies have been coexisting western male and female role models from the global hip hop dance
with performances of “original” hip hop dance styles in hip hop events arena and, through traveling to competitions abroad, they seek to
and competitions. Alongside its treatment of hip hop authenticity and enhance their street dance capital (Bourdieu 2002, Thornton 1994)
dance styles’ interplay, the longer article discusses ethnographically as well as share and exchange hip hop dance knowledge with other
how regulatory, puritan and sexist discourses inside and outside hip practitioners. They both began practicing as b-girls but pretty soon
hop are challenged and destabilized through the provocative and Denia focused on popping and Diana on waacking, voguing and house
contested dance and non-dance performances of two female hip hop/ dance. Denia and Diana also teach these styles in various dance
street dancers in Thessaloniki who frequently participate in all-styles schools in Thessaloniki, Athens and other regions in Greece.
competitions. These girls fuse hip hop with urban dance styles and
queer the dominant norms of the Greek male breakdance scene, With their crew they mix different street and funk dance styles, mainly
introducing new embodiments, imaginaries and subjectivities. breaking, popping, locking, hip hop party dance, krumping, waacking,
voguing, house dance and they experiment and interchange these
Competitive street dance femininities different styles in their choreographies and compositions. Their
crew consists of both men and women and is constantly changing
Diana (with a defiant artistic name) and Denia (with a snug artistic
its members. Still, Diana and Denia remain the most potent and
name) are two female street dancers and close friends, specializing
permanent female figures. Separately, as a pair or with the crew, they
in different hip hop, street and urban dance styles in Thessaloniki.2
participate in international, national and local hip hop and street dance
Diana and Denia belong to the same street crew. What inspired them
competitions including all-styles battles, freestyle battles, street shows
and street dance theater.
freestyle and authentic. For her, popping represents her “badass” and
Denia specializes in popping. Popping is a street dance and one of the
“crafty” personality. She moves like a “caterpillar” full of mystery and
original funk styles that started from California during the 1960s-1970s.
deceit, while her favorite movements derive from the boogaloo style
It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles
that she combines with waving and the robot. She often fuses belly
to cause a jerk in the dancer’s body referred to as a pop or a hit. Denia
dance movements with the robust movements of popping, producing
is often practicing with male poppers while, besides her main crew, she
a more fluid, experimental and feminine result. Denia used to be very
belongs to a breakdance crew where she performs both breakdance
shy when she first started dancing but as years went by she became
and popping. Denia chose popping because she considers it more real,
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 23
more offensive and competitive and learned to transform her girlish the shoulder. It is very popular nowadays among cisgender female
appearance into one that exudes danger. She looks really frightening street dancers, and queer people of color (Bragin 2014). Waacking
and explosive in battles and she ambushes her opponents each time expresses a hegemonic femininity (Bragin 2014) which in many ways
she stares theatrically at her own elusive moves pretending to admire is in juxtaposition to the hegemonic masculinity of breakdance. And, in
her body. the case of Diana we are talking about a performance of hegemonic
femininity that is marginalized and unwanted inside Greek hip hop. As
She usually wears tight or baggy jeans, college and plaid t-shirts or Diana claims, waacking and voguing help her to play out her aggressive,
clothes adorned with little dolls or comics. The images she mimics unconventional and dangerous femininity and find a balance between
incorporate her fantasies of favorite fairytales, space movies, cartoon the “masculine” and the “feminine.”4 It is really outstanding how easily
characters and gang battles in the Bronx. As she says, her childish she manages to jump from a femme-fatale posture and dress code to
outfit and character help her to deal with the boys especially during an exaggerated “masculine” or gender fluid attitude to a rough freestyle
training, because she doesn’t want to be treated as a sexual object hip hop and house moves to sexy stylized and carefully placed or rigid
but as an equal combatant. B-boys and male poppers also infantilize waacking and vogue poses. Hence, Diana, by self-identifying as a hip
her so they won’t feel very threatened by a wild sexuality. They usually hop dancer, which symbolically privileges masculinity in Greece, and
call her “daughter” or “sister.” This purposeful infantilization on Denia’s by jumping very easily from dance styles not considered “masculine
part does not deter how some male breakers still see her as a “man” enough” which she performs in a hyperfeminine way, betrays the
in the battle. Denia is always feeling that she has to prove her worth to heteropatriarchal axioms of hip hop. She exposes the citational and
the boys and earn their respect. A significant amount of b-boys respect illusionary status of gender norms inside hip hop.
Denia mainly because she practices popping which is considered an
authentic hip hop dance style and because they feel she represents Diana, in deference to the Greek warrior goddess, states that when she
hip hop culture in a respectful way. However, despite declared equality dances she feels she wants to punish those who deserve it. Her strong
and conditional recognition, some boys don’t hesitate to exclude her and quick arm movements and her painful-like facial expressions
from significant battles or prominent positions as a competition judge. reveal her sublime affects as “jouissance” as an enjoyment in Lacanian
Denia is always very disappointed by their ambivalence and irritability terms “that extends beyond pleasure into pain…as pleasurable pain”
and most of all by their aggressiveness and exclusion, especially when (Blanco Borelli 2014: 169). She usually wears caftans, or colorful
she is not conforming to male uniformity and the malestream. As a clothes, especially in house dance, that signify African spirituality or
consequence, her gender performativity is always relational. As she Muslim elements, or large t-shirts with black tights, especially when
states: “boys’ ambivalence instigates the ambivalence in my gender she wants to place emphasis on freestyle. Sometimes her dress style
practice and attitude.” Over the years she has developed coping is very feminine and other times “very street style,” as she proudly
strategies and avoids particular cliques. claims.
In contrast, Diana practices waacking, voguing and house dance.3 These With her ambivalent, sometimes androgynous attitude, changeable
are highly contested dance forms in Greece’s hip hop communities style and volatile gender performativity in everyday life and street
because their historical and geographical relationship to the New York dance competitions she puzzles the male hip hop community. In her
origin narratives of hip hop destabilize particular beliefs. Waacking opinion, many b-boys and hip hop dancers are misogynists who are
was born in the West Coast of the United States in the early 1970s and trying to intimidate her and cause trouble. As Denia says, “Diana is
featured on the syndicated TV music show, Soul Train as one of the marginalized not just because she is doing a style that is contested but
main dance styles represented on television. This dance was created principally because this style is feminine.” According to Diana, boys
by members of the Black and Spanish gay communities who danced feel very uncomfortable, even threatened, with the performance of a
to disco music at clubs of Los Angeles. Waacking consists of intense wild or dangerous femininity riddled with masculine attributes instead
arm moves, typically in a movement of the arms over and behind of something that they recognize and are used to: a conventional
Drawing on Judith Butler’s’ analysis (1990), Denia and Diana’s Following this lead, one could say that this cisgenderness as
performances of gender render the Greek discourses of authenticity intervention and queering is both exceptional in a Greek context and
in street/hip hop dance performance and style as vulnerable, fluid common in a translocal one. As many anthropologists have shown
and contested. Individual authenticity is negotiated and renegotiated (Faubion 1993, Cowan 1990, Papagaroufali 1992, Kirtsoglou 2004,
through constant and repetitive performativity. Denia seems to be Koutsougera 2013), feminism in Greece is more a reformist (rather
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 25
than revolutionary) movement and it is not always “self-evident how disco, house and club dance styles such as waacking, voguing,
feminist discourses are incorporated into various local narratives” dancehall, house dance etc., all of which fall under the term
(Kirtsoglou 2004: 160). As these contemporary Greek ethnographies “urban.” Undoubtedly, male breakers are those who hold the reins
indicate women seem to strive for recognition and visibility, between of power and recognition in street cultures as institutional forms.
contradictions, resistances and accommodations through antagonistic,
“egoistic” and competitive expressions. 3. Waacking is often compared to locking, which is considered an
authentic hip hop dance style, due to its esthetic, groove and
Diana and Denia’s performances signify that hip hop as a lived musical similarities. Voguing evolved out of the Harlem ballroom
experience and area of study constitutes an open-ended field of culture during the 1960s and was established as a community
performativities, potentialities, re-institutionalisations and belongings through the institution of “Vogue Houses” where homosexual
—an agonistic battlefield of political dissidence which goes beyond dancers lived together and developed familial relationships
gendered stereotypes and culturally constructed ontologies. (Jackson 2002, Bailey 2016). Voguing consists of feminine poses,
....................................................................................................................................................... graceful, rigid and fluid actions allocated in mainly three distinct
styles: old way, new way and vogue fem. House dance is a social
Notes
dance primarily danced to house music played in the clubs of
1. The term performativity as extensively used in Judith Butler’s Chicago and New York during the 1990s. It is highly improvised
work (1990) as repetitive stylistic performance in a framework and emphasizes fast and complex footworks combined with fluid
of heteronormativity, seems ideal for the analysis of hip hop and movements of the torso. It also emits gender neutrality. The first
street dance subjectivities. Gender identity in hip hop and street house dancers were hip hop dancers.
dance, in a similar vein to the construction of gender identity in
Butler’s theory, is established through ritually stylized bodily 4. Female dangerousness is a common topic of exploration in cultural
procedures which leave open-ended potentialities of gendered and anthropological studies of modern Greece (Campbell 1974,
subversion and reinvention among hegemonic discourses and Du Boulay 1974, Herzfeld 1986, Cowan 1990, Koutsougera 2012,
landscapes of recognition. Notwithstanding the importance of 2013, Papagaroufali 1992, Gefou-Madianou 1992, Spyridaki
the concepts of performance and performativity in street and hip 1996 and Koutsougera 2018). Women’s dangerousness is usually
hop dance cultures, the analytical asset of choreography (Foster related to the evil and Eve (Campbell 1974, Du Boulay 1974)
1998) is also a useful tool for the anthropological study of gender while the practices of a “dangerous” women in Greek culture are
as performance and as a finitude of experience in street dance, seen as problematic and competitive (Cowan 1990, Kirtsoglou
bridging and challenging at the same time verbal and non-verbal 2004, Koutsougera 2012, 2013). Women’s aggressiveness and
narratives. Choreography as meaning through metaphor is guile are also related to Turkishness and a Romeic side of Greek
fundamentally poetic and allows dancing bodies to be understood identity (Herzfeld 1986).
as more than they appear to be (McCarren 2013: xxxiii).
5. Here adopting Maria Pini’s (2001: 160) analysis on club cultures
2. Diana and Denia are pseudonyms. Artistic names are usually and female subjectivities I use the analytical category of alternative
called street names and they describe the personality of the images of subjectivity. Pini following the work of Irigaray and
hip hop/street practitioner or they refer to personal trajectories Derrida explores female dance subjectivities in night clubbing
in the everyday (street) life. Breakdance was the first hip hop as formulations of alternative fictions about female subjectivities
dance style introduced in Greece during the 1980s and is mainly while both raving and “the Dance” comes to involve a movement
male-dominated (as is popping). The majority of young girls – beyond fixity, coherence, rationality and phallocentrism.
coming from working class, lower middle class, even middle class
6. “It ain’t where you are from it’s where you’re at” is a rhyme
backgrounds – experiment with other street and hip hop styles
coming from the song of Rakim “In the Ghetto” referring to a
such as new style hip hop, hip hop party dance and other funk,
deterritorialized hip hop subjectivity. In a phenomenological
9. The term queering refers to a process from a queer position, Campbell, J.K. 1974. Honor, Family and Patronage: A Study of
“from a position of difference and resistance to the hegemonic Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community. New
and normative ideologies of gender and sexuality but in general York & Oxford: Oxford University Press.
to everything normal, legitimate or hegemonic” (Yannakopoulos
2006: 32). Bragin (2014) is also referring to the queering of hip Cowan, J., K. 1990. Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece.
hop from waacking practices. Jessica Nydia Pabón-Colón (2018) Princeton: Princeton University Press.
following Halberstam (1998) conceptualizes graffiti subculture
Du Boulay, J. 1974. Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village. Oxford:
through paradigms such as queer time and queer space. The
Oxford University Press.
kind of queering elaborated in this article is not referring to a
present temporality and corporeality but in a futurity, potentiality
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 27
Dubisch, J. 1986. Gender and Power in Rural Greece. Princeton: Koutsougera, N. 2018. “Hip hop, Street and Urban Dance Styles in
Princeton Universitiy Press. Greece: Gendered Competitive Performativities”. In Y. N. Kolovos
and N. Christakis (Ed). Rock is Dead…Long Live Rock!: Essays
Efthymiou, A. & Stavrakakis, H. 2018. "Rap in Greece: Gendered on Contemporary Music Trends and Subcultures, 75-108. Athens:
Configurations of Power In-Between the Rhymes", Journal of Greek Aprovleptes Ekdoseis.
Media and Culture, Vol 4 (2), pp: 205-222.
Koutsougera, N. 2019. “ ‘The Voice of the Street’: ‘Street’ Self, ‘Street’
Faubion, J. D. 1993. Modern Greek Lessons: A Primer in Historical Spirit and Woman’s Performativity in hip hop”, Feministiqá. Vol 2.
Constructivism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Spring 2019. Forthcoming.
Foster, S.L., 1998. “Choreographies of Gender”, Signs, Vol 24, No 1, MacCarren, F. 2013. French Moves: The Cultural Politics of Le Hip
pp. 1-13. Hop. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.
Gefou-Madianou, D. 1992. “Exclusion and Unity, Retsina and Sweet Muñoz, J. E. 1999. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the
Wine: Commensality and Gender in a Greek Agrotown”. In D. Gefou- Performance of Politics. London: University of Minessota Press.
Madianou (Ed). Alcohol, Gender and Culture, 108-136. London & New
York: Routledge. Muñoz, J. E. 2001. “Gesture, Ephemera, and Queer Feeling:
Approaching Kevin Aviance”. In J. C. Desmond. Dancing Desires:
Yannakopoulos, K. 2006. Theories and Politics in Anthropology. Choreographing Sexualities On & Off the Stage. London: The
Athens: Alexandria. University of Wisconsin Press.
Halberstam, [J]. J. 1998. Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke Pabón-Colón J. N. 2018. Graffiti Grrlz: Performing Feminism in the Hip
University Press. Hop Diaspora. New York: New York University Press.
Herzfeld, M. 1986. “Within and Without: The Category of the Papagaroufali, E. 1992. “Uses of Alcohol among Women: Games of
“Female” in the Ethnography of Modern Greece”. In J. Dubisch (Ed). Resistance, Power and Pleasure. In D. Gefou-Madianou (Ed). Alcohol,
Gender and Power in Rural Greece, 215-234. Princeton: Princeton Gender and Culture, 48-70. London & New York: Routledge.
Universitiy Press.
Pini, M. 2001. Club Cultures and Female Subjectivity: The Move from
Jackson, J. D. 2002. “The Social World of Voguing”, Journal for the Home to House. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Anthropological Study of Human Movement, 12/2: 26-42.
Read, J. 2015. The Politics of Transindividuality (Historical Materialism
Kirtsoglou, E. 2004. For the Love of Women: Gender, Identity and Same- 106). New York: Brill.
Sex Relations in a Greek Provincial Town. London & New York: Routledge.
Thornton, Sarah. 1995. Club Cultures: Music Media and Subcultural
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Clubbing: Popular Entertainment as Cultural and Symbolic Capital in
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Culture: An Anthropological Perspective. Ph.D Thesis. Department of Tzartzani, Ioanna. 2014. “Embodying the Crisis: The Body as a Site
Social Anthropology. Panteion University. (http://pandemos.panteion. of Resistance in Post-Bailout Greece”, Choros International Dance
gr/index.php?op=record&pid=iid:6585&lang=el). Journal, 3, 40-49.
Our bodies lie relaxed against the floor, eyes shut, as Tamia's voice neighbourhood of Carapungo in Ecuador's capital city, Quito. I had been
guides our attention: "Breathe, notice the natural movement of your shuttling between the two practices over the course of a year, attending
stomach, your ribs." Hands rest comfortably on hip bones. "We're going contemporary classes in spaces in the city centre and classes of Afro-
to begin exploring - what's going to be the rhythm, the dance, of your Ecuadorian bomba in Carapungo's Centro de Desarrollo Comunitario
pelvis?" Sitting now, feet square on the floor, we imagine lines running (Centre for Community Development) on the northern outskirts of the
from legs to hips, moving our knees inwards and outwards. We feel city. These were practices that occupied distinct spaces and imaginaries
our sitting bones against the floor and the hips' changing position with in Quito—in terms of where practitioners generally rehearsed and
the rounding, straightening, and arching of our spines. After a break, performed, as well as the wider social and political geographies of their
we begin again. This time Luzmila leads in the Afro-Ecuadorian dance practice. Central to this were questions of race—one a predominantly
la bomba Choteña. The class watches as she moves in small steps, white-mestizo practice, the other predominantly Afro-Ecuadorian—
feet skimming lightly across the wooden floor, touching forwards and and those of class that accompanied dance's framing as a 'popular' or
back, forwards and back. "Uno, dos, uno, dos. In Chota, in the times 'arts' practice. Emerging through conversations with dancers in both
of slavery, los Afros couldn't go further than this little step because places, the exchange aimed to create a space of dialogue between the
they walked in chains." As we practise, Luzmila describes the dance two forms; dialogues that were focused not on 'fusion' or 'mixing' but
in its social form—how dancers nudge and drive each other through rather on an exchange of distinct danced knowledges. Many modes of
the space in playful challenge until one pins the other against the conversation emerged in these danced encounters—in approaches to
wall or bounces them to the floor. In lines we face each other, calls the body and performance, in creative process, in ideas of the popular
encouraging us to let our hips and shoulders move with our steps. and the contemporary, in generational dynamics.2 Exchange became an
"Hips, hips, free the hips! Allow the music to reach you here", she calls, interdisciplinary space (Ranganathan and Loquet 2009) where tensions
touching her heart, "so that you dance with swing!"1 and fissures—'the seams that do not come together' (Chatterjea 2013)—
emerged alongside processes of adjustment and translation that sought
Between November 2013 and June 2014 I organised, in collaboration to negotiate 'the cracks between realities' (Anzaldúa 2015) for these
with dance colleagues, a series of exchanges between contemporary two dance(d) worlds. As a white European researcher, my own position
dance and popular Afro-Ecuadorian dance in the northern within these dialogues (as organiser, as participant) was also subject
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 29
to negotiation. For the purposes of this short piece, I'd like to focus on body, but that primordial element that moves you inside, we've lost
the cultivation of bodily knowledge as a key mode of dialogue in these that... This is like giving the body back to us, you know?" In this way,
danced relations. Specifically, I consider the bomba and its relations to encounter saw participants make sense of their danced experiences
its contemporary dance 'other' to explore the ways danced encounter through binary discourses of the 'skilled' and the 'natural' that echoed
not only reveals intimate interrelations between the political and the wider racialised imaginaries: a predominantly white-mestizo practice
corporeal, but also becomes the active grounds for setting the terms of becomes associated with 'skill' and 'technique', while Afro-Ecuadorian
the conversation. practice is understood as the domain of 'essence', the 'primordial',
and 'natural' movement. Such distinctions also resonated in the ways
The bomba is a popular Afro-Ecuadorian dance associated with the dancers were categorised. Luzmila describes bomba dancers, for
Valle del Chota-Mira, a semi-arid valley lying north of the capital in example, as "bailadores not bailarines" ('dance-makers' rather than
Imbabura province. In Quito, its practice has diversified from a social 'dancers') as ideas of natural skill and social practice are contrasted
form of challenge and flirtation3 to become part of a contested politics against those of contemporary dance's formalised training and
of racial-ethnic, national, and urban belongings. In a city where 'professional' performance. Encounter thus made difference in ways
colonial structures of subjugation continue to structure opportunity that related not only to common racialised imaginaries of bodies and
and possibility for many Afro-Ecuadorians, and where 'Andean' and their movement but also specific marginalisations shaping danced
'Quiteñan' imaginaries rarely intersect with blackness, its practice has worlds in Quito, where the formalised training of contemporary dance
become particularly key to making spaces of afroecuatorianidad (a schools and national companies typically takes place in spaces that,
collective sense of Afro-Ecuadorian subjectivity). In this piece, I want to as bomba leader Luzmila expressed, "do not correspond to us."
think about how we might understand such enunciations not in isolation
but through the living dialogues of danced encounter. Geographers While encounter saw the reiteration of essentialised imaginaries at
have written about encounter as a mode of everyday relation that times, it also offered opportunities to set the terms of 'difference'.
does not simply negotiate but actively makes and remakes 'difference' In bomba class, the communication of bodily knowledge became
(Wilson 2017). In the case of the Carapungo exchange, then: How the grounds for forging particular imaginations of blackness. As
might the communication of bodily knowledge (re)produce particular Luzmila moves, she narrates danced connections to Chota as a rural
lines of difference? How might danced encounter become the grounds 'homeland' and centre of specific Afro-Ecuadorian histories: small,
for their translation, complication, or renegotiation? And, in a context grounded steps and a bowed torso embody the colonial realities of
where Afro-Ecuadorians are often subject to multiple marginalisations, slavery on Choteñan sugar cane plantations; a bottle balanced on
what potential might these conversations hold for decolonial moves? stilled head relates an everyday practice from the valley. Beyond
local geographies such moves, we are told, also enunciate a pan-
We might begin with dance as a relational practice. As feet shifted, African bodily heritage and 'way of doing': "Because we are Africans
legs extended, hips pulsed, and spines stretched in the exchange, in Ecuador." We learn to steady the bottle's weight, isolating the head
dancing bodies and their movement came to be relationally defined from a moving torso; to ground the feet and connect their shifting
in ways that saw wider social discourses folded in to the dance and, step to the hips' lateral pulse. This careful communication also works
at times, worked to reiterate particular essentialised imaginaries of to cultivate danced movement beyond the exaggerated moves of
difference. Luzmila, leader of the bomba classes, describes her dream hips and buttocks articulated in popular racialised stereotypes of
of "Afros jumping and rolling on the floor with long flowing skirts in the blackness. Encounter here becomes the basis for the embodying and
plaza"; Afro-Ecuadorian dancers request exercises to condition their reconfiguring of 'difference' along particular lines; distinctions that, in
bodies for the splits. A contemporary dancer describes feeling "like their communication through ideas of lo nuestro ('what is ours'), are
I was made of wood!" on encounter with Afro-Ecuadorian practice; owned as living heritage and as expressions of a politicised Afro-
others describe the dance as connecting them with 'soul', emotion, Ecuadorian subjectivity. These become part of forging a particular kind
and an essential self. For one dancer: "What it leaves me thinking is of space in a mestizo-dominant city and also, here, set the basis for
that we don't know our bodies. We 'skill' the body, we specialise the dialogue with the 'other'.
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 31
Encounter was not just about making and remaking difference, but Attention to danced encounter makes clear the relational construction
also about blurring and bridging these imaginaries through practice. of 'difference' and its active making and remaking through practice.
Bodily knowledges were thus not only articulated as distinct but, also, Thinking through these bodily conversations also allows us to
as shared: "Contemporary dance is part of us, you know? It's in us", recognise these constructions as fluid, ambiguous, and emergent,
Luzmila tells me, "Afros have the extensions that they talk about, the while remaining conscious of the societal structures, discourses, and
flexibilities... they're already there". While seen as 'not belonging' imaginaries that fold into their practice and shape people's experiences
to Afro-Ecuadorians in terms of the geographies of its practice in of the city. In the exchange, the communication and experience of
Quito, then, corporeal qualities and ways of doing associated with danced knowledge became the grounds for articulating, embodying,
contemporary dance were articulated in ways that contested their and renegotiating particular experiences of 'difference'. Such
exclusivity to the 'other'. Conversations between bodily knowledges negotiations were shaped by the uneven terrain on which exchange
were also actively constructed in the ways artists arranged to focus took place; concerns that, in the organisation of the exchange, extended
their classes. Contemporary classes bring attention to the hips. beyond bodily knowledge to the wider spatialities of their practice in
Pelvises roll and tilt against the floor, heads bend with forward scoops Quito. In preparatory conversations, this saw Afro-Ecuadorian dance
of the coccyx. leaders move to hold the sessions in Carapungo, a barrio popular on
Quito's northern periphery. As one leader told me: "It’s like a reversal
"How does my pelvis move?" [of power]...we don’t go where people call us." From the beginning,
then, the exchange was shaped by concerns over the coloniality of
Bomba classes remind us of our contemporary work on balance before
power as it mapped onto the social and professional relations between
we reach for tall plastic bottles and place them slowly on our heads.
the two dance(d) worlds, shaping conversations around location
"Well, this is a real work of balance!". and scheduling, class order and content, poster makeup and event
promotion. While there is no space to elaborate upon these issues
Corporeal work not only resonates across 'difference' in this way here, they reveal danced encounter as a way to think not only about the
but, at times, also comes to be reframed. Work on posture through intimate interrelations between the political and the corporeal, but also
heightened awareness of the spine and its connection to the feet in about how the bodily making and remaking of these relations might
the contemporary class, for example, comes to be about a sense of resonate beyond the moment of the dance to push at, and perhaps
racial-ethnic pride in the bomba session. We stand, backs erect, hands transform, wider geographies. In this way, danced encounter comes
gathered in fists on our hips, chins lifted. to be not only about dialogic spaces of 'difference' but also about the
opening and enacting of spaces of decolonial possibility in Ecuador.
"Remember your work on posture with Tamia. This is elegance,
.......................................................................................................................................................
respect, pride in our culture and in being Afro."
Bibliography
These translations and migrations of bodily knowledge did also,
1. This description is based on my fieldnotes, film materials, and
however, involve the negotiation of expectations and, over the course
memories from a contemporary class with Tamia Guayasamin
of the exchange, class material morphed. Bomba classes moved from
and bomba class with Luzmila Bolaños during the exchange in
directed choreography to put the choreographic process in participants'
Carapungo's Centro de Desarrollo Comunitario on 4th May 2014.
hands, learned knowledges of Chota coming into conversation with
All translations from speech are my own. The exchange had several
young generations' novel takes on traditional moves. Contemporary
iterations that also involved the collaboration of Tatiana Valencia,
classes, having begun in corporeal exploration, were adjusted to
Segundo Mosquera with dancers and musicians from Fundación
include taught phrases and exercises for the splits. In this, then,
Afroecuatoriana Casa Ochún, and Kléver Viera with Petra Ploog
danced encounter becomes an intercultural negotiation shaped not
and dancers from the Taller Permanente de Experimentación
only by concerns for reiterating, challenging, or reconfiguring ideas
Escénica. Quotes presented here are taken from various
of difference but also for forging dialogues in the ambiguous space
preparatory conversations and exchange sessions.
between expectations and danced realities.
2. See Narbed 2016 for further discussion of the exchange. López Yánez, M.G. (2013). Más allá de las caderas: el baile de la
Bomba en el Valle del Chota-Cuenca del río Mira como una experiencia
3. See María Gabriela López Yanez 2013 for more on bomba as a compartida. Post-ip: Revista do Fórum Internacional de Estudos em
social practice. Música e Dança. 2(2): 188-198. Available at: http://revistas.ua.pt/
....................................................................................................................................................... index.php/postip/article/view/3425
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 33
Collegiality and the Crew:
Fixing ‘Broken Britain’
through Ashley Banjo's
Big Town Dance (2014)
Laura Robinson
In 2014, Sky1 aired a six programme television series titled Ashley Drawing upon cultural and political theorist Jeremy Gilbert’s
Banjo’s Big Town Dance (BTD).1 Ashley Banjo and his Street dance theorisations of collectivity within the U.K.’s neoliberal political climate,3
crew ‘Diversity’, made famous in the U.K. from their 2009 win on as well as post-capitalist theorists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s
Britain’s Got Talent, took on the mission to bring community spirit back concept of biopolitical labour (2004), this screendance analysis
to the market town of Stockton on Tees in the North-East of England.2 questions the extent to which mediated hip hop dance operates as
Filmed over two months, their effort would result in the creation of a transformative in BTD.4 What occurs when performances of collective
five thousand strong crew who would perform a mass Street dance joy and community togetherness feed into the capitalist system they
choreography in the main market square. aim to disarm? Rather than the terms collectivity or community, this
study therefore explores the concept of corporate collegiality in the
Made up of six episodes, the first five programmes follow a similar mediation and appropriation of hip hop dance.
format: Banjo and his crew try to drum up support across the town
of Stockton for the BTD, focusing on a different demographic of the ‘A Broke Town’
population in each episode. Drawing across age, gender, and dance
Politically, the television programme frames the North-East town of
ability, these groupings include the public services crew, the education
Stockton on Tees as having lost its way, but never directly elaborates
sector crew, the business crew, the entertainment and leisure crew, and
on the economic climate. Interviews with BTD participants reveal that,
finally, the retired, the unemployed and the stay at home mums crew.
‘Stockton’s lost itself, Stockton used to be an absolutely amazing place
Each programme features an audition where residents can show off
to be it was full of nightlife, it was full of lovely pubs, and it died’.5
their moves, early rehearsals where Banjo tests their ability to pick up
Another participant describes it as a ‘broke town’,6 while an elderly
choreography, interviews with individuals about their personal journey,
gentleman states, ‘Stockton, to me, it was a beautiful place, now it’s
and the final staged performance where the audience are ‘blown away’
all gone it’s just a concrete carbuncle, and it’s just dying’.7 During
by the performance and are willing to be part of the main final event.
the twentieth century, the town's major industries of ship building,
In every episode, each crew succeeds in their task of inspiring the
heavy engineering, and steel and chemicals manufacturing declined
population of Stockton to become involved in the BTD, and the final
episode charts the coming together of an entire town through street
dance choreography.
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 35
Neoliberalism and collectivity Whereas neoliberalism suggest that sociality only leads to fear,
paranoia, insecurity and competitive aggression, BTD uses the
Gilbert describes neoliberalism as advocating ‘a programme of deliberate
creativity of the multitude, or in this case, the crew, to construct images
intervention by government in order to encourage particular types of
of joyous affect through social encounter and the embodied negotiation
entrepreneurial, competitive and commercial behaviour in its citizens’.15
of Street dance choreography. It is clear that through the process of
Demonstrated through the U.K.’s political eras of Thatcherism, New
learning, repetition and execution, social change appears to have
Labour, and the Coalition government, and spurred on by mounting
occurred through the bringing together of the atomised community of
state debt and the British financial crisis in 2007, the neoliberal agenda
Stockton. New friends and social bonds are made, and in one case,
results in mass privatisation and the continued emphasis on competitive
aided by the production team, a member of the unemployed crew
relations in the public and commercial sectors.
makes a connection with the leisure centre crew and gains employment
As a consequence to neoliberalism, the resulting rise in economic in a gym. Through continuous rehearsals and the final performances,
deprivation and urban development equals feelings of isolation and a participants demonstrate collective joy in their ability to execute a
breakdown of community, emphasising that essentially all relationships routine, exceeding their expectations of their individual ability, and
must be profitable. The role of community within this climate is their ability to cooperate and work with relative strangers. Individual
reduced to individuals struggling against one another ‘in conditions interviews emphasise the joy of dancing together: for example, one
where competition is artificially imposed, and collaboration is actively participant exclaims, ‘Dancing with policeman, lollypop ladies, bus
repressed’.16 All creative agency and potential rationality is treated as drivers, it’s just amazing it’s like an extension of your family’.19 Another
properties of individuals rather than of groups, and communities are states, ‘it’s the most amazing feeling ever. To be part of this crew, it’s
reduced to ‘atomised, fragmented and commodified cultures’.17 The something else. We’re like sisters and brothers, I love em, they’re
shared labour of many is devalued in comparison with the commercial great, they’re ma crew’.20
success of individuals, positioning the role of community action
These declarations of the pleasure in cooperation and teamwork
through collectives, including crowds, mobs, masses and groups, as
mirror instances of Black collective joy experienced in the rehearsal
ineffective, irrational and unprofitable. Gilbert observes that opposition
and execution of Hip Hop dance. As DeFrantz states, ‘the pleasure
political parties under neoliberalism must always appeal to some sense
of repeated rehearsal as a feature of social exchange enabled by the
of community or collectivity – hence Cameron’s Big Society, because
dance gives way to the pleasure of execution…this pleasure is aligned
the lack of it is the most obviously negative and widely regretted
with accuracy of performance, with the execution of aesthetic action
feature of neoliberal culture. In practice, however, these agendas are
well done’.21 Despite Stockton’s lack of racial diversity, this powerful
the first to be dropped in the wake of massive cuts to public spending.
affective connectivity reveals the possibility of global communities
In the case of BTD, the producers are asking participants to invest through the lens of Black creativity, and therefore the potential for more
in co-operative social relationships to make production possible. inclusive communities. This politics of togetherness and its potential
Through collective and creative capability, the programme co-opts outside of the commercial format of the programme is referenced in
the Black cultural product of Hip Hop dance as a political vehicle for dance scholar Melissa Blanco Borelli’s study of gadgets, bodies and
social change in an attempt to demonstrate that isolated groups can advertisements.22 She states that “the collective action of dancing
be productive. Collective capability therefore relies on creativity as a together creates new communities that negotiate different ways of
demonstration of sociality. In their study of commonwealth and Capital, being autonomous in capitalism”, proposing that dancing bodies have
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri maintain that it is the creative activity the potential to challenge the neoliberal capitalist agenda through
of the multitude which is the most potent force in driving cultural grassroots embodied practices.23
change, and that the profitability of capital is largely dependant upon
facilitating and enabling that creativity.18
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 37
The following months, however, resulted in a large rise of racial 15. Gilbert, 12.
attacks, rhetorics of ‘us and them’, and growing economic and political
uncertainty.29 Despite the voting outcome, such political ruptures and 16. Ibid, 131.
the perpetuation of neoliberal isolation brings renewed potency to new
17. Ibid, viii.
forms of group coalition and collective joy through embodied action,
and to the question posed by DeFrantz, ‘…what might it mean if we 18. Hardt and Negri.
were to all dance hip-hop?’30
....................................................................................................................................................... 19. Interviewee, “Big Town Dance: Episode 1”.
3. Gilbert, “Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in the Age 24. Hardt and Negri, 131-3.
of Individualism”.
25. Interviewee, “Big Town Dance: Episode 5”.
4. Hardt and Negri, “Multitude”.
26. Waters, Collegiality, Bureaucratization, and Professionalization.
5. Interviewee, “Big Town Dance: Episode 1”.
27. Interviewee, “Big Town Dance: Episode 6”.
6. Interviewee, “Big Town Dance: Episode 1”.
28. ITV News, “EU Referendum: Stockton-on-Tees votes to LEAVE
7. Interviewee, “Big Town Dance: Episode 1”. the EU”.
8. Channel 4, Benefit’s Street 2014-2015. 29. White, “Revealed: How Brexit will be bad for Stockton,
Middlesbrough and Hartlepool”.
9. Gilbert, 162.
30. DeFrantz, “Black Performance Theory”, 241.
10. Kelly, “Race hate crime in North East soars to record levels in post
Brexit period”. .......................................................................................................................................................
13. Osumare, “Global hip hop and the African diaspora”, 267. Blanco Borelli, Melissa. Gadgets, Bodies and Screens: Dance in
Advertisements for New Technologies. Ed. Douglas Rosenberg. The
14. DeFrantz, “Black Performance Theory”, 237-8.
Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2016. 421–438.
ITV News. “EU Referendum: All the latest news on polling day”. ITV
News.com. http://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/update/2016-06-24/eu-
referendum-stockton-on-tees-votes-to-leave-the-eu/, 24th June 2016.
Online.
Kelly, Mike. “Race hate crime in North East soars to record levels in post
Brexit period.” Chronicle Live. https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/
north-east-news/race-hate-crime-north-east-12610616, 15th February
2017. Online.
Osumare, Halifu. Global hip hop and the African diaspora. Ed. H. Elam
and K. Jackson. Black cultural traffic: crossroads in global performance
and popular culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
266-288.
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 39
Dis/Orienting Place,
Space, and Spectatorship:
Parris Goebel’s Polyswagg
and the Politics of
YouTube Encounters
Elena Benthaus
The name “Justin Bieber” appears in black typeset on a white screen Aotearoa/NZ Hip Hop dance film Born to Dance (2015); America’s
before being pushed out of the frame to give way to the first bars of Best Dance Crew Season 6 (2011); American Hip Hop dance film Step
the song. A group of female dancers in colourful 90s-style clothing, Up: All In (2014); and So You Think You Can Dance Australia Season
sunglasses covering their eyes, and lips painted a vivid red appear, 4 (2014). Additionally, she has choreographed music videos and live
posing for the camera, with one of them, dressed in all-black and shows for Jennifer Lopez, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, and K-Pop artists
positioned in the centre of the group, holding up a sign with the words BIGBANG, 2NE1, CL, Taeyang, and BLACKPINK, among others.
“Sorry” written on it. The word is underlined, in black typeset, on a Her visibility and dance fame has particularly increased through her
white piece of cardboard, mirroring the very first image of the video. work as the choreographer and director of Justin Bieber’s Sorry and
This is how the official music video to Justin Bieber’s single Sorry, her subsequent choreographic and directorial work for Bieber’s visual
released on the 22nd of October 2015, starts. The video went viral album Purpose: The Movement (2015), which is basically a compilation
quickly1 despite not featuring Justin Bieber at all, apart from his voice in of short dance videos, mostly without the singer in the frame.
the song. Instead the visual hook of the Sorry video is its 3:25 minutes
dance content, choreographed by Parris Goebel, the woman holding Despite the 2.9 billion views to date and the high praise for the music
the “Sorry” sign at the start of the video. video and its creator, the dance content has also seen a good amount
of backlash on social media, specifically in the YouTube comments
INSERT EMBEDDED YOUTUBE video : https://www.youtube.com/ section of Sorry. In these comments, YouTube users question the use
watch?v=fRh_vgS2dFE of and pointing to the appropriation of Jamaican dance hall moves
under the umbrella of “polyswagg,” usually prompting a discussion
Parris Goebel is a dancer and choreographer of Samoan descent from between different fan bases, a discussion that also extends into
South Auckland in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where she owns a dance comment sections of Parris’ other videos. The comments often
studio called “The Palace.” The studio houses her various dance crews,2 involve lengthy discussion threads (around 40 response comments
who have been competing in the World Hip-Hop Dance Championship or more) between YouTube users from a variety of different places.
competition since 2009, winning a total of 8 titles to date. Her screen In the threads, these users usually self-identify as black American,
credits include: a 2015 online dance series produced by Maori TV; Caribbean, African, or Caribbean American on the one hand, and as
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 41
debates then revolve around the materiality of the dance content as Polyswagg, the object of this encounter, become a means of inhabiting
something where instances of orientation towards the movements of a spectatorial body space that extends and expands how Parris and
the dancers and dis/orientation when it comes to the dance style(s) her dancers inhabit the space of the screen with their performance
performed are made visible as a form of disruptive dialogue that deals of fierceness, creating new spaces, folds, and contours, so to speak.
with different places, knowledge(s), and (hi)stories. As the performance of fierceness is specifically linked to Parris’
movement technique, a technique that incorporates yet is differentiated
Considering these initial observations, in this essay, I intend to explore from dancehall (the key point of dis/contention between different
this investment in Parris Goebel’s dance aesthetic polyswagg in spectators), the question is, what is polyswagg? Why is polyswagg
relation to the notion of fierceness as political potential. The political fierce? And what makes that fierceness and the accompanying dis/
potential is made visible in the online debates in the comments threads orientation and dis/contention political?
underneath her videos, which center around difference as understood
in different parts of the world in relation to the migration of dance In an interview and feature story for TVNZ in 2012, Parris explains
style knowledge(s), debates which are facilitated via the screen and polyswagg the following way,
via the performance of fierceness that is inherent in polyswagg as
a movement technique. This political potential, as evidenced in the it’s swag and Polynesian put together. How we dance is unique to
comments sections, can be linked to moments of spectatorial dis/ us, because we are from New Zealand. And it’s kind of our heritage
orientation, which in this essay is understood as an affective force and culture and the way we’re brought up. It’s like that strength as
encounter with the performance of a fierce corporeal aesthetic and a woman mixed with Hip Hop that allows us to create this amazing
a fiercely moving (sur)face, which functions as an interface between presence on stage that people can’t put their finger on.
screen and spectator.
In another interview from the same year with Fresh TV, another New
Let me dwell on the notion of dis/orientation for a moment here. In Zealand television show, she says,
Queer Phenomenology Sara Ahmed argues that, “To be orientated
when we dance we’re very crazy, and I guess our personalities are
is … to be turned toward certain objects, those that help us to find
very bold. There is almost a certain power, strength, and aggression
our way. These are the objects we recognize, so that when we face
in the way that we move. When you put that Polynesian flavour
them we know which way we are facing.”6 One of the key points
mixed with Hip Hop, it kind of allows you to move in a certain way
Ahmed makes in relation to orientation (and directionality) is that the
that you can’t quite explain. That’s why we call it Polyswagg.8
experience of being oriented toward something is always linked to
an experience of being disoriented, both of which are about the way What Parris indicates when she talks about polyswagg are the various
bodies inhabit and create space through moments of dis/orientation dance and cultural influences on her style, which merged into a
with an encounter of other things in that space. As such dis/orientation particular performance aesthetic and performance mode as displayed
provides the basis for an understanding that one is not, or differently, in her choreographies. The display of female empowerment and
oriented toward space and the things in it at any given moment in time. strength is linked with being Polynesian and being from Aoteaora/NZ,
Dis/orientation as a way of inhabiting space and encountering things both as indicators of difference and as indicators of strength/power
always involves a negotiation between orientation, disorientation, and directly associated with a specific place and local history.
reorientation toward space and the objects in that space. Orientation,
in Ahmed’s sense, also has to do with power structures and the way In her article “Young, Gifted, and Brown,” Nicola Hyland touches on
that bodies are being orientated to face certain directions through their Parris’ performance of polyswagg in conjunction with the importance of
surrounding space and who is already (or not) included and/or (in) Hip Hop for Pacific/Oceanic youth in Aotearoa/New Zealand to speak
visible in that space, or only visible as performing in a certain manner. to and thus destabilize a Western, Northern, or Eastern understanding
In this sense every disruption of orientation, every dis/orientation then, of “otherness”, in order to centre experiences, histories, and art forms
has the potential to create new spaces, new folds, and new contours. of Pacific/Oceanic youth within indigenous critical frames.9 As she
In response to the black and white video New Kings, for example, Damn Female Polynesians stars are on the rise. You and Dinah
“Nana K” expresses “P#PolyPride cheeee!”,16 while “Quezaun Otemai” Jane give me all this confidence to be a Polynesian gal. As a little
states, “1 thing y’all have & when I say ya’ll I mean each individual in girl, I didn't have a female idol to look up to who was just like me.
that group that no other group has, is attitude. Not all the same but That's all changing, the wait was worth it. Representation Matters.22
equally fierce. Poly love from American Samoa! Alofa atu.”17 Similarily,
The fierce and multifaceted performance modality of polyswagg
“taylor lee” has noted in the Nasty comments thread,
becomes the point of contact, “the corporeal possibility,” in DeFrantz
words, for dancers and spectators alike. YouTuber “Victorian Hart”
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 43
notes in response to the New Kings video, “this is so fierce I can't longer small, marginal, or exceptional.”28 Imagination is an important
get over their facials it sells out the whole entire routine. Parris I love factor here, as it creates, in connection with mass media, what he calls
you so much and all you girls inspire me so much to keep dancing,”23 a “community of sentiment”29 and “spaces of contestation,”30 which is
where the intensity of Parris’ fierce performance modality becomes due to the possibility of collective readings, criticisms, pleasures, and
a corporeal possibility for this commenter to dance and feel fierce contestations in mass mediated circulated content, forming “sodalities
about it. Fierceness as such then can be considered as an over- of worship and charisma.”31 YouTube comments threads converging
performance, which deliberately takes up space and refuses to back around the work of a specific charismatic, affective performer can be
down. This who and how of taking up space, of increasing the volume seen as a form of mass mediated sodality, in which the crisscrossing
on the noise that is made – the corporeal noise Parris and her dancers of multiple diverse local cultures, cultural forms, pleasures, and politics
make on screen and the noise in the comments threads – produce a not simply cross each other, but are made visible through engagement
visibility that seeks to dis/orient spectatorial viewing positions and the with the content of the video in question and engagement with other
accompanying knowledge(s) that go along with it. spectators who are facing the same object, albeit from a different
perspective. It is a way of facing things that might be dis/orienting. This
When it comes to the notion of fierceness I take my cue from Madison is particularly important, when it comes to the representational politics
Moore’s article “Tina Theory: Notes on Fierceness,” in which Madison of popular dance content that goes viral.
defines fierceness as “a spectacular way of being in the world – a
transgressive over-performance of the self through aesthetics.”24 Which brings me back to the debates revolving around the dance
Fierceness is an aesthetic that is not just a regular performance of the self, content of Sorry, where the politics of perception, comes to bear
but an over-performance, which explicitly and force-fully spectacularizes on spectators’ locality and place of perception. In 2016, YouTubers
the self so that it WOWs, awes, disrupts, and stares back. For spectators, “minaminamo”, “hallaballon”, and “Aubrey Young” engaged in the
this means being on the perceiving end of a performance, which in following debate:
Madison’s words seeks “to change the dynamics of the room” and “push
back against limiting identity categories.”25 Polyswagg as a remixing of “minaminamo”: I think its more the fact that the entire dance is blatantly
different styles of popular performance modes, elicits a variety of viewing Caribbean/African and that there are absolutely no Caribbeans or
positions, those who celebrate her style, those who criticise it, and those Africans to be found. Not only that but the crazy amount of views and
who find themselves in between, clearly changing the dynamics of the praise they are getting for this, while should all the girls be black, it
comments threads and pushing back against limiting identity categories would for sure be overlooked as nothing special.
of how people see, experience, and categorise Parris, her dancers,
“hallaballon”: +minaminamo the entire dance is NOT "blatantly
and polyswagg. It is a disruption based on the affective response to the
Caribbean/African". These girls are from NZ, many with Polynesian/
performance that asks to reflect on the viewing position one assumes, a
Maori heritage and that's where their style of dance is drawn from…
politics of differential spectatorship so-to-speak.
Why should there be black girls of African descent in this video
In Modernity at Large, Arjun Appadurai argues that the consumption when this dance isn't even remotely "African" or "Caribbean"?
of mass media in a global context of migration and motion, of images Poly/Maori girls dancing a Poly/Maori dance - what exactly is your
and people, will produce agency, resistance, irony, parody, anger, problem with this???
and selectivity on behalf of spectators. Through these strategies,
“Aubrey Young”: +hallaballoon The song is obviously dancehall, the
images will become localized.26 In relation to this, he makes a case
dancing is obviously dancehall. There was nothing at all Polynesian
for mediascapes as one of the landscapes of global cultural flows
about that routine or that song. Though I believe people should
that are the building blocks of what he calls “imagined worlds, that
dance how they want, the argument people have is that this video
is, the multiple worlds that are constituted by the historically situated
will now make dancehall style "acceptable" for white people to do it,
imaginations of persons and groups spread around the globe…,”27
when before it was just seen in reggae/dancehall videos and clubs…
what he further refers to as “diasporic public spheres that … are no
That said, these ladies killed it…32
The debate as a collective formation negotiates different types of 3. “hallaballoon” in December 2015 underneath: JustinBieberVevo,
erasure: what Bragin calls “viral trafficking”35 and erasure of actual “Sorry,” Dir. Parris Goebel, Choreography by Parris Goebel,
black materiality and black popular dance styles that polyswagg YouTube, uploaded October 22, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/
seems to perpetuate as the black American/African/Carribean/ watch?v=fRh_vgS2dFE, last accessed on August 14, 2018
Carribean American YouTubers have noted; the erasure of Polynesian/
Maori performance influences when only considering the Sorry 4. “Aubrey Young” in December 2015 underneath: JustinBieberVevo,
choreography under the dancehall banner as the Polynesian/Maori/ “Sorry,” YouTube, last accessed on August 14, 2018
Pacifica YouTubers have pointed out; and the erasure of any kind
5. “missMumbleJumbo” in August 2016 underneath: PARRIS,
of influence under the banner of colour-blindness as several other
“Nasty,” Dir. Parris Goebel, Choreography by Parris Goebel,
YouTubers have interjected in the debates. The debates in these
YouTube, uploaded on August 22, 2016, https://www.youtube.
spectatorship communities, by taking up space and disrupting the
com/watch?v=8feR-Sd4OOo, last accessed on August 13, 2018
flow of appreciative comments, thus dis/orienting the “colour-blind”,
“dance is for all” sentiments, highlight the erasure that is performed 6. Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects,
in relation to different places and spaces. As moments of dialogic Others (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006), 1
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 45
7. Parris Goebel in an interview with Erin Conroy, which was originally 16. “Nana K” in January 2016 underneath: ReQuest Dance Crew,
conducted for TVNZ, which was accessed through Erin Conroy’s “ReQuest Dance Crew: NEW KINGS / @nickiminaj,” Dir. Parris
YouTube channel. erin conroy, “Hip Hop New Zealand – Parris Goebel, Choreography by Parris Goebel, YouTube, uploaded on
Goebel,” YouTube, uploaded on October 29, 2012, https://www. June 1, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy1wQgJLsh8,
youtube.com/watch?v=YQ9MVhYCeNQ, last accessed January last accessed on August 13, 2018
13, 2018
17. “Quezaun Otemai” in September 2016 underneath: ReQuest
8. FRESH TV, “Parris Goebel – My World,” YouTube, uploaded on Dance Crew, “ReQuest Dance Crew: NEW KINGS / @nickiminaj,”
February 4, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orcLbYy2wL8, YouTube, last accessed on August 13, 2018
last accessed January 13, 2018
18. “taylor lee” in August 2016 underneath: PARRIS, “Nasty,”
9. cf. Nicole Hyland, “Young, Gifted, and Brown: the Liberation of YouTube, last accessed on August 13, 2018
Oceanic Youth in The Beautiful Ones,” New Theatre Quaterly,
Volume 32, Issue 4 (November 2016): 333-346 19. Parris Goebel (@ParrisGoebel), Twitter, posted at 6:10pm on
August 28, 2016, https://twitter.com/ParrisGoebel, last accessed
10. Hyland, “Young, Gifted, and Brown,” 340 on January 11, 2018
11. “Chanell” in December 2015 underneath: JustinBieberVevo, 20. Thomas DeFrantz, “Hip-Hop in Hollywood: Encounter, Community,
“Sorry,” YouTube, last accessed on November 27, 2017 Resistance,” in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular
Screen, ed. Melissa Blanco Borelli (New York; Oxford: Oxford
12. “taylor lee” in August 2016 underneath: PARRIS, “Nasty,” University Press), 114
YouTube, last accessed on August 13, 2018
21. cf. Hyland, 338
13. cf. Matthews, Nathan, “The Physicality of the Maori Message – Ko
te tinana, he waka tuku korero,” Junctures, 3 (December 2004), 16 22. “Uni Q” in 2017 underneath: PARRIS, “Nasty,” YouTube, last
accessed on August 13, 2018.
14. For more information on the Aotearoa/Maori performance forms that
are mentioned in the comments, see: Nicola Hyland, “Beyoncé’s 23. “Victorian Hart” in 2016 underneath: ReQuest Dance Crew,
Response (eh?): Feeling the Ihi of Spontaneous Haka Performance “ReQuest Dance Crew: NEW KINGS / @nickiminaj,” YouTube,
in Aotearoa/New Zealand,” The Drama Review, Volume 59, last accessed on August 13, 2018.
Number 1 (Spring 2015): 67-82; Hiromi Sakamoto, “Researching
Kapa Haka and its Educational Meanings in Today’s Aotearoa/New 24. Madison Moore, “Tina Theory: Notes on Fierceness,” Journal of
Zealand: Weaving Metholodologies, Perspectives, Decency,” The Popular Music Studies, Vol. 24, Issue 1 (2012): 72
International Journal of Arts in Society, Volume 6, Issue 3 (2011):
25. Moore, 72
57-66; Nathan Matthews, “The Physicality of the Maori Message –
Ko te tinana, he waka tuku korero,” Junctures, 3 (December 2004): 26. cf. Arjun Appudarai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions
9-18; Sharon Mazer, “Performing Maori: Kapa Hakaon the Stage of Globalisation (London; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
and on the Ground,” Popular Entertainment Studies, Volume 2, Press, 1996, 7
Issue 1 (2011): 41-53; Aaron Taouma, “Pacific Dance in Aotearoa:
A Tale of the last 20 Years,” DANZ Quaterly: New Zealand Dance, 27. Appudarai, Modernity at Large, 33
Issue 34 (Summer 2014): 30-31, among others.
28. Ibid., 10
15. Hyland, Young, Gifted, and Brown,” 344
29. Ibid., 8
Bragin, Naomi. “From Oakland Turfs to Harlem’s Shake: Hood Dance FRESH TV. “Parris Goebel – My World.” YouTube, uploaded on
on YouTube and Viral Antiblackness.” In The Oxford Handbook of February 4, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orcLbYy2wL8.
Screendance Studies, edited by Douglas Rosenberg, 537-556. New
York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. JustinBieberVevo. “Sorry.” Directed by Parris Goebel. Choreography
by Parris Goebel. YouTube, uploaded October 22, 2015, https://www.
DeFrantz, Thomas. “Hip-Hop in Hollywood: Encounter, Community, youtube.com/watch?v=fRh_vgS2dFE.
Resistance.” In The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular
Screen, edited by Melissa Blanco Borelli, 113-131. New York; Oxford: PARRIS. “Nasty.” Directed by Parris Goebel. Choreography by Parris
Oxford University Press, 2014. Goebel. YouTube, uploaded on August 22, 2016, https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=8feR-Sd4OOo.
Hyland, Nicola. “Young, Gifted, and Brown: the Liberation of Oceanic
Youth in The Beautiful Ones.” New Theatre Quaterly, Volume 32, Issue ReQuest Dance Crew. “ReQuest Dance Crew: NEW KINGS / @
4 (November 2016): 333-346. nickiminaj.” Directed by Parris Goebel. Choreography by Parris
Goebel. YouTube, uploaded on June 1, 2014, https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=Hy1wQgJLsh8.
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 47
Feeling from the Outside:
Intercultural Dialogue
and Filmic Ethnography
in Flamenco Street
Performance in Seville,
Spain
Konstantina Bousmpoura
What does it mean to feel and create flamenco from “the outside” in
the context of Andalusian society? How does the practice of flamenco
street performance emerge as a mode of communication and pleasure
that engages in intercultural dialogue with the local community?
How could I, as an ethnographer, bring myself and other flamenco
performers together in a kind of a genuine, intimate dialogical
engagement? (Conquergood 1985). I placed these questions at
the core of my ethnographic filmmaking project, which I conducted
in 2006-2008 as a result of my own role as participant-observer in
flamenco dance classes in Seville since 2003. After many years of
researching various ways that artists from different cultures express
Danila Scarlino, ¨La Bambina¨ and Tsung-Ling Chiu, Äna,¨ performing in front of Seville´s
cathedral. Photograph author´s own.
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 49
Still Photo from the documentary ¨Feeling from the Outside¨. Laura, Sergio,Stieven, Nacho and Danila, ¨La Bambina¨can be seen performing.
whose Andalusian given name is “Ana,” flamenco is a struggle for a "academies.” The two dancers display all the technical requirements of
reality that often exceeds her: "¿So much zapateado for what?" she flamenco needed to seduce an audience: strength and swaying hips,
often asks herself after having practiced hours and hours, stomping bright smiles, brave attitude and an international flamenco troupe of
in front of a mirror with the stopwatch next to it, striving for maximum singers and musicians: Steven from France, Sergio from Catalonia,
speed and good sound. These are difficult, contradictory, and conflicting Shuki, from Israel; Laura, Juan and Nacho, from Andalusia.
moments that all students have experienced when entering the world
of flamenco. It is enough to see Danila and Ana dancing to realize that At first, this multicultural group of artists thought that their audience
they are a committed flamenco dance couple that mixes improvisational would mostly be tourists attracted by the diffuse makeup of the group,
structure with more stylized movements acquired in the flamenco they were surprised to see that it was the Andalusians who initially
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 51
supported them in their street adventure. However, the reactions artistic movement in the heartland of flamenco challenging notions of
and commentaries vary and there is no shortage of those who, where, when and by whom performances of flamenco as a popular art
upon approaching and watching them dance, initially distrust their form should happen.
artistic capacity. Some Andalusians have a hard time believing that
two women who are not Andalusians can perform flamenco dance The group lasted for three years and then dissolved due to the need of
so well and with so much artistic integrity. According to performance its members to return home. Three of them, Danila, Laura and Sergio,
ethnographer Joni L. Jones, who addresses issues of performance decided to settle in Seville. Moving, staying or settling is a constant
and cultural authenticity, “the conventions of performance may remind decision in the highly flexible field of cultural production. In the face
an audience that what they are seeing is a conscious construction, but of the physical-geographical disintegration of the group another
these conventions may not help an audience determine the boundaries kind of cultural integration (or hybridization) was produced due to
of that construction” (Jones 2002, 13). The audience only assumes the existence of Son de Afuera and our project: artistic exchanges,
the artistic value of the flamenco performed by “Ana” and “Danila residencies, screenings and hosted performances took place between
la Bambina” once they have verified (or more specifically, culturally Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Israel during the last ten years. Until
authenticated) the performative qualities they associate with flamenco. today, thousands of videos placed on YouTube by tourists act as
A further interrogation of how identity is constructed, contested and testimonies of the historical existence of the flamenco street group
is contingent is made evident when “Ana” – often problematically Son de Afuera. The echo of the intercultural audio-visual project that
identified as the “Oriental girl” - is approached by and interacts with we decided to call El Sentir desde Afuera keeps alive the spirit of Son
older audience members at the end of a street flamenco performance: de Afuera. The documentary participated in numerous audio-visual
“Lots of people from Triana and Andalucía would like to dance like and dance festivals and has even received important awards.
them. It’s true,” says an older Andalusian lady to the camera. In
In December of 2018 we decided to commemorate the tenth
localising the origins narrative of flamenco by explicitly citing/siting the
anniversary of the creation of both flamenco street movement and the
neighbourhood of Triana and the province of Andalusia, this woman
ethnographic film (2008-2018). For that reason all the members of the
articulates the insider/outside status that “Ana” has as Taiwanese and
group Son de Afuera, the director of photography2 and I, the Greek
as a highly skilled flamenco dancer.
director, gathered in Seville and we held three major events hosted
This statement encourages us to think about several important issues by different cultural and academic institutions in Seville.3 Situated
regarding who is allowed to perform flamenco, and where to perform in the frame of a dialogical performance (Conquergood 1985), we
flamenco. While a variety of Flamenco performances in Seville usually screened the documentary, performed and engaged audiences in
can be seen exclusively in many private places such as peñas, tablaos, discussions with the participation of the ten members of the project.
festivals and the biennal of flamenco, Son de afuera, claimed the street It was a celebration of an intercultural performance dialogue with the
as their tablao-scenery or space, an open democratic public space local society and the opening of a democratic space to talk about the
within the reach and enjoyment of all. Furthermore, the emphasis on intersection of flamenco and cultural identity/ethnicity. In the context
the insider/outside status of Anna expressed by a native Andalusian of the current European migration situation it allowed us to present
also asks us to reflect on the relationship between flamenco art (and perform) the embodied outcome of the cultural hybridization on
and technique, los de afuera (“the outsiders”) who dedicate time, Andalusian flamenco.
money, energy to learn it and interact with local society. A great part .......................................................................................................................................................
of Andalusian society totally ignores the deep connection and the Notes
systematic dedication that some of them invest in teaching, learning,
professionalizing and promoting the art of flamenco both in Andalusian 1. This is the original title of the short ethnographic film Feeling from
lands and in their countries of origin. Son de Afuera created a unique the Outside (2008, SP/GR) that can be viewed on Vimeo here:
https://vimeo.com/57747749.
.......................................................................................................................................................
Bibliography
Conquergood, Dwight. 1985. “Performing as a Moral Act: Ethical
dimensions of the Ethnography of Performance.” Text and Performance
Quarterly 5.2 (April): 1-12.
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 53
“I've danced my whole
life, but none of that is
useful at all”: Netflix’s
We Speak Dance (2018),
Vulnerability and
Collaborative Critiques
Melissa Blanco Borelli
In Netflix's short, five-part documentary web series We Speak Dance precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving
(2018), dancer and former UN advisor Vandana Hart travels to Paris, progress and change. And when I speak of change, I do not mean a
Beirut, Lagos, Ho Chi Minh City and Bali to dance with dance artists simple switch of positions or a temporary lessening of tensions, nor
who, according to her, are revolutionising the way dance functions the ability to smile or feel good. I am speaking of a basic and radical
in their respective countries. It created quite a stir among dance alteration in all those assumptions underlining our lives. (280)
scholars, especially Meiver De la Cruz. She is the inspiration for this
collective endeavor. She prompted many of us with a social media Lingis’ stand alone essay entitled “Anger” offers a configuration of
post on 9 December 2017 where she alerted us to the airing of the community based on shared anger at the dramatic inequality of the world
series, and invited dance scholar friends to view the series and then in which consumer culture, what he terms “the technocratic commercial
offer reflections, criticisms and discussions. Their informal comments archipelago” rests on the massive exploitation of cheap labor in the
on her Facebook page were tinged with dismay, disbelief and anger. “outer zone.” (1997, 72). “Those in the archipelago are alienated from
Rather than keep our collective thoughts and feelings concentrated their labor and their world which is consumed in advance, while those
there, I suggested using this issue of Conversations as an opportunity in the “outer zone” live lives of massive exploitation and poverty.”(74)
to publicise some of these critiques. In other words, we wanted to Anger offers a mode to oppose these geographic simulacra that keep
make our anger public, productive and political. us apart. It also signals how sovereign states use these simulacra of
differences to prevent those on the outside from stepping in. Yet, it is
I am reminded of the work on anger by black feminist scholar Audre only when we make contact with those in the “outer zone” does this
Lorde and American philosopher Alphonso Lingis. For Lorde, anger anger arise, says Lingis. Through contact we see “the significance of
is “loaded with information and energy” (1997, 280). In short it their singular and communal forms of life.”(75) Lingis advocates for a
carries capacious potentiality that, when mobilized against racism type of travel voyeurism, where those from the (wealthier) global north
for example, can bring about social alternatives and changes. go to the “outer zones” of the global south/east to see the possibility
As she explains, every woman has a well-stocked arsenal of of a “meaningful” life outside of the consumption riddled nihilism that
anger potentially useful against those oppressions, personal and plagues the West. He advocates for those to “leave the television set
institutional, which brought that anger into being. Focused with with its images of consumer euphoria and go out to visit someone’s
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 55
'showcase the marriage of dance and politics'). The constant focus It is Hart’s dancing at the end of each episode that I find the most
on Hart's own ability to hop from one country to another and from problematic component of this documentary-style programme. Having
one dance style to another re-asserts the widely circulated narrative of engaged in learning a few hours of new dance languages, Hart
the extended physical and geographical mobility of Western dancers. concludes each episode by dancing out her newly acquired skills,
I have written elsewhere on how modern dance techniques often feed usually filmed against the most exquisitely stereotypical backdrop of
into this narrative through discourses that posit the centrality of travel whatever location she is in. But what does her dancing achieve, if not
and mobility in training and through technique’s implicit promise of to emphasise her dabbling with these forms as a superficial encounter
mastering space through the moving body (2014). We Speak Dance with Otherness? Why does she dance through the lush green paddy
seems to rest on and further feed into these discourses. fields in Bali, against the backdrop of cityscape of Beirut, perform the
‘kill the mosquito step’ in malaria-prone Lagos, if not to both exoticise
In addition to the list of privileges that Benthaus points out, I would add the art forms and reduce them to accessible bite-size chunks for her
that Hart's mobility also depends on linguistic privilege, in other words, predominantly white-western voyeurs? How can Hart’s dancing in
on English as the assumed and unquestioned mode of communication. these contexts change the lives of the people who live within them?
While the show claims dance as key to intercultural communication, If, as she claims, dancing is about communities, where and how does
the presenter continuously relies on English language to travel and she figure in them? It’s simple, she doesn’t. As Benthaus and Brazzale
communicate. English also seems to be language spoken by (and signal above, the guise of the ‘dance saviour narrative’ ultimately
expected from) most of the presenter's main interlocutors. While operates yet again as ‘the white dancer as saviour’ through a reliance
English language assures Hart smooth travels and encounters, it also on inherent Hart’s privileges. And it is in this shift from ‘dance as
privileges those local dancers who have the ability to speak English. community’ to ‘dancer as tourist’ that all altruistic aims disappear, and
To wrap up, what the show really seems to tell us is that we have to we are left with yet another instance of co-optation of bodies of colour
speak English in order to dance. by whiteness.
Royona Mitra, Brunel University London Hanna Järvinen, University of the Arts
[email protected] Helsinki, Finland
Through its flippant, logocentric and universalising title, We Speak [email protected]
Dance undoes decades of dance scholarship that has worked
The notion of dance as a universal language rests on the same belief
hard to champion dance, especially from non-Western cultures, as
in universality of white experience as much of Western philosophical
embodied knowledge that does not need to be spoken for, translated,
thought (thinking here of Hamid Dabeshi’s critique, for example). That
explained, made accessible, rationalised, mediated and co-opted by
the generic dance style expected of the back-up chorus of an American
the likes of Vandana Hart. Under the guise of altruistic claims, Hart
pop music idol is staged as the universal is clear from how the camera
demonstrates how dance can build, energise and heal communities
focuses on these (re-)performances, whereas all ‘traditional’ forms
by immersing herself in the learning of new dance languages across
and their performers get shot in short, often fragmentary bursts that
different continents, cultures and cities. In this, We Speak Dance
do not allow for contemplation of step sequences or corporeality of the
resorts to classic tropes of neoliberal and neo-imperial tendencies
dancers. ‘Traditional forms’ are not very subtly denigrated as material
that simultaneously commodify difference and universalise the
for modernity’s emergence in the neoliberalist body of the dancer
human condition as a shared quest for what ultimately manifests as
aspiring to the whiteness of the host, who can appropriate any tradition
a superficial embodiment of sameness. And Hart is at the fulcrum of
in a matter of days. For a dance historian, this recalls early twentieth-
this search for a universal condition, who, in her own learning of and
century colonialist spectacles by Denishawn or the Ballets Russes,
transformation through these global dance forms, claims that the world
where ‘ethnographic authenticity’ of the dance was often based on a
can become a better place. In reality through each episode she arrives,
few lessons (if that) adjusted to Western concert dance idiom.
she dances, and she departs. The worlds Hart visits carry on as they
were. Nothing changes. Nothing of course would, or indeed could.
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 57
from Africa, to Asia, Middle-East, Oceania and (finally) Europe, from Celena Monteiro, Kingston University
the precariousness of Third World slums to the apogee of high-end
[email protected]
venues in the City of Lights, as well as its geopolitics of knowledge
production, from the “meet and greet” of Other cultures to the learning Looking specifically at the Lagos episode, I must firstly emphasise
about high art continue to reaffirm the “myth” of Eurocentrism and the the problematic framing of the documentary through the apt lens that
unilateral understanding of the West as the only place, or locus of Benthaus has pointed out of the “white girl in the middle” (Monroe,
enunciation (Mignolo 2002), from which dancing may “elevate” culture. 2014). As the issues with this frame have already been clearly
articulated by Benthaus and Rosa, I will not go into specific details
Lastly, whilst each episode features (queer) dancing communities of
here. I will just support this argument by adding that the continual
colour, as Blanco Borelli points out, I find it worthwhile addressing
centralisation of whiteness causes this episode to read more as a
the heteronormative sexualization of the host’s moving body across
celebration of white privilege, as it is utilised to navigate ‘exotic’ black
the series, through the choices of costume, makeup\grooming and
spaces, than as a legitimate investigation into those spaces and the
camera angles (close-ups). In particular, Hart’s insistence on showing
people who live there.
up to dance practices and events wearing pencil skirts, high heels,
and/or clothes that reveal either her (bare) midriff, legs or back, or Another problematic aspect of this documentary that has been raised
spaghetti strap blouses without a bra, seems drastically in contrast by Järvinen and Rosa, and I wish to further highlight, is the way it
with the gender bending of the subjects she seeks to interview. Not attempts to minimise the labour involved in the dance. An example
to mention the limitations that these impractical items impose on her of this is when Hart, just five minutes into this episode, is portrayed
ability to execute a wider range of motion. At one point, one must ask: as having ‘mastered’ Afrobeats technique. Her voiceover, “It’s my
whatever happened to the exercise clothes of this “lifelong dancer”? first time seeing these kinds of moves”, is edited to coincide with a
Did the suitcase containing her sport bras and ‘yoga’ pants get close-up of her vigorously shaking her hips and performing gestures
extradited? Or, confirming our expectation (insightfully noted by my in virtuosic unison with the other dancers in the class. The scene is
peers above), this is in fact a classical example of a Western/neoliberal focused on making this first encounter appear tension-free, as Hart
dance-tourism enterprise centred on the (exceptionally) affluent and is pictured, almost effortlessly, performing and joyfully interacting with
mobile white moving body and her never-ending quest for selfish the other dancers. By editing out the labour that this dance requires,
consumption of exotic-erotic experiences of/in “dancing out there in it perpetuates the ideology that popular dance is relatively ‘easy’ to
the world” (Savigliano 2009)? Rather than wearing something that learn, and furthermore easily commodified by the pleasure-seeking
facilitates the exploration of other forms and practices, she “dresses to dance tourist.
impress”, posing and performing for the camera (not shy of cropping
and amplifying her body parts on the screen) and “celebrating” her The issue of Hart’s mobility, that has been discussed by Benthaus,
ability to have pleasure no matter where she goes. In that sense, the Brazzale, and Rosa is further intensified by the additional ease with
final scene of the Paris episode, when the two white female dancers which Hart seems to able to access culturally rich dance sites and
perform their “ballerina take over” – consisting of drinking red-coloured persons of interest. Just five minutes into the first episode she has
shots and articulating “careless” movements at a bar, and then on the already accessed movement vocabulary, teachers and sites, which
streets of Paris – seems to sum it all up. others work extremely hard to access. To top this off, when she says
to the dancers in the studio “I’m looking for the best dancers,” it almost
At the personal level, I can foresee the added embarrassment this sounds as though she is auditioning them, as if it is their privilege to
series may offer to dance scholars such as myself, as we move in and have her there!
out of customs checkpoints at international airports and (attempt to)
explain to border control officers what it is that we do for living. The closest Hart gets to self-reflexivity in this episode is when she
ponders, “I wonder how my own life in the dance world would have
been different without these female trailblazers [who advocated
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 59
.......................................................................................................................................................
Meiver De la Cruz, Oberlin College
Bibliography
[email protected]
Conquergood, Dwight. “Performing as a Moral Act: Ethical Dimensions
One thing not yet addressed by my colleagues’ remarks are issues of the Ethnography of Performance.” Text and Performance Quarterly.
of visibility and access. One of the artists interviewed in this series 5.2 (April 1985): 1-12.
is my friend, artistic collaborator, and research interlocutor Alexandre
Paulikevitch based in Beirut. While doing an interview with Alexandre Dabeshi, Hamid. Can Non Europeans Think? London: Zed Books,
several months after the series had been released on Netflix, he 2015.
casually mentioned that he never saw it. This made me wonder
Jones, Joni L. “Performance Ethnography: The Role of Embodiment
how many of the artists had actually seen the footage published by
in Cultural Authenticity” Theatre Topics, 12:1 (March 2002), pp. 1-15.
Hart, and whether they could even comment on how she had edited
their interviews and presented their work. This highlights the weight Lingis, Alphonso. “Anger” Sheppard, Sparks and Thomas (eds.) The
and power of Hart’s position, and how through this power, her prior Sense of Philosophy: On Jean-Luc Nancy, London and New York:
involvement with the United Nations becomes equated with a critical, Routledge, 1997.
political education to speak about the context and practice of global
dance, that goes on air without any checks or balances. Mignolo, Walter. “The Geopolitics of Knowledge and the Colonial
I also want to invite us to think about what can this type of mediated Difference” South Atlantic Quarterly 101:1 Winter 2002. pp.57-96.
visibility, albeit problematic, do for these artists? When the series 1st
Monroe, Raquel. “The White Girl in the Middle: The Performativity of
aired, Mr. Paulikevitch shared Hart’s announcement on his Facebook
Race, Class, and Gender in Step Up 2: The Streets” in Blanco Borelli,
page. He was already an internationally acclaimed and very visible
Melissa (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen.
artist prior to this series. In response to his public post, Hart wrote:
London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
“Alexandre Paulikevitch you were one of the strongest dancers we
featured in both movement and in mind. You are a dance leader in Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of Anger.” Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol.
all the ways. I can’t wait to dance with you again xo.” 25, No. 1/2, Looking Back, Moving Forward: 25 Years of Women's
Studies History (Spring - Summer, 1997), pp. 278-285
While likely a more than deserved compliment for my friend, I couldn’t
help but have a negative response to the patronizing position through Savigliano, Marta. “Worlding Dance and Dancing Out There in the
which Hart allows herself to publicly rank the movement and critical World” Foster, Susan Leigh (ed). Worlding Dance. Basingstoke:
thinking skills of all of the artists that she worked with across such Palgrave MacMillan, 2009.
diverse locations, circumstances, and genres.
Sousa Santos, Boaventura. “Beyond Abyssal Thinking: From Global
Both of these moments clarified for me the imperative need for more Lines to Ecologies of Knowledge.” Eurozine, 2007.
public scholarship in dance studies, and the enormity of the task ahead
of us in the field. But we must demand that these important conversations Spivak, Gayatri “Can The Subaltern Speak” From C. Nelson and L.
about power in the arts are not left to be watered down ideas filtered Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. MacMillan
through white savior projects funded by multinational corporations. Education: Basingstoke, 1988, pp. 271-313.
Elena Benthaus is a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Melbourne. Dr. Eugenia Cadús ([email protected]) is professor of
Her research on popular screendance sits in between the disciplines/ dance studies at Universidad de Buenos Aires, where she directs
theoretical lineages of dance studies, screen studies, cultural studies, The Argentine and Latin-American Dance Studies Working Group
and fandom/spectatorship studies. Her writing appears in The (GEDAL). Her current postdoctoral research is supported by a
International Journal of Screendance and The Oxford Handbook of fellowship from the CONICET. Her research focuses on dance and
Dance and Competition. Email: [email protected] politics during Peronism.
Melissa Blanco Borelli is Reader in Dance Theory and Performance Rachel Carrico’s research explores the aesthetic, social, and cultural
at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is the editor of The Oxford histories of African diaspora processions in New Orleans. She holds PhD
Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen (OUP, 2014) and author in Critical Dance Studies from UC-Riverside and an MA in Performance
of She Is Cuba: A Genealogy of the Mulata Body (OUP, 2015) which Studies from NYU. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of
won the 2016 De la Torre Bueno Prize. She is currently the President- Dance Studies at Reed College. [email protected]
Elect of the Dance Studies Association and programme committee co-
chair for the 2019 DSA conference at Northwestern. Additionally she Dr Natalia Koutsougera is an interdisciplinary scholar working
is the UK Principal Investigator on an Arts and Humanities Research at the intersection of anthropology of dance, visual anthropology,
Council/Newton Fund/Colciencias grant that will co-create digital gender studies and youth cultures. Her research revolves around
performance archives with Afro-Colombian communities affected by urban dance scenes and street femininities. She has produced two
the armed conflict. ethnographic films in Greece entitled “Born to Break” (2011) and “The
Girls are here” (2015). She is permanent Laboratory Teaching Staff at
Konstantina Bousmpoura is an independent researcher, the Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion University, Athens.
anthropologist and filmmaker. She has worked in filmic ethnography, Email: [email protected]
direction and production of documentaries and dance projects in
Buenos Aires, Seville and Athens. Her last feature length documentary Sofie Narbed is a lecturer in cultural geography at Royal Holloway,
Working Dancers focuses on contemporary dance, labor rights and University of London. Her work engages geographical approaches
politics and was released in 2016. Email: [email protected]. to think with and through dancing bodies, with a particular interest
in the intersections of creative practice and decoloniality. She has
collaborated with dancers in the UK and Ecuador, and is a regular
practitioner of dance improvisation. Email: [email protected]
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 61
Contributors
Jade Power-Sotomayor is a code-switching, hyphen-jumping Cali- gender and race in Latin America. Her book on cumbia dance and
Rican educator, performer and scholar. She is an Assistant Professor national identity constructions in the Barranquilla Carnival will be
of Theatre and Dance at UC San Diego and her book in progress published next year in Spanish by Universidad Javeriana UP. She
¡Habla!: Speaking Bodies in Latinx Dance and Performance, theorizes is also the Colombian Principal Investigator for the AHRC/Newton/
Latindidad and Latinx communities of belonging as constituted through Colciencias funded research grant “Embodied Performance Practices
doing versus being. Email: [email protected] in Processes of Reconciliation, Construction of Memory and Peace in
Chocó and El Pacífico Medio, Colombia” with Melissa Blanco Borelli
Dr. Laura Robinson is Lecturer in Dance at the University of East as the UK Principal Investigator. This project examines the role that
London, and teaches on the BA (Hons) Dance: Urban Practice degree. embodied performance practices have on post-peace agreement
Her PhD research focused on the construction of spectacle and excess memories in order to aid the processes of reconciliation and peace-
in male Street dance crew performances on U.K. television talent show building among the majority Afro-Colombian communities affected by
competitions. Publications include chapters in Bodies of Sound: Studies the armed conflict.
across Popular Music and Dance (2013) The Oxford Handbook of
Dance and the Popular Screen (2014), and The Oxford Handbook of
Dance and Competition (2018). Email: [email protected]
www.dancestudiesassociation.org PAGE 63
‘Conversations Across the Field of
Dance Studies’ Editor
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USA
Cover photo, from the left: Still from Jules Cahn’s 1963 footage of the Independent Aid and Social Club’s second line, with the Robert E. Lee statue looming in the background. The Jules
Cahn Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection Acc. No. 2000.78.4.7; Learning the bomba with Luzmila Bolaños in Carapungo's Centro de Desarrollo Comunitario. Photograph
author's own; Georges Hirsch (Director of the Paris Opera), Juan Perón, Eva Perón, and Serge Lifar. Published in newspaper Crítica September 17, 1950, 11. Located at the Biblioteca
del Congreso de la Nación Argentina.