Dance and Culture - Essay Example

Dance and Culture America is known of numerous cultural practices within its entirety. This is because of its global picture brought about by the inclusion of all races, ethnics, religions, and gender. “America is a country that has no original inhibitors therefore all groups of people are part of its adopted culture as members of the nation.” (Buckland 123) This gives America a multicultural image that it needs to uphold in respect of all citizens. This image is best represented by the use of dance in many cultural events. Dance has a leading reputation for cultural practices that is easily associated to it. Dance explores on functions, positions, and roles of authoritative voices and text that are relevant to the audience. It works on the concepts and practices of creative works.” The creativity of dance includes translations, reinvention, reconstruction, and engagement of critical practices and theories used by artists.” (Barbour 312) All the creativities are mandatory for good stage performance. Dances have been use to represent cultural forms to suit their identity. The identities usually conform to nationalism and colonialism. Other aspects of the relations are in line with political and economic contexts. The political and economical contexts have historical relations. Currently, the artistic practice of dance has an investigative relation to aspects of social, cultural, and technological developments in the world. They must be in line with performance and theatre practices. The use of choreographic writing and investigative practice has become a norm in preparation of quality performance. “The correlation of dances as a text and textual representation of dance is important in getting the rights way of presenting the message to the audience.”(Christian 252)The connection of text and dance is essential because it helps in getting the historical background of different culture and creating a presentation that matches with the historical information. This is possible so as to keep the historical culture alive after many decades of generational gap.” There is need to understand the methods used in translating choreographed actions that are obtained from cultural literature into descriptive movements in the form of dance.” (Grau and Jordan Ed. 114) “Dance is effectively embedded in the political and economical forces that are important in shaping up America globally.”(Gonzalez 214) It is also fundamental in the negotiations and displays of many components of American identity. The identities like race, rank, class, and sexuality can assume primacy in the context of the situation. This gives dance a polyphonic elements of performance at the center of analysis in histories and politics. Political expression and social action form a vital medium for expressing culture through dance. The original step in analyzing the ways in which one can understand a cultural dance is through gender. “The gender aspect as depicted in dance gives information and reveal the sense of self.” (Nahachewsky 136) Through dance, a community or individuals creates meaning when performing or observing performances on other cultures. It is important to develop meaning from a dance rather than just being creative or originative. This will help in sending a broader message to the audience through dance. The meaning or message must develop from subjective or personal reflection in relation to the body movements involved in the dance. Movements in dance reveal physically live bodies that are specifically positioned by race, gender, disability, and age.” The movements can be temporal or spatial.”(Shay 165)The dressings used by the performers also reveal the uniqueness and classiness of the relevant culture. The present world of fashion is technically a development of design from the original traditional wears that become attractive and stylish. In the ancient days, dresses displayed in the dance gives a picture of fashion that is currently used mainly on wedding gowns. These types of dressings were common for ease in dancing and providing a cultural history of the legend queens. It is not only the dressings like skirts and dress used that were very important; however, the way the item were brought to life inanimately through frequent use in the dance to create a meaning to them. There is also the dissemination of cultural practice through experimental means. This is evident by a monotype figure of an informant who has a native origin. The cultural dressing of the informant reveals his origin thereby providing the clear understanding of the literal origin. “This is essential on how to use it in performance to restore the original meaning.”(Skinner 187)America natives are known to be multilingual hence emerged from all over the world. It is in this sense that one can realize that most Americans are not natives because to some point they borrow from their origin, and technically form the cultural foundation of the America. Dance does a perfect job in cultural resemblance of a country that it prides as an identity in a region. There is a wide form of dances that are influential for dancing that are related to the culture of America. They range from tradition or heritage style of dances to the modern or western forms that may be known as street dance. “The street dances are associated to hip-hop dances.”(Pietrobruno 176) The practice of dance has specific type of performance, intentions and movements of the body that has collective interest and examination. It provides productive spheres of social gender-norm reinforcement through its criticism. Artists create performance pieces that have origins from cultural moves and use them in dances to give the identity of to the dance. This is a form of creativity is workable in designing the basis of the message. Culture moves gives an aesthetical presentation. Tongan dance is a clear example of aesthetic presentation. Tongan dance reveals an idealized feminism of the Tongan culture in the embodiment of its performance.in the performance; it gives a dignified restraint in grace and poise of the feminine ideals. This provides distinct Tongan aesthetic elements from the Samoan elements. The distinctions are imperative in line with the significant historic amount and the contemporary connections. The contemporary connections are in terms of cultural borrowing from other pacific peoples like Samoa and intermarriages. The Tongan dance example is a clear indicator of quality cultural production that articulates distinctive and clear centers. In many dance narration centers, gender, culture, and nation normally conflate and collapse. Some cultural moves have conflicting impressions on womanhood and feminism. The provocation of everyday feminine experience is highly realized in regions that border different continents. The continental practices may have a particular similarity in some common practices while have differences in the intercontinental relation. “The involvement of normal practices like sweeping with brooms into a dance performance can take different interpretation depending on the cultural practical reflection by the community.” (forceville and Aparici 176) When it is turned into choreographic expression, it may provide conflicting information to the audience in their personal view. The view of gender roles in the performance creates a gathered expectation. The dressing of performers has an impact to the message that is being portrayed. The dressing designs are fundamental in line with the audience to determine how the message should be given. The dressing is pivotal in determining the time of performance in line with the message in the dance. In a conference scenario, the conference opening and closing performances must be distinctively different in relation to the message and dressing. In a political event, it is prudent that the performance should carry the political agenda of the party and send to the relevant communities in line with their cultural practices. Inmany contexts, gender ambiguity and dressing across cultures form a standard feature for good performance. Political negotiation and policing require cultural performance, which uses cultural sites appropriately. This is effective by using the standard features that do not create contrast. There is need to carefully use context and choreography to embody gender effectively. Work Cited. Buckland J. Theresa (ed). Dancing from Past to Present: Nation, Culture, Identities. Wisconsin: The university of Wisconsin Press., 2006. Print. Barbour N, Karen. Dancing Across the page: Narrative and Embodied ways of knowing. United States: University of Nebraska, 2007. Print. Christian Vivian. Who are we?: cultural dentity among Latino college students. United States: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 2009. Print. Grau Andree and Jordan Stephanie (ed). Europe Dancing:Perspectives on Theatre, Dance and cultural Identity.London: Routledge, 2000. Print. Gonzalez Anita. Jarocho’s Soul: Cultural Identity and Afro-Mexican Dance. United States: university press of America Inc., 2004. Print. Nahachewsky Andriy. Ukranian dance: A cross-cultural approach. United States: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 2011. Print. Shay Antony. Choreographic Identities: Folk dance, Ethnicity and Festival in the United states and Canada. California: McFarland and company Inc.,2006. Print. Skinner Jonathan. Dancing Culture: Globalization, Tourism and Identity in the anthropology. United States: guartenburg Associates Inc., 2013. Print. Pietrobruno Sheenagh. Salsa and its transnational moves. United States. Oxford publishing press ., 2006. Print. Forceville Charles and Aparisi Eduardo (ed). Multimodel Metaphor. United States: Oxford publishing press., 2009. Print. Read More