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Performance, Transformation, and Community: Contra Dance in New England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Dorothea E. Hast
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Extract

This article is part of a larger work in progress in which I am exploring meanings of community, tradition, and performance practice among contra dancers, callers, and musicians, and looking at this material from a local, regional, and national perspective (1). In this article I analyze the contra dance world as a community built around expressive culture and discuss some of the ways in which community is formed on the dance floor and maintained through the regular repetition of dancing and music making at specific dance events. I will look at context as well as at aesthetic, behavioral, and social factors, in order to see how the processes of performance create multiple dimensions of meaning for those involved—processes that lead to the formation of community. Because participants are engaged with actions associated with creativity, identity, and learning, each will have his/her own experience of what this “community” means. The continuous interplay between individual experience and group interaction during performance, seen as a subtext to a relationship between marginal group and dominant culture, represents a complex cultural microcosm empowered by many voices.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , Spring 1993 , pp. 21 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1993

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