In a now classic study Mitchell demonstrated that dances quite beside their aesthetic interest offer important insight into social structural processes. Dances characteristic of the transitional period in Africa frequently offer valuable insights into patterns of changing social organization and into the cultural perspectives of the participants. I am going to scrutinize here some features of dances now being exchanged in Western Equatorial Africa—in particular among the Pahouin peoples or Yaounde-Fang speakers of northern Gabon, Southern Cameroons and Equatorial Guinea. These peoples traditionally had simple non-market economies. In recent years they have been brought rapidly into a modern economy through the introduction of cash crops and migrant labor. The question arises: what is being exchanged in the distribution of these dances and what is the consequence of this exchange? In a transitional economy there are almost surely other values in transaction than those measurable in modern currency.

Although expressive aspects of a culture are generally believed to be related to the values and sentiments which prevade that culture, few studies to demonstrate the relationship have been carried out on nonverbal, more accurately non-vocal, aspects of culture. This paper is a result of my attempt to view traditional Eskimo dance as an expression of Eskimo values, sentiments, and cultural foci.

Eskimo values and cultural foci are described as I perceived them during eight months of ethnological field research (1973–74) among a group of coastal Eskimos in southwestern Alaska. I cannot vouch for the universality of these values in Eskimo groups throughout the arctic, but my impression from the literature is that they are widely held. The dances I describe, however, are not universal, as dance varies from one region to another and even from village to village within some regions (Theresa Tomczak, personal communication 1972). The community I am reporting on is Tununak, on Nelson Island, Alaska.

In 1917 Margaret H'Doubler, on a year's leave from the University of Wisconsin, had been given a difficult assignment. Blanche Trilling, her chairman, had asked if she would search the dance studios in New York City for a kind of dance activity “worth a college woman's time.” Studying philosophy that year at Columbia University, Margaret H'Doubler had complied with pronounced lack of enthusiasm, her predominant interest being in teaching basketball. Her time nearly expired, she found herself, however, suddenly excited when, at the music school of Alys Bentley, she saw children on the floor moving in their own ways to a stimulus provided by the teacher.

“Of course,” she recounted later, “Get on the floor where you are relieved from the pull of gravity … and see what the natural, structural movements are.” She continued to visit Miss Bentley's studio during the short time that remained and began to organize a course in “new dancing” to be offered almost immediately in summer school in Madison.

The Diaghilev Ballets Russes introduced its startled audiences to a revolutionary dance theatre. History recognizes Diaghilev and his collaborators as an indelible influence on the course of twentieth century dance; an influence re-orienting ballet's goals as well as audience expectations. It is difficult to chart the progressive re-education of the public over a twenty-year period (1909–1929). London, however, in the year 1921, provides an excellent vantage point for a retrospective evaluation of the Ballet Russe's impact.

The year 1921 found Serge Diaghilev in a difficult predicament. Massine, his productive and inventive choreographer, left the company ending “a period that for length and the fertility may be compared with the first period of Fokine.” Diaghilev now faced the opening of a new London season without fresh choreographic talent. He turned to unprecedented recourse—the presentation of a full length Petipa ballet, never before seen in the West. His choice was La Belle au Bois Dormant, the pride of Petipa's reign, unveiled in London as The Sleeping Princess. A summary glance at historical backgrounds reveals how uncharacteristic a venture this was.