DOCTORAL THESIS Competitive ballroom dancing as a social phenomenon an anthropological approach Nurse, Gwendoline Award date: 2007 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 30. Sep. 2021 I Competitive Ballroom Dancing as a Social Phenomenon: an Anthropological Approach by Gwendoline Margot Nurse BA(Hons) MSc A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of PhD School of Business and Social Sciences Roehampton University University of Surrey 2007 The Abstract The following investigation develops a critique of Competitive Ballroom Dancing as a social phenomenon from an anthropological perspective and that of a non-dancer. In order to do this the thesis is concerned with interrelating dance with anthropology. The concepts of how people express themselves and communicate in society provide the study with the scope to explore certain issues. The first aspect shows how a person would prepare to be a dancer in competition, this involves, among other things, learning to dance, finding a suitable partner and the overall appearance of the dancer. Secondly looking at competition, which involves sport and dance, judgement and perception of how the dancers and spectators view it. The embodied content of the competitive dancer is seen as an important issue, since it can affect how the dancers dance and how the dance is perceived, despite the fact that competitive ballroom dancing is such a highly formal, structured and rule-governed form of dance. Ritual and performance theories integrating emic and etic tendencies are juxtaposed with what appears to happen in this form of dance. In addition various types of altered state of mind are examined, in view of comments made by dancers about how they feel when dancing. Furthermore this thesis explores an understanding of how important this form of dancing is to its participants and how the activity can be a life-long pursuit whether as a dancer or subsequently as a spectator. It also illustrates the extent to which younger people enjoy an activity where there is great emphasis on being fit and how they have come to link it with sport. 2 CONTENTS Page Abstract Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Chapter One Methodology; learning to dance 7 Chapter Two Ritual 24 Chapter Three Embodied content and competition in dance 39 Chapter Four Looking for a partner 55 Chapter Five The making of the ‘Look’ 73 Chapter Six The University Dance Competitions 104 Chapter Seven Blackpool – The Dance Festival 130 Chapter Eight Transformations 158 Chapter Nine Conclusions 181 Appendix A…………..The Questionnaire Appendix B ………….The Photographs Bibliography 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to the following: (i ) My Director of Studies, Dr Andree Grau and my Supervisor Dr Garry Marvin for their help and encouragement. (ii) The administrative staff of the Ballroom Dance Council, in particular Mary and Dane Edwards. (iii) The staff of the two dance supply companies, Chrisanne and Dance Sports International Ltd. (iv) The Oxford teams coaches Vicky Cunniffe and Bruce Anderson, plus the members of the Oxford University Sports Dance teams. (v) Members of the Imperial College and Cambridge University Sports Dance teams for their comments. (vi) Mrs Gillian Mackenzie, the organiser of The Blackpool Dance Festival and her staff. (vii) The staff of the Learning Resources Centre, Roehampton University. (viii) The staff of the Research Office, Roehampton University. (ix) The staff and students of the Dance Department, Roehampton University, who greatly helped my transition into the dance world. (x) The staff and students of the Business, Computing and Social Science Department, Roehampton University whose resources and expertise made this thesis possible, especially to Linda Wilson of the Social Research Unit for her guidance through the many stages and paper work connected with a thesis and her unstinting willingness to help whenever she could. ( xi) Professor Martin Albrow, Wendy Booth, Professor John Eade, Jackie and Richard Ellis, Professor Graham Fennell, Diana Fowler-Wright, Professor Judith Glover, the late Pat Goode, Carlinhos de Jesus, Professor Stephanie Jordan, Kit Hallewell, Professor Dolores Koenig, Professor Gerhard Kubik, Peter Maher, the late Eric Morley, Dr Moya Malamusi, Dr Patricia Penny, Marcus Wilson-Smith, Sonnet Stanfill, Edith Turner, Sandra Walker, Dr Harriet Whitehead, Kate Williams and those, too numerous to name, whom I encountered during this voyage of discovery. (xii) Last, but not least, my husband George, for his invaluable support and encouragement. 4 ‘I have brought you to the ring, dance according to your skill.’ William Wallace, before the Battle of Falkirk, 22 nd July 1298. 5 Introduction : The knowledge and practice of dancing may fairly be said to be as universal as any non-instinctive human activity. Yet according to a number of writers, including most notably the philosopher Graham McFee, the demand for a definition of dance is ‘neither helpful nor possible’ (McFee 1992:15). Dance has as many genres as it has names, with diverse components in any dance performance, so it is not immediately obvious how dance in general may be discussed. McFee stresses that in understanding dance it is important to distinguish between the artistic and the aesthetic judgement, the former being the search for purpose or function while the latter is concerned purely with pleasure in beauty and all things connected therewith. When one looks at ballroom dancing from an aesthetic viewpoint its main objective is to give pleasure during it to those performing and/or those who watch them, but when the purposive element is introduced in the form of competition the question of artistic function comes to light, and there is an end, an aim. It is of course possible that even in the presence of function there is an accompanying aesthetic experience for both participants and onlookers. This thesis, however, is an anthropological exercise, and has as its objective a study of the way in which dance can affect the participants. In consequence I shall not be paying much attention to the philosophical aspects of aesthetic, but rather concentrate on the examples of such writers as Adrienne Kaeppler, a dance anthropologist, who uses ‘the concept of evaluation (rather than beauty) as the basic principle of aesthetics.’ (2003:153). Included in the evaluation are the standards by which judgements are made, and these are largely determined by the cultural tradition of which they are part. I grew up in a society where dancing tended to play an important part in social life. I found myself gradually becoming interested in dancing competitions (Competitive Ballroom Dancing, CBD), but from afar. It was only in middle age that I began to realize that an anthropological approach to the subject might be rewarding. This was partly due to such programmes as Come Dancing (1949-1995) on British television. Then more recently, while living in the South Pacific, I took to watching the programme on Australian TV, where it receives a presentation of such intensity that I became progressively more intrigued by the human issues involved. After a time Australian friends and relatives recommended me to see Baz Luhrmann’s film Strictly 6 Ballroom (1992), which I did and thoroughly enjoyed. This, though ostensibly a satirical comedy, highlighted (and, as I was to find later, did not inordinately exaggerate) the part the pursuit played in the lives of its participants. I became even more eager to find out whether CBD incorporated patterns of action, which have social significance and could be extrapolated in the interpretation of various aspects of social behaviour. Ballroom (an aspect of social) dancing as we know it probably had its beginnings around the time of the Italian Renaissance. Before this, dancing for pleasure had in Western Europe been fairly spontaneous, and whatever conventions it acquired grew up through practice rather than through arbitrary regulation. ‘BD developed from the standardisation of steps by dance teachers – most of them English- in the early 20 th century’ (Buckman 1978:13). This would represent the kernel of competitive dancing as it is practised nowadays, where dancers dance some of the conventional ballroom dances in competition against other dancers. Buckman and other authorities nevertheless do acknowledge that courtiers in the 15 th century were likewise constantly competing with each other at the basse dance, a French term which refers to a group of fifteenth century dances. Usually these were dignified walking dances, moving rhythmically to music and typically following a set sequence of steps. They are considered to have been precursors of the minuet (Craine and Mackrell 2002). Contemporary CBD is where couples, and/or teams, and even towns, compete against each other mainly in two distinct styles of dance. One is Ballroom dancing, which has in the past been known as the modern or standard style, and the other is known as the Latin style. The waltz, quickstep, tango and slow foxtrot comprise the standard Ballroom repertory. Latin dancing comprises the rumba, samba, cha-cha, paso-doble and jive, of which the last-mentioned can be considered additional though it is often found in the finals.