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On emotions and salsa: some thoughts on dancing to rethink consumers Paul Hewer* and Kathy Hamilton Department of Marketing, StrathclydeUniversity,Glasgow,G40RQ,UK Dance forms are a big business, highly marketable commoditized cultural universes, with a plethora of markets constructed around their spirit, vitality and possibilities. In this paper, we explore one particular dance form, that of Salsa, arguing that as consumer researchers we look for a more vibrant vocabulary and mindset with which to capture the experiential and transcendental nature of such social associations. We demonstrate that the metaphor of dancing is useful to revitalize our notions of consumer actions; taking them out of the grey mundane of calculative and rational action into the possibilities of emotional economies constructed around the effervescence and vitality of the social (cf. Maffesoli, 1996). Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. It is easy to see that we are living in a time of objects the IPod, to the marketing of a lager, of rapid and radical social change. It is San Miguel with that most elusive of qualities, much less easy to grasp the fact that such passion. A range of companies have employed change will inevitably affect the nature of the motif of dancing experiences to create an those disciplines that both reflect our aura of vibrancy and vitality around their society and help to shape it. (Hawkes cited products. More so, cinematically and artisti- in Hebdige, 1979) cally dance has always offered the chance to move us seamlessly, liminally and effortlessly into a world of subversive potential, to free us from the reigns of routine. If you do not believe Introduction us, think only of what was for some con- troversially advertised in 2009 as the: ‘Feel-good The metaphor of dancing as a form of movie of the decade’ – Slumdog Millionaire, liberation and re-enchantment for our every- which amongst the grime, poverty and day lives forms the basis of innumerable global deprivation can only end with a Bollywood advertising budgets – from Apple’s ‘Silhou- dance routine of togetherness and sharing, ettes’ campaign for that most iconic and tribal written on the unsocial and alienated stage of a train platform. Think of the art of Edgar Degas, *Correspondence to: Dr Paul Hewer, Department of Marketing, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, G4 0RQ, UK. the sculpture of Rodin, the poems of W.B. E-mail: [email protected] Yeats. Think of MJ and his iconic moves. Think of songs which attempt to capture the power Let’s go round again and significance of dancing to our sense of place Studies of dancing in consumer research and our pasts, each of us will have our own are strangely absent1, perhaps this can be personal favourites. explained by the all-too-limited language with A recurring motif written on the same which we talk of consumers. Consumers are terrain as that of Slumdog, a repetitive and first and foremost disciplined as ‘buyers’ for blank stage for commuters across the lands, is many in our field; but then what they ‘buy’ the substance of TMobile’s most recent comes in a variety of forms, moreover, consum- advertising – whose current slogan of Stick ing itself can take a variety of guises. Consuming together – sounds like the perfect recipe for also speaks of the importance of spaces. This is our fragmented postmodern tribal times. Their why ads like Saatchi and Saatchi’s Life’s for current ad Life’s for sharing captures this Sharing work, their dynamic is to take a stage, dynamic and vitality perfectly: a crowded like that of the all too familiar train station, what railway station of anomic commuters brought Marc Auge (1995) might refer to as a ‘non- into life through music and dance – caught in place’ – spaces of loss, isolation, nexus points of the moment, literally ‘making music together’ disenchantment and routine – and to re-imagine (Zaner, 2002) through a succession of popular their productive possibilities as spaces for musical styles down the ages, a choreographed transitory union through the inflection of and scripted exercise in the forms of body dancing movement upon such an inhospitable work. terrain. To in other words, disturb, unsettle and In this paper, we explore one particular enchant such spaces, if only fleetlingly, through dance form, that of Salsa. The salsa scene is what we might term choreographed exercises worthy of investigation given its exponential of emotional contagion. growth over the last 10 years from its roots in The metaphor of dancing, is a much used one; the Caribbean (mainly Puerto Rico and Cuba) many an author, be they singer, artist, creative, and initial transfer to New York and Los academic or even consumer has employed it Angeles to a phenomenon sweeping the to render the dynamics of consumer culture world. Here we can draw attention to the explicit. In this sense, we see little between the continuing emergence of a gamut of Salsa advertisements which feed off and profit from Congresses, Latin Dance clubs and classes this resource, and the uses of dancing as a springing up across the globe in countries as metaphor within academic work. Think only of diverse as the UK (Newcastle Evening Chron- Woolf (1993) who writing at the turn of the 20th icle, 1998; Sunday Mirror, 1999), Singapore century speaks significantly of ‘new forms for (The Singapore Straits Times, 2004), Ghana our new sensations’, or better when she (Africa News, 2006), the US (Miami New describes her own culture as a ‘crowded dance’. Times, 2000; New York Times, 2007) and Recollect too, Campbell (1987, p. 227), one of Canada (Vancouver Sun, 2005). Our aim is the unspoken founders of consumer culture to explore the appeal of salsa, unpacking theory, who was right to emphasize that what its urgency and vitality. In doing so, we matters most in consumer cultures, is the spirit contribute to understanding of the representa- of modern consumerism which they contain: tion of emotions. Drawing on netnographic analysis, we highlight the role of online forum The cultural logic of modernity is not discussions in relation to the sharing of merely that of rationality...it is also that of emotional responses through consumer narra- tives. Through these narratives, we also high- light that the body work of dance provides an 1Notwithstanding the excellent and insightful work of important form of expression for the cultiva- Goulding et al. (2002, 2008), Goulding and Shankar (2004) and Wort and Pettigrew (2003), papers which tion of emotionality within contemporary we discuss more fully in our previous rendition on the consumer culture. ‘magic’ of salsa (Hamilton and Hewer, 2009). passion, and the creative dream born of like-minded spirit. It was Leo Sayer who sang longing. ‘Dancing the Night Away’2 which establishes the point better. So, dancing and the night go And how does he attempt to render such hand in hand. Here our more significant point longing? How does he attempt to give it form is that far too much consumer research is and substance? How does he attempt to make confined within the activities of the day, it sharable so that others might glimpse what whether it be frequenting shops or the joys he is trying to grasp? How else, but through the of banks; the night is literally the dark side of metaphor of a dance form: consumer research, where no-one fears to tread. But the night, is also as McRobbie (1993, The main source of its restless energy does p. 145) suggested significant due to its very not derive from science and technology ‘otherness’: ‘Like the cinema, the dancehall or alone...but from the strain between disco offers a darkened space where the dream and reality, pleasure and utility. dancer can retain some degree of anonymity This is the source of the tune to which these or absorption. This in turn creates a temporary twin cultural traditions dance their cultural blotting-out of the self, a suspension of the real, tango in time, as it is of the conflicting daylight consciousness, an aura of dream-like tensions which many individuals experi- self-reflection...the fantasy of dancing is ence in their daily lives. (Campbell, 1987, more social, more reciprocated’. (McRobbie, p. 227). 1993) analysis of the rave dance form, aptly expressed in the title of the paper ‘Shut up and Other examples include Luker’s (2008) dance’ speaks of the spaces of re-negotiation reference to the salsa dancing researcher to made possible through dance: ‘The orgiastic highlight the process of discovery central to frenzy of dance culture also hints at the fear of social science research along with Wilkinson AIDS among young people. Rave dance and Young (1994) who use the metaphor of legitimates pure physical abandon in the dance to represent the client–supplier relation- company of others without requiring the ship. We guess many other examples exist, narrative of sex or romance. Rave favours encountered in our long-distant memories, but groups and friends rather than couples or it establishes our central point which is that those in search of a partner’. We might think of dancing matters because of its spirit and rave then as celebrations of our own collective restless energy and the trick is to fix it anomie and fragmentation. In contrast, other sufficiently to grasp its profitability as an dance forms provide collective responses to unfolding process of embodied interaction alternative contexts, think here of Dyer’s and social association. And if you do not (1979, p. 22) analysis of disco dancing where believe us, recollect that it was Friedrich he distinguishes rock and disco on the basis of Nietzsche, he of Thus Spake Zarathustra, The what each ‘hears’ in the music: ‘Rock’s Birth of Tragedy fame, who enthused: ‘And we eroticism is thrusting, grinding – it is not should consider every day lost on which we whole body, but phallic...Disco music, on the have not danced at least once.

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