Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Communities in Motion: Dance, Community, and Tradition in America's Southeast and Beyond (review)

Communities in Motion: Dance, Community, and Tradition in America's Southeast and Beyond (review) Susan Eike Spalding and Jane Harris Woodside, editors. Communities in Motion: Dance, Community, and Tradition in America's Southeast and Beyond. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1995. 273 pp. $59.95. I like the title Communities in Motion. Dance is motion, and the book describes a variety of motions: old-time square dancing, Afro-American step dancing, Cherokee tribal dancing, contra dancing, barn dances, buckdance, clogging, and the historical American country dance reconstructions of Colonial Williamsburg. But the idea of motion is taken far beyond that of the dance itself. The editors have selected articles which point to how communities change and the reflection of that change in the dance. I am particularly glad that they also address the reverse motion showing how dance can impact what happens in communities. There are even two chapters on how you can document what is happening! Communities in Motion makes the point that vernacular dance-- community-based dance shaped by traditional processes--provides individuals with a tangible means of finding or creating a personal identity and also, simultaneously, solidarity with a group. The dances described in Communities in Motion make it easier to see that solidarity and independence are inseparable. When they are in balance, life is good. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Appalachian Review University of North Carolina Press

Communities in Motion: Dance, Community, and Tradition in America's Southeast and Beyond (review)

Ramsay, John G.
Appalachian Review , Volume 24 (1) – Jan 8, 1996
Download PDF
3 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/communities-in-motion-dance-community-and-tradition-in-america-s-K1f690K1n4

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Berea College
ISSN
1940-5081
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Susan Eike Spalding and Jane Harris Woodside, editors. Communities in Motion: Dance, Community, and Tradition in America's Southeast and Beyond. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1995. 273 pp. $59.95. I like the title Communities in Motion. Dance is motion, and the book describes a variety of motions: old-time square dancing, Afro-American step dancing, Cherokee tribal dancing, contra dancing, barn dances, buckdance, clogging, and the historical American country dance reconstructions of Colonial Williamsburg. But the idea of motion is taken far beyond that of the dance itself. The editors have selected articles which point to how communities change and the reflection of that change in the dance. I am particularly glad that they also address the reverse motion showing how dance can impact what happens in communities. There are even two chapters on how you can document what is happening! Communities in Motion makes the point that vernacular dance-- community-based dance shaped by traditional processes--provides individuals with a tangible means of finding or creating a personal identity and also, simultaneously, solidarity with a group. The dances described in Communities in Motion make it easier to see that solidarity and independence are inseparable. When they are in balance, life is good.

Journal

Appalachian Review – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Jan 8, 1996

There are no references for this article.