In many of the literature excerpts that we read, romance played a large role in the dancing. Dancing was used to begin a new romance or rekindle an old romance. At times, even the lack of dancing showed the jealousy of an individual who watched another person dance with the one who they loved. For example, Thomas Hardy and Willa Cather both wrote about how dancing brought two ex-lovers back together through the close movements and even the communication that could begin while dancing. In Gustave Flaubert’s excerpt, Emma Bovary develops feelings for a man other than her husband while dancing a sensual waltz. Leo Tolstoy demonstrated the feelings of jealousy that could emerge by writing about how Kitty watched Anna dance with the man who she desired.
This made me think about the implications of dance in our lives today. Dance has become such an outlet for artistic expression. There are now plenty more reasons to dance than just to experience romance. Dancers create art, tell stories, or just create movement for themselves. On the other hand, what about the “social dancing” that we do in a party setting? While I would not consider this kind of dancing to be romantic, aren’t there plenty of sexual implications behind the movements and customs of these kinds of dances? Slow dances are also still prominent in our society- whether seen at weddings or a middle school dance- these dances still hold a certain romantic notion. In this sense, have we really lost this old concept of romance in dancing?
Emily
I agree that we have lost this old concept of romance in dancing. Stemming from the tail-end of Tuesday's class discussion, we talked about how we grind or dubb, which is back to front dancing instead of the traditional face to face. Any guy feels he can approach any girl and just start dancing. There is no "can I dance with you?" No one gets "swept off their feet" from a frat party simply because that is not in the frame of mind of the guys on campus. I honestly, don't think they are ready for dancing in that manner.
ReplyDeleteI think that romantic dancing is gone, as well. There are hints of the idea that dance can lead to love, but it has been overly sexualized, especially in our generation and younger generations. In the media project, I came across several examples where high schools were no longer allowed to have dances because chaperones deemed the kids' style of dancing to be far too inapproptiate. Here is the link to the article that I used in my project:
ReplyDeletehttp://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=AWNB&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=132B3CCCF13945C8&p_docnum=2&p_queryname=2