Popular Dance and American Cultural Identity

Semester and Year	SP 2012
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1675
Section	001
Instructor	Julie Malnig
Days	Mon,Wed
Time	12:30 PM - 1:45 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM

Description

The course will examine forms of what are known as “social” or popular dance as expressions of cultural or group identity from approximately the 18th century to the present. These dances, from the secular tradition of American social dance, include those performed in ballrooms, cabarets, nightclubs, cabarets, discotheques, and the street. The seminar will explore various social and popular dance styles developed as a result of the rich fusions of West African, African American, Euro-American, and Latin American forms of dance within the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean. Topics may include the colonial era and the dances of George Washington; ragtime couple dance and the New Woman; the lindy-hop and the crossing racial boundaries; and teen dances and youth rebellion of the 1950s. In all cases, we will explore social and popular dance forms as experiences of movement that both respond and give shape to social, cultural, and political issues of the day. In addition to extensive viewing of dance, readings will include Ellis, The Dance of Life , Dickens, American Notes : and The Uncommercial Traveler : Fitzgerald, Flappers and Philosophers; Sante, Low  Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York ; Malnig, Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader; Linda Tomko, Dancing Class: Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Divides in American  Dance;  Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn of the Century New Yor k; Jacqui Malone, Steppin’ on the Blues: The Visible Rhythms of African American Dance ; Dinerstein, Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture Between the World Wars ; Hine, The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager .

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)