Ethno-aesthetics and Dance

In the beginning of the article the author, Joann Kealiinohomoku, explains how anthropologists see dance as something that can directly represent a culture. Western scholars disagree with this, they do not believe that dance should be seen as something that represents a specific culture. She explains that as she researched the history of dance and how it came about she found many contradictions and no real answers.

By explaining the term primitive, the author notes that this term should not be confused with primeval; we can see that there is no real evidence of a primitive dance, but only dances that can be performed by primitive people. As for primeval, it is hard to say anything about primeval dance because we know close to nothing about it. According to Sorell primitive dances have no technique or artistry. He says that they are “disorganized and frenzied, but they are able to transform feeling and emotions into movement”. He also states that primitives do not know the difference between symbolic dancing and concrete because they dance for any occasion. This statement can relate to ethno-aestheticism because by researching the meaning of a certain dance to a specific culture you can learn how that culture may have viewed the world and what things in the world they hold most important to them. At the same time, Sorell said that primitive people may dance for any occasion so this makes ethno-aesthetic analysis difficult because they might not be any reasons for doing a certain type of dance, it might be performed just for the sake of dancing.

Focusing on the ethnologic branch of dance we can see that each dancer has their own reasons for dancing and that we must take the dancers biased into consideration when analyzing a dance. Different people play different roles within the dance and it is important to recognize that.

According to Sorell a “folk dance” is one that has not been mastered or “refined”. It is a raw dance that has not been perfected. Others argue that folk dance may be the kind of dance that was performed during the time primitive man was evolving into civilized man.

With all the arguments brought up in the article, they go to show how important ethno-aesthetics are. To better our understanding of a dance, whether it be primitive, folk, or ethnic, we must attempt to share the same cognitive map as the dancer. Ethno-aesthetics can be used to our advantage in these studies and reveal a better and complete understanding of dance.