Dance Genres and Techniques
The study and classification of dance genres and the codified or transmitted techniques that distinguish them.
Definition
The classification and comparative study of dance genres and the systems of technique through which they are trained and transmitted.
Scope
This area surveys the major families of dance practice and their characteristic techniques: classical and academic forms with codified vocabularies, modern and contemporary techniques, social and vernacular dance, and the world's diverse traditional and folk forms. It treats genre as both an aesthetic category and a system of bodily training and transmission.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- What distinguishes one dance genre from another in form, function, and training?
- How are dance techniques codified, transmitted, and transformed?
- How do social and vernacular dances relate to staged and concert forms?
- How should the diversity of world dance forms be classified without distortion?
Key concepts
- genre
- technique
- codification
- vernacular dance
- transmission
- style
Key theories
- Codification and transmission of technique
- The view that a dance genre is sustained by a system of trained movement, transmitted through teaching lineages, that both defines the form and constrains its evolution.
History
Efforts to classify dance into genres accompanied the rise of professional training and dance scholarship. Reference works and pedagogical literature systematized distinctions among classical, modern, social, and traditional forms, while later scholarship complicated these categories by attending to hybridity and cross-cultural exchange.
Debates
- Rigidity of genre categories
- Scholars debate whether fixed genre labels illuminate or obscure dance practice, given pervasive hybridization and the porous boundaries between concert, social, and traditional forms.
Key figures
- Selma Jeanne Cohen
- Gayle Kassing
- Brenda Dixon Gottschild
Related topics
Seminal works
- cohenbull1998
- auQuirey1988
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between a dance genre and a dance technique?
- A genre is a broad category of dance defined by aesthetic, social, and historical features, while a technique is the specific system of trained movement used to perform it; many genres are associated with characteristic techniques.