Why This Organization Uses the Word "Dance" in its Name

Korean Shaman

Why this organization uses the word "Dance" in its name

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"Why does this organization use the word 'dance' in its name?" some people ask. “The word dance seems limited and misleading,” they argue.

Some have suggested that the organization should be called "Cross-Cultural Performance Resources," or that the words "Music," "Theatre," "Body Movement," "Performance Events," "Ritual and Ceremony," or some such, should be substituted for the word "Dance."

The very fact that there are so many alternative suggestions indicates the scope of CCDR. On the other hand, the fact that each alternative excludes other referents shows that CCDR's approach to dance includes all of the above and more.

Our purview also includes sports, play, festivals, costumes, and paraphernalia, special uses of time and space and energies, to name a few topics. If connotatively the word "dance" does not imply all of the above, the frames of reference are limited by the individuals who make that judgement. By using the word "dance" CCDR can be a vehicle for cognitive expansion.

PARAMETERS

Anyone with a limited idea of dance has never tried to define it cross-culturally. I thought I knew what dance is until I tried to define it with a definition that was neither too inclusive nor too exclusive, that was both generic and culturally specific.

It took me seven years to devise a tentative working definition of dance that would fulfill the above criteria, a first ever (1965). I discovered that dance can be understood only by a holistic analysis of the culture in which it occurs, that it must be analyzed as a human phenomenon, also. And the reverse is true-the holistic study of dance can reveal the human.

I discovered that dance must be analyzed as a noun, verb, and a concept that exists even when no dance event is occurring.

From my research I was the first to insist that the study of dance must include the bio-cultural interface, and I was the first to insist on the study of the interactive connections of the psychosomatic-cause-and-effect of dance (1975).

Further, it became clear that "dance" is a generic identifier for a phenomenon that occurs in all human societies, but is apperceived and behaved uniquely within each society.

RESOURCES

A tour through the CCDR library gives insights into what we think dance includes. There are sections on plastic arts; music, theatre and performance arts; folklore and folklife; religion, cosmology, and philosophy; symbolism; communication and information theory; cognition, world view and psychology; healing, therapy and rituals; anatomy, neurology and more; ethnographies from all over the world; theories, methodologies and techniques for research and analyses both quantitative and qualitative.

RATIONALE

The incorporators of CCDR deliberately used the word "dance" to expand the understanding of dance, to not hide it under another name. Under another name dance would be peripheral, a sub-category, a subordinate "also-ran."

If CCDR's name did not include the word "dance" we would have tacitly accepted and reinforced the common misperception that dance is frivolous and insignificant, that dance functions in isolation from other human interests.

Assuredly the insights that come from the larger study of dance will contribute to your professional concentration, whatever that may be. Likewise, the information from your concentration is applicable to the larger study of dance.

We aim to reduce the misperception that dance is an expendable part of the human experience. We hope to generate excitement for the dance phenomenon, which demands the same careful study accorded to all other universal human phenomena.

One of my anthropologist colleagues expresses a limited western view when he says that he couldn't understand what dance had to do with the holistic discipline of anthropology! We accept this as a challenge. If CCDR is effective, the closed apperceptions and resistance to comprehension of dance may begin to crumble for at least a few individuals.

Joann W. Kealiinohomoku

References cited:

1965 A comparative study of dance as a constellation of motor behaviors among African and United States Negroes (M.A. thesis), Northwestern University.

1976 Theory and methods for an anthropological study of dance (Ph.D. dissertation), Indiana University.

This article is reprinted from the Summer, 1988 issue of CCDR Newsletter, Number 6.

And please remember, this article belongs to Cross-Cultural Dance Resources, Inc. and Dr. Joann W. Kealiinohomoku. It may not be copied without written permission.

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Cross-Cultural Dance Resources
518 S. Agassiz St.
Flagstaff, AZ 86001-5711
(928)774-8108
ccdr-researchcenter@ccdr.org