Re: Square_Dance_as_the_American_Folk_Dance_of_the_USA

I'm not sure that I followed the quote, (or could be bothered to) so I'm not sure what you are objecting to. Mo Waddington ----- Original Message ----- From: Chris J Brady chrisjbrady(a)yahoo.com [trad-dance-callers] To: English Country Dance ; Strathspey List ; Trad-Dance-Callers Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2017 7:55 AM Subject: [trad-dance-callers] Square_Dance_as_the_American_Folk_Dance_of_the_USA Jeeze - I thought this cr*p died out last century. It endures. What riles me in the shear arrogance of the MSSD fraternity. The link below is to Colin Quigley's recent repost. https://www.academia.edu/830056/Reflections_on_the_Hearing_to_Designate_the… Reflections on the Hearing to Designate the Square Dance as the American Folk Dance of the United States: Cultural Politics and an American Vernacular Dance Form Quigley, Colin . Yearbook for Traditional Music ; Canberra 33 (2001): 145. ''Dance in its socio-political aspects,'' one theme of the ICTM Ethnochoreology Sub-Group Symposium at which this paper was presented(1), was a timely one immediately following, as it did, the Los Angeles riots of spring 1992. At that time, one could open the arts section of a newspaper or magazine to find debate raging over such concepts as multiculturalism and diversity. Such controversy within the arts community might have seemed merely a side show to the profound inter-racial, -ethnic, and -class conflicts that erupted then in Los Angles into some of the largest American civil unrest of the century, but the social and political struggle over diversity in our country is a dispute with serious implications for those engaged in arts research as well as for activists and advocates in the public sector. I will approach this large and pervasive issue by examining the terms in which one such debate--the legislative effort to have Congress designate the square dance as the national American folk dance--has been cast. My discussion of the cultural politics of the square dance form, with which I am familiar through both personal participation and research, will utilise primarily the statements of those who testified before the congressional committee considering the proposed legislation in 1988. I will ''unpack'' the rhetoric of contention and deconstruct the discourse as represented in the text of the hearing. In its published form the hearing documents constitute approximately fifty pages of testimony by four panels of witnesses for and against the proposed legislation (U.S. Congress 1988). These witnesses include advocates for the bill representing leaders of various organised square dance associations and dance callers; opponents include recognised dance performers from African-American, Hispanic-American, and Native American ethnic groups, as well as professional folklorists and one square dance caller not affiliated with the sponsoring organisations. I will cull from their testimony the active rhetoric and analyse the terms of its construction, seeking the roots of its power to persuade, contextualising terms as needed so that the reader might appreciate the ideologies their use invokes. As I proceed I will note the concomitant legacies with which American folk dance scholarship continues to grapple and elucidate the implications of different positions. The two sides arrayed against one another in this debate represent tensions with a long history in the U.S. but now of global significance as well. Close examination reveals that the opposition is constructed in shared terms, each containing and evoking the other's view. I hope such insight offers hope of surmounting these conflicts through recasting its terms. Indeed, I chose to examine the rhetoric of this debate, which might seem overly transparent in an American ...... p145 context, for presentation in this international forum, with the hope that better understanding of American cultural politics may provide a stimulating foil against which to view other dispositions of what I believe to be central issues of our times. This legislation, a similar bill defeated in 1986, and a previously successful bill designating the square dance as the national folk dance for the year of 1984, was proposed by leaders of the nationwide network of recreational clubs,who perform what is generally referred to as modern Western square dance. They actively campaigned for its passage, presenting numerous petitions with thousands of signatures gathered from their membership to the congressional committee. (1) ICTM Ethnochoreology Study Group symposium, Nafplion, Greece, 4 July 1992.