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BECOMING THROUGH DANCE
Introduction: Deciding to Take a Dance Class
I enrolled in a local dance studio two years ago. On my way downtown, I had
glanced up at the second floor window of this dance studio for many years before I
realized that I wanted to see what went on there and perhaps I too wanted to dance: not
just any dance, of course, but tap. When I called the owner she said they didn’t have any
adult classes, but others had inquired. She said her daughter was thinking of teaching an
adult class and so I waited for a call back. In the meantime, I recruited two other people.
One was a colleague and the other a personal friend. And so, two recitals and two years
later, I call myself a “tap dancer”. I began this study because I wanted to know why I
was doing this, why the other people in the class were doing it and even why people told
me they “cried” when they saw a tape of me dancing or saw me in the recital. I narrowed
my focus to small dance studios in the area, the teachers and their pupils. I mainly
focused on tap and my dance group in particular. I did not look at ballroom or social
dance or anthropological perspectives on dance in other cultures.
Theoretical Perspectives on Dance
My first research act was to find out all I could about dance from a sociological
perspective. I was surprised to find so little information. Federico says that the
occupation of dance is an area “traditionally ignored by sociologists” (1977:58). He
blames this on reasons such as “creativity is very poorly understood” as well as “the arts
have traditionally been starved for funds in the United States” (67). Thomas agrees that
Convention