Sunday, October 28, 2012

Critical Review #6: Kaminsky

In this article Kaminsky explores the role of gender in Swedish Polska dancing. Like many folk dance traditions, the genre typically reinforces a gender binary, prescribing different roles to men and women encouraging flirtation between the sexes. However, in modern Sweden, Kaminsky notes, gender roles are less strict and gender equality is actively sought out, leading to a number of changes in the dance tradition. Same sex dancing partnerships, regardless of the participants' sexual orientations, grow more common, and dancers are beginning to take on certain roles in the dance characteristic of the opposite gender. The element of flirtation, however, remains largely heterosexual (or homosexual interactions are underreported), or heteronormative in the few cases of overt homosexual flirtation. Women usually take on weak, submissive roles and men chivalrous, dominant roles in flirtations. A number of factors also discourage flirtation, such as the danger of assault or of appearing loose, and even the choreography of the dance itself.

Discussion question: Why are the sexual undertones of Polska not so openly discussed if they are generally present? What does this tell us about the nature of sex in this culture?

No comments:

Post a Comment