Inhalt: | Because dance materializes through and for people, because we learn to dance from others and often present dance to others, the moment of its transmission is one of dance’s central and defining features. Valuing Dance looks at the occasion when dancing passes from one person to another as an act of exchange, one that is redolent with symbolic meanings, including those associated with its history and all the labor that has gone into its making. It examines two ways that dance can be exchanged, as commodity and as gift, reflecting on how each establishes dance’s relative worth and merit differently. When and why do we give dance? Where and to whom do we sell it? How are such acts of exchange rationalized and justified? Valuing Dance poses these questions in order to contribute to a conversation around what dance is, what it does, and why it matters. Dance's Resource-fullness; Dancing as Being in Relation; Dancing as Energizing; Dancing as Adapting -- Commodifying and Giving; Verso: Dance as Commodity; Standardizing, Spectacularizing, and Promoting; Bringing People into Relation as Constructing Interactivity; Energizing as Targeting Vitality; Adapting as Developing Transportability; Recto: Dance as Gift; Giving, Accepting, and Reciprocating; Bringing People into Relation as Creating Connectivity; Energizing as Embracing Irrepressibility; Adapting as Cultivating Locality -- The Social Life of Dances; The Global Reach of Hip-Hop; Learning to Dance in the Privately Owned Studio; On the Powwow Circuit -- Why Dance?; Verso: Why Commodify?; Recto: Why Give?; Verso: Who Is Dancing?; Recto: Philosophies of Giving |
