The next book up for discussion is "From Ballroom to DanceSport: Aesthetics, Athletics, and Body Culture," by Caroline Joan S. Picart. Ms. Picart is an academic as well as a dancer, and this book was definitely written as an academic study. It shares some weaknesses with Juliet McMains' "Glamour Addiction," which I read some time ago and have reviewed on Amazon. Talking about the cultural values expressed by competition dancing without reviewing and discussing actual documentation of competition dancing is the fatal flaw of both. It's simply not academically viable to limit your research to your own personal experience.
Picart actually references McMains, notably in a discussion of the "parasitic" relationship of dance professionals and their clients, and with regard to the eroticized and racialized expression of the International Latin dances. She quotes McMains as follows: "Dancesport professionals ... usually have little college education or significant earning potential outside the industry. Most come from working-class backgrounds, many of them recent immigrants ... ". The point seems to be that dancesport is a gigantic fraud perpetrated by dancers who use their mastery of "classy movement technique" to seduce their students. This is typical of McMains but not of the rest of Picart's book, and I think she could have done without it. Once you start comparing athletic professionals with strippers and gigolos, you have clearly lost objectivity and can't be taken seriously.
Picart does not really address, in any organized way, the concepts laid out in her title. She does not establish a progression from social ballroom to dancesport, as the title implies, nor does she explore how the "aesthetics, athletics, and body culture" of one have (or have not) led to the other. Her thesis is that competitive ballroom dancing perpetuates stereotypes: of the "Latin Lover," the passionate native, the haughty aristocrat, the sexual predator; and gender roles: the submissive female, the dominant male, the teasing female, the supplicating male. What never becomes clear is why these characterizations (and they are characterizations) are, in Picart's eyes, a negative.
Ballroom dancing as a sport is still barely recognized by the majority of non-dancers, and even as a social activity is not well understood. Therefore, to make a claim that the characters assumed by dancers in competition are in some way socially damaging seems a bit of a stretch - there are simply not enough people watching for our sport to have a measurable effect.
Moreover, the character of the dance is an essential part of performance. A couple who approaches their waltz, foxtrot, tango, and Viennese waltz (or their cha-cha, rumba, samba, and bolero) in exactly the same character is not understanding the history of, and the figures and technical execution required by, the different dances. The expression of the character of the dance is, in the hands of skilled dancers, in the same area of craft as the interpretation of a role by an actor.
Among Picart's observations is that ballroom dancing manages "... to obliterate, or at least render invisible, such categories as race and class ...". She interprets this as part of the fantasy of nobility, which makes any dancer into Cinderella and her partner into a prince. But Picart then goes on to complain that the glamorized nature of competitive dancing has become more authentic, to a viewer, than the original form of a dance. Again, I am not quite sure why this is a bad thing; nor am I at all sure that it is true. I think most people watching "Dancing with the Stars" could grasp that the DWTS versions of salsa, swing, or tango are not what one finds in a nightclub.
In my view, the existence of a stylized, dramatized American or International-style tango takes nothing away from Argentine tango, whether in its stage form, or as danced in competition, or as danced at 3 a.m. between the tables in a smoky club. I would suggest that "cleaning up" some of the original dances - as Arthur Murray and his colleagues did in the early and mid 1900s - and giving them a replicable, teachable structure, helped prevent some dances from dying out altogether.
Picart evinces a greater affection for ballroom dancing that McMains managed to. There are plentiful passages attesting to her appreciation for the art, and clearly she thinks about it a lot in a positive way. This is one reason why I found the reading experience unrewarding: for a lover of ballroom to poke holes in it, as part of a rather labored academic exercise, is disappointing. I think if Picart had worked harder to bring in other dancers' experience, the book would have been very much stronger. It can't be done just by asking one or two professionals how they feel about certain aspects of dancing, or by looking at movies that feature a dance sequence or two. It would require going back through the decades of dance competition video that's available to really substantiate some of the criticisms in the book.
"From Ballroom to DanceSport" is not likely to be on anyone's light reading list. I have considerable experience reading academic writing, and it was a bit of a slog for me! It is not without value to those who are seeking to better understand the industry of dancing, but must be approached with an awareness of context. The world of pro-am (Picart's focus) does not represent, for example, the amateur or professional dancesport experience; and no competitive dancer has the same experience of ballroom as a purely social dancer. I would not recommend this book to anyone who is not already an experienced dancer, and preferably one who has experience of competition, as in my opinion it is calculated to discourage people from participating in what I have found a healthy and exciting sport.
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