Dance to the drummer’s beat: competing tastes in international B-Boy/B-Girl culture
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Date
23/11/2011Author
Fogarty, Mary Elizabeth
Metadata
Abstract
This thesis explores the relationship between
musical tastes and dance practices in a popular dance style known as breaking or
b-boying/b-girling.
It
is
based
on
a
multi-sited
ethnography
involving
the
participation
in
and
observation
of
the
practices
of
breaking,
as
well
as
interviews
with
individual
b-boys
and
b-girls,
who
often
travelled
between
cities
as
part
of
their
practices.
Although
there
were
many
interesting
and
contradictory
observations
and
participant
responses
provided
by
this
multigenerational,
multicultural
scene,
one
theme
emerged
as
central.
'Vernacular'
or
street
dancers
make
consistent
claims
that
"it's
all
about
the
music."
This
is
to
challenge
assumptions
in
current
academic
writing
on
the
relationship
of
music
and
dance.
On
one
hand,
many
contemporary
dance
writers
argue
that
musical
tastes
have
little
to
do
with
choreographic
practices
and
the
meanings
of
dance
performances.
On
the
other
hand,
sociological
accounts
of
musical
tastes
rarely
consider
dance
practice
in
their
analyses.
The
result
is
that
musical
tastes
are
under-theorised
in
accounts
of
dance
performance,
and
vice
versa.
Hennion's
(2007)
assertion
that
taste
is
an
activity
provides
a
foundation
for
a
new
argument.
I
propose
that
taste
is
an
activity
that,
when
theorised
in
terms
of
music
and
dance
practices,
suggests
new
epistemological
avenues
for
studies
of
popular
dance.
Put
simply,
I
argue
that,
in
breaking
practices,
dance
is
a
performance
of
musical
taste.
This
performance
of
taste
has
a
variety
of
avenues - from
hip
hop
theatre
performances,
to
international
battles,
master
class
workshops,
club
nights
and
local
events
–
and
in
each
new
context,
the
relationship
between
music
and
dance
transforms.
These
shifts
in
selection
reveal
that
the
dance
is
not
just
“about
the
music,”
but
also
about
how
tastes
are
mediated,
negotiated
and
competed
over.