The power of rhythm: From dance rehearsals to adult-newborn interaction

This is a theoretical and empirical contribution on rhythm in social interaction, meant to enlighten its role in the situated interactional “management” of power relations, in both ordinary situations and culturally-specific contexts. To this aim, we adapt the Weberian notion of charisma to the realm of micro-interaction, and we connect it to the dialectics between conceptual and nonconceptual aspects of interaction and rhythm. We further characterize charisma as that capability to set the rhythm in interaction, changing others’ believes at the conceptual level. This happens by leveraging, on the one hand, on the pleasure of being together in common rhythms and, on the other, on the compelling character of the associative dimension of interaction. The contribution is based on two ethnographic researches: one on the Italian field of theatrical dance, the other on the everyday interaction among a newborn, her parents and other members of their intimate circle.