Based on a multi-sited ethnography on Western theatrical dance, the article focuses on the “problem of the male dancer”. Once discussed the historical genealogy of the stigma and its effect on men’s participation in dance, I consider three stigma “antidotes”. Two of them – artistic-professional excellence, manifest in structural inequalities, professional practice and social discourse ; and athleticism, involving discursive and representational strategies – consist of emphasising the masculinising aspects of dancing-as-art/profession (virtuosity, creativity), and dancing-as-leisure/body-activity (prowess, self-control). Neither of them presents as legitimate alternative masculinities ; they are normalising strategies. The third antidote leverages on the choice of the dance style/s, and the use of the markers of embodied identity that styles as bodily, kin(aesth)etic sub-cultures provide. The increasing variety of styles not only changed Dance’s representation in the West and thus affected men’s presence, but also provides semiotic resources for expressing gender and, more generally, for forms of identity construction and self-presentation that may be alternative to dominant models.
Male dancing body, stigma and normalising processes / Bassetti, Chiara. - In: RECHERCHES SOCIOLOGIQUES ET ANTHROPOLOGIQUES. - ISSN 1782-1592. - ELETTRONICO. - 44 (2013):2(2013), pp. 69-92.
Male dancing body, stigma and normalising processes
Bassetti, Chiara
2013-01-01
Abstract
Based on a multi-sited ethnography on Western theatrical dance, the article focuses on the “problem of the male dancer”. Once discussed the historical genealogy of the stigma and its effect on men’s participation in dance, I consider three stigma “antidotes”. Two of them – artistic-professional excellence, manifest in structural inequalities, professional practice and social discourse ; and athleticism, involving discursive and representational strategies – consist of emphasising the masculinising aspects of dancing-as-art/profession (virtuosity, creativity), and dancing-as-leisure/body-activity (prowess, self-control). Neither of them presents as legitimate alternative masculinities ; they are normalising strategies. The third antidote leverages on the choice of the dance style/s, and the use of the markers of embodied identity that styles as bodily, kin(aesth)etic sub-cultures provide. The increasing variety of styles not only changed Dance’s representation in the West and thus affected men’s presence, but also provides semiotic resources for expressing gender and, more generally, for forms of identity construction and self-presentation that may be alternative to dominant models.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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