Traditional dances in Vojvodina region, northern Serbia are unique and rich in varieties due to the multiethnic population of Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians, Slovaks, Romas, etc. Ethnochoreologist Selena Rakočević investigated the dance and music tradition of Serbs in Banat (a part of Vojvodina) in 1994 (Rakočević 7, 282). During her field research she found several dances types with varied spatial patterns (such as change of location of female dancers in the couple dances, couple turns, individual turning of the female dancers, etc.) and noticed that the formal units introduced by former structural investigations (as made by the IFMC Folk Dance Study Group or summarized later by Giurchescu and Kröschlová) can be labeled at higher level.
I started my field research in 2001 in the dance practice of Serbs coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Monte Negro, who inhabited Vojvodina by organized migration (colonizations) or spontaneously during the 20th century (Karin 11). Investigating the structure of their dances I established a new label for the hierarchy of dance elements in relation to the music for dance. As a result of investigations the present paper 1) introduces a new method of formal analysis of traditional dances, and 2) proposes new labels for the hierarchy of formal segments of dance in relation to the music for dance and in relation to the spatial component of the dance. In the analysis kinetography is essentially required for identifying the hierarchy, the dance formal segments, and the relationships between them.
Some New Aspects of Formal Analysis
Instead of looking at dance as an entity,1 dance is investigated here as a process, which is associated with social practice;2 it is necessary to focus on the process of dance as a distinctive aspect and on its structural and formal elements. For example one dance pattern has 8 measures. A dancer do not dance just this dance pattern of 8 measures, but he repeats and repeats that several times. This is the process of the dance. If we investigate only these 8 measures, it can’t be observed what happens during the whole process when a dancer repeats his pattern. A similar pattern can be discovered also with the dance mađarac which will be discussed below. If we select a two measures dance pattern of mađarac, it is clear that it is one part—A, but if we investigate the whole process of dancing, the changes of spatial components of dance can be discovered as well.
Our starting point is the book Igre plesnih struktura: Tradicionalna igra i muzika za igru Srba u Banatu u svetlu uzajamnih uticaja [Interweaving Dance Structures:
Traditional Dance and Dance Music of the Banat Serbs in the Light of Their Mutual Relationships] by Selena Rakočević. In her book Rakočević conceptualized dance as coherent and syncretic unity of movement and sound, i. e. dance and dance music structures (14, 285) which I apply in the present paper as well.
Individual dance performance is achieved through an activity called “dance realiza-tion” by Norwegian ethnochoreologists Egil Bakka—consisting of certain formal, hierarchical dance components (element, submotif, motif, phrase, part, totus) and their internal organization (104).3 In this paper the formal analysis will be used as established in the article Foundation for the Analysis of the Structure and Form of Folk Dance: A Syllabus (further on referred to as Syllabus) in 1974 by the IFMC (International Folk Music Council), a group of researchers who, in 1962, founded the ethnochoreology section within the frame of IFMC.4 Within a study group ethnochoreologists tried to answer certain questions about structural-formal analysis
1 Dance as an entity refers to dance-text which stands for itself, without the context of dance. As the main interest of ethnochoreologists was the study of coherent “dance-text” (in performance situation or as recorded documents) aiming to disclose and make explicit the grammar and system of organization, which are implicit ti and characteristic of a given dance tradition (Giurchescu and Kröschlová 21). The
“dance-text” is composed of certain parameters: movements of the body or its parts (legs, hands, head), position of the body, rhythm, melody, etc. which are helping the study and systematization of traditional dances. As Giurchescu and Kröschlová stated, this theoretical and analytical approach have been applied in many European countries e.g. in Hungary, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, the former Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Yugoslavia (21). In scientific discourse it is called “the European approach” choreology (Giurchescu and Kröschlová 21; Giurchescu and Torp 5).
2 The contextual-analytical approach of ethnochoreology is trying to figure out what dance can tell us about society (Kaeppler 11). In scientific discourse it is called the anthropological, “American” approach (Giurchescu and Torp 1). Their focus has been on “dancing people,” therefore, they have seldom analyzed choreographic structure (Giurchescu and Torp 1).
3 See more on “dance realization” in the article “Writing a Dance: Epistemology for Dance Research”
by Bakka and Karoblis (172-179).
4 Since 1981 IFMC has been called International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM).
and to determine one universal methodology, if it was possible.5 This study was preceded by a decade of research and “the basic analytical tool within that method is Labanotation” (Rakočević 285). The authors of Syllabus wrote: “Labanotation is especially meaningful as a springboard for research. This system is capable of dealing with dance in its smallest details, and is based on an analytic approach to individual movement aspects” (117).
Dance Form Analysis
As it is indicated in Syllabus, “if one wishes to produce a unified research method for the comprehension, systematization, and processing of dance materials, it is necessary to create a comprehensive and systematic method of analysis of dance form” (117).
First, we should determine the term “form” of the dance. In Syllabus it is mentioned that in choreology the term “form” is used with various meanings: in the sense of spatial formation (circle, line), of classes of movement (types of steps, gestures), and of progression in space (floor patterns). The authors of the Syllabus agree that the term “form” is treated as an aspect of structural analysis. The form of a dance is the internal arrangement of its form elements, which brings the material, namely the movement of the human body in relationship to music, into expression (Syllabus 121). The “form” of the dance is “the result of an organic process in which smaller units, each with a shape and structure of its own function as parts of larger structural entities” (Giurchescu and Kröschlová 23).
The Analytical Procedure of Segmentation
The establishment of an analytical system requires a system of graphical symbols.
The graphical symbols of structural analysis show the dance in its elements and also the relationship and hierarchy of these elements to one another. As it is stressed in Syllabus, only the graphical display gives us the possibility of scientific comparison (118). The analytical procedure of segmentation starts with the larger units and progresses to the smallest constituents, hierarchically defined, as follows:
T = Totus—a dance as a whole.
P = Part—a form made of phrases. The part is marked with a capital letter of the alphabet, e.g. A, B, C, etc.
PH = Phrase—the smallest integral unit through which the dancers identify dance or type of dance. It is marked with a strikethrough capital letter of the alphabet, e.g. A, B, C, etc.
M = Motif—the smallest independent compositional unit. It is marked with a small letter of the alphabet, e.g. a, b, c, etc.
5 Anca Giurchescu and Eva Kröschlová has conceptualised their study in a similar way in which they determined the concept of dance form where the internal and external configuration of dance were hie-rarchically organized (23–24).
C = Cell—simple kinetic configuration of dance elements containing two or three rhythmic impulses. It is marked with a strikethrough small letter of the alphabet, e.g. a, b, c, etc. (Rakočević 38-39).
Dance is viewed as a process. The syncretic unity of a dance and its corresponding music is shown in the notation thus allowing us to identify formal structures that will be discussed in this paper.
Case I
A traditional dance with varied spatial components of dance patterns is mađarac, recorded by Selena Rakočević.
Dance name: Mađarac
Dancers: Dobrivoje Putnik and a female dancer Place of research: Badija (Croatia)
Date of research: 1980 Dual labeling A/B:
A—step pattern
/B—the change of spatial components of the dance patterns (Rakočević 149) The dance mađarac has a two measure length part (A) which is repeated in varied forms A Av A1 A2 etc. In mađarac dancers mostly dance in place (see the first two measures of kinetogram in figure 1). While the relation of women to their male partners is changed in couple or triple (a man and two women) formation, the women’s former steps in place are replaced with steps forward as a constructive change to the contents of step pattern. In that case we can look the dance form broadly, and then a part (A) functions as a phrase (A) rather than as a basic formal unit, a part.
The parts begin to function as phrases because the dancers change the position in the space, and if we look that ‘spatial’ changes at a higher level, we can notice that the formal units are changing as well. Therefore dual labeling is applied for this phenom-enon. The first letter refers to the dance pattern, i. e. the part (A = two measures), and the second letter, separated by a slash, refers to the change of spatial components of the dance pattern (B = eight measures). In this case step patterns do not function only as the basic formal units (parts), but also at the level of their special processing as phrases (B). A new analytical approach is introduced here—the treatment of the formal units at higher level. In the above example the changing of the relation of women to their male partners in couple or in triple formation (phrases: B B1 B2 B3) is regarded one part—B.
8
8
8
8
... A A / B 2 2 / 8
A A1 / B B1 B2 B3 2 2 / 2 2 2 2
A B
Fig. 1
Case II
Notation also reveals that some traditional dances in Serbia have “phrasing” which may occur within one, two, or three measures. These phrases combine into “parts”
of the dance, whole step patterns. Looking at the dance in a broader sense—or at a higher level—the Part is only identified in relation to the music for dance.6
Dance name: Širi mi se, moje kolo malo
Dancers: Cultural-artistic society „Vuk Karadžić“, Čonoplja Place of research: Bačka Topola
Date of research: 1996 Dual labeling:
A—step pattern
/AA—the step pattern at a higher level, which is created by the formal shaping of musical components
For example, the tune may be sung during eight measures, while a dance phrase is repeated four times within that time period. The entire eight measures form the whole Part of the dance. In certain dances the music is the one that determines the Part and the whole dance. Since there are two levels of hierarchy in the formal analysis, modified labeling is applied. The first letter (A) refers to the step pattern (one, two or three measures—in this case there are two bars), and AA separated by a slash, indicates the step pattern at a higher level of the hierarchy, shaped by musical components as is illustrated in figure 2 (it is eight bars).
Kinetography within structural and formal analysis is very important because it reveals the process of dance, makes it more apparent. As an analytical tool it helps us to identify relationships between a dance and its music, because dance structure is inseparable from the time which is determined according to music, the metrical-rhythmical components.
For a detailed analysis the temporal and spatial components of dance structure need to be identified. In this paper a new labeling of parallel treatment dance’s formal units is proposed at a higher level in relation to the music for dance and the dance’s spatial component. Two cases were presented using the analytical method; we hope to use the introduced method for further analysis in the future.
6 Since this analysis uses dual labeling, “part” in the sense of terminology at the higher level is written with bold letters—Part, to distinguish it from the part of the dance that is it is identified as a formal unit of the dance (hierarchically networked).
No.2 No.2
part / Part ... A / A 2 / 8 A / A A A A 2 / 2 2 2 2
A
A
Fig. 2
aCknowledgmenTs
This article is a result of the project Music and dance tradition of multiethnic and multicultural Serbia (no. 177024), financed by Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia.
References
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Bakka, Egil, and Gediminas Karoblis. 2010. “Writing a Dance: Epistemology for Dance Research.” Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol. 42, general editor Don Niles, guest editor Wim van Zanten. S.l.: International Council for Traditional Music. 167-193.
Giurchescu, Anca, and Eva Kröschlová. 2007. “Theory and Method of Dance Form Analysis.” Dance Structures: Perspectives on the Analysis of Human Movement, edited by Adrienne L. Kaeppler, and Elsie Ivancich Dunin.
Budapest: Akadémiai. 21-52. (Studies in Ethnology 3.)
Giurchescu, Anca, and Lisbet Torp. 1991. “Theory and Methods in Dance Research: A European Approach to the Holistic Study of Dance.” Yearbook for Traditional Music, vol. 23, edited by Dieter Christensen. New York: Columbia University. 1-10.
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The Jarabe Tapatío (foreigners use the name Mexican Hat Dance) is one of the most emblematic and representative Mexican traditional dances; Saldivar called this dance
“the national dance par excellence” (313). This paper is a preview of my new research about this dance based on notations made with systems developed in Mexico by teachers, researchers, dancers, and other scholars of Mexican traditional dance.
I will first present a brief historical overview of the Jarabe from its inception—when the Mexican people practiced it for social purposes—through its performance on stages by professional dancers, often as an expression of national pride.
Some chroniclers of the time witnessed the Jarabe, including Niceto Zamacois (1861);
Madame Calderon de la Barca (Frances Erskine Inglis), who visited Mexico between 1839-1842, Guillermo Prieto (ca. 1828-1886), and other writers. As Saldivar quoted, Zamacois praised the Jarabe’s movement and compared its name with a sweet medici-nal syrup [jarabe]: “What could be more medicimedici-nal [...] than the Jarabe, danced by those women with large and slanted eyes[…]?” (306). See e.g. figure 1.
Although some contemporary scholars have studied the Jarabe such as Saldivar, Jáuregui, Chamorro, Lavalle, and others; it is difficult to determine the exact origin of the dance and its accompanying music, including the meaning of its name.
However Saldivar argues that the Jarabe thought to have originated from the seguid-illa; the fandango, and the zambra. These dances were:
“ridiculed by Aboriginal and adapted to the circumstances in which some of the particular dances of this country [Mexico] had been developed […] this gave rise to the varieties of zapateos [footwork] that acquired different characteristics over time” (308).