Social Dance

Social Dance

I begin to move my body side to side with the music. No boundaries, restrictions, or rules to abide by when I'm dancing. I chose to dance because it's a way of expressing myself through whatever movements I want. However, social dance was not always this causal. If we traveled back to a certain point in time we could find ourselves in France doing the waltz. On the island of Rarotonga among the Cook Islands, the men would be flapping their legs in and out while the women would be moving their hips side to side to the beat. We could travel to North Africa to the country of Morocco where we would see woman embraced by clothing, revealing nothing to the general public except for their eyes. We would find the men partaking in dances that involved items such as rifles, daggers, and swords. The idea of women and men danced together would be lucrative. The styles and types of social dance depends upon a certain societies culture and values. Dance is in a perpetual motion of change and as we look back among the years, we will engage in the differences and similarities of social dance between Rarotonga, North Africa, and times of the Renaissance to the late 19th century.

The island of Rarotonga of the cook islands in the south pacific takes their dancing seriously. The significance of dance on this island is that it reflects upon a persons identity, both men and women. There are four main types of social dance that are expressed throughout the island. The traditional type of Rarotongan dance involves highly trained teams of both men and women. This is contrary to the Moroccan style of dancing. Within the Moroccan culture are laws that regulate the engagement of both men and women. According to the Koran, the men hold authority over the women. In regards to social dance, the women are unable to come in contact with the men stating, "Islam has insisted on a strict separation of men and women in many parts of the Muslim world."(Jonas, 1992) This policy is the same for the people of Rarotonga however, the women of Islam fully clothe themselves only revealing the eyes within the general public. The women of the south pacific, unlike Moroccan standards, have the ability to reveal their skin, wearing bikini like tops with grass skirts. Both cultures possess a type of warrior dance that is meant to express the athleticism of the men. The people of Rarotonga have what is called the Drum dance which was traditionally used for training exercises for warriors. The Moroccans dance to "emphasize athletic prowess and often employ warlike props such as swords, daggers, and rifles." (Jonas, 1992) Unlike the south pacific island of Rarotonga, men watch dances more then they actually dance themselves. Within hotel nightclubs, or public rooms, the men group around and enjoy the women entertainers as they sing and dance. The men of Rarotonga typically dance by flapping their legs in and out whereas the men of morocco "undulate their shoulders and hipsÐ'... combined with a sheer delight in rhythmic physical movement." (Jonas 1992) These two cultures possess common characteristics as well as eclectic differences, both of which could be comparable to social dancing in the west.

The variety of dances in the west included dances such as branles or the pavan. These type of dances were simple and took hardly any practice to master. These dances could be displayed in circles, lines, or columns. This is similar to the dance of Rarotonga where the dance is displayed in rows distinguished by gender. "The clothing of this era was bulky and the upper bodies were confined by tight lacing for men and corsets for women. Further, head movement was restricted by the wearing of ruffs around the neck. Dance technique,