DJ Cultures and American Social Dance

Bringing together dancers, musicians, and a host of participants in realtime and shared space, the phenomenon of social dance is a complex interplay of institutions and affiliations, cultural values, and social histories. This is especially true in the pluralistic societies that have given rise to some of today's most popular social dance forms: Cuba, Brazil, Jamaica, Colombia, Mexico, and the United States. This course examines social dance in the age of “DJ cultures,” surveying various examples of social dance movements built around the relatively new experience of dancing together to sound recordings: R&B, disco, reggae, cumbia, hip-hop, house, techno, EDM, etc.

Our discussions of specific music and dance forms will be grounded in the social and cultural contexts in which they become meaningful in practice, including the values expressed by the ways people have danced together as well as how dancing has been policed and represented by different constituencies in specific historical moments. While cultivating an appreciation of the historical contexts for such dance institutions as juke joints, discotheques, dance halls, and raves, students will understand how ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and nationality have informed the development of genres of music and dance that support dynamic forms of co-presence, sociality, and cultural politics.