How The Waltz Has Won: Towards A Waltz Aesthetic

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dc.contributor.advisorCarpenter, Faedra Cen_US
dc.contributor.authorMartin, Christopher Tremewanen_US
dc.contributor.departmentTheatreen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2010-10-07T05:30:35Z
dc.date.available2010-10-07T05:30:35Z
dc.date.issued2010en_US
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation examines the development of ballroom dancing aesthetics between 1860 and 1915, focusing on the appropriation, neutralization, and commodification of African American somatic performance by various European American agents/actors. The study suggests that the waltz, a dance form that was in decline at the beginning of the twentieth century, became a vital component of European American strategies to safely encapsulate certain elements of African American aesthetics while eliminating others. This negotiation of African American aesthetics into European American performance is presented as a part of a broader discourse concerned with the maintenance of white hegemony during this period. The work is grounded in the field theory best articulated by Pierre Bourdieu, and the critical race theories of Michal Omi and Howard Winant. From Bourdieu the work draws upon three key terms: habitus, codes of perception, and hexis. Taken together these terms provide the structure for contextualizing the choices made by dancers, dancing teachers, and social reformers who were concerned with modifying ballroom dance forms that had been influenced by African American aesthetics. Omi and Winant's work provide a matrix for understanding the choices of these diverse individuals and organizations as a racial project embedded in a discourse of white hegemony that, even at its most progressive, sought to maintain the hegemony of white, European American culture.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/10752
dc.subject.pqcontrolledPerforming Artsen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledHistory, United Statesen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledDanceen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledBallroomen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledCakewalken_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledCastleen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledRagtimeen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledWaltzen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledWhitenessen_US
dc.titleHow The Waltz Has Won: Towards A Waltz Aestheticen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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