Womanist Transmodern Dance Metaphors of Mystical Consumption

Abstract

Dance viewing, practicing, interpreting, or voyeuring by people outside their sociopolitico-economic culture always constitutes a subaltern perspective. This is true when looking at nonnative dancers of social dances because, to the knower, it comes across as practiced, timed, learned, and rehearsed rather than spontaneous and communicative. Again, for social dances I’m suggesting that people do this in celebratory, ritualistic, and communicative fashions. Social dancing means spontaneously breaking into a dance to celebrate occasions such as getting paid, receiving good news, occurring of a miracle, or feeling the spirit. It could indicate that sexuality is mixing around in the air at a high school dance, or that memories of romance are sparked when watching. Or social dancing ecstatically to indicate that we triumphed in our social dancing on Wall Street to let people know we are resistant to the dominant discourses of race and to the enforcement of poverty as a way of class distinction and deprivation.