2010 YEARBOOK

FOR
TRADITIONAL MUSIC
Volume 42
wim van zanten

Guest Editor

DON NILES

General Editor

FREDERICK LAU

Book Reviews

MARGARET SARKISSIAN

Audio Reviews

lisa urkevich

Film/Video Reviews

SUZEL ANA REILY

Website Reviews

Published by the
International Council for Traditional Music
under the auspices of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO)

Writing a Dance:
Epistemology for Dance Research
by Egil Bakka and Gediminas Karoblis
Introduction
Over several years the authors of this article have had intensive discussions to
find common ground in the topic they both specialize in: dance. Egil Bakka is a
Norwegian ethnochoreologist, specializing in Nordic traditional dance/folk dance;
Gediminas Karoblis is a Lithuanian philosopher, specializing in phenomenology
and ballroom dancing. Our starting point was a philosophical question about the
notion of dance knowledge and a shared worry about the empirical basis for many
academic works on dancethat other colleagues have also pointed to (Hoerburger
1959; Lange 1983; Adshead-Lansdale 1994; Grau 1998; Farnell 1999; Fgedi
2003). Bakka then brought up the widespread reservation against the use of film/
video for the documentation and analysis of dance. We continued with a wish to
clarify to ourselves the epistemological basis for research in dance, and somewhere
along the way we started writing this article. We experienced that a dialoguein
which methodological issues in dance research were confronted with philosophical scrutiny brought about a number of interesting perspectives. We hope that our
exercise may be of interest to a broader audience. The aim is to explore how our
different disciplinary points of departurephilosophy and ethnochoreologycan
be brought to interact in creating a deeper understanding of our topic, rather than
comparing the disciplines or discussing their differences.
Our writing started out with Bakka innocently sketching a description of fieldwork in Numedal, Norway, which was meant to be an illustrative introduction. It
was left as a rough draft. When we returned to revise it, we realized that it illustrated a number of epistemological problems that we had dealt with in the meantime; therefore, we leave it here in its innocent form and will return to it in the
discussions towards the end of the article.
Ethnochoreological fieldwork in Numedal, November 1985
Egil Bakkas description, based on fieldnotes from 1985, was as follows:
The musicians on the stage are playing the third dance this evening, a reinlender,
and the dance floor of the little countryside community house in eastern Norway is
1. As we shall see, a number of influential American anthropologists of dance have
pointed to problems in the use of film for such purposes (e.g., Kaeppler 1999; Royce 2002;
Youngerman 1975). The anthropologist Howard Morphy (1994:119) finds it surprising that
films have been so little used as data in his discipline. A fuller discussion of this subject
appears below.
2. Reinlender is the local name of a couple dance that spread to many European countries
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filled with dancers, mostly in their sixties and seventies. They are back in the arena
where they picked up the art of dancing as teenagers. It was a necessity for them to
master social dancing to be part of the social life in the small community, and no
teaching of this repertoire was offered. What they picked up has served them well
through life, and it still comes in handy at weddings and at dance parties for their age
group. The dancers typically know six or seven such dances, called by local names,
including vals, springar, hamburg, rei(n)lender, masurka,fokstrot,and tango.

Numedal is, according to Bakka, one of those places where the fairly square,
conventional structure of the reinlender seems to have been broken up and changed
into a free flow of elements. The conventional structure has two bars of promenade
(four beatsi.e., two step periods of two beats each) and two bars of turning (four
beats); these two elements are repeated again and again in strict accordance with
the musical periods. The free flow of elements can consist of step patterns covering three beats, which immediately breaks up the regularity. The promenade then
becomes longer than two bars and often then becomes quite freely improvised, as
is also the case for the length of the turning (Bakka et al. 1987:5). In our dance
event, most of the dancers do this freely improvised version, but one couple in their
nineties do the dance with the conventional square structure (16 mm film, Nore
og Uvdal, 1985, Rff archives). Two couples choose to change to totally different
techniques of dancing for a while. One technique has a separate name, steger.
A young couple in their early fifties starts doing some swing or rock-n-roll
motives as a variation (filming logs 1985, Rff archives) (figure 1).
It is hard to find out whether all the dancing on the floor is conventionally considered a dance or not. The dancers themselves would hardly ask the question, and
therefore hardly need any answer. A dance notator, however, may need to deal with
such questions or at least needs to clarify how her notation represents the ephemeral phenomenon of dancing.
Bakkas fieldwork in Numedal came about, as his fieldwork often did, because
younger people from the region with interest in old dances had asked him to come
and document the dances. The younger generations had not picked up these dances
in the same way as their parents and grandparents did. Most of them preferred
in the middle of the nineteenth century. The most usual English label for this dance and its
music is probably schottish.
3. This is what the dancers wrote on Rff questionnaires when we asked them to fill in
the names of the dances they knew. Some, of course, knew more dances, if for instance
they had attended a folk dance course and learned dances of the typically national repertoire taught there or if they had attended a dancing school and learnt ballroom dancing.
Rff indicates unpublished forms, films, and manuscripts that are part of the archives of
the Norsk senter for folkemusikk og folkedans (Norwegian Centre for Traditional Music
and Dance), a resource and research centre of the foundation Rdet for folkemusikk og
folkedans (Norwegian Council for Traditional Music and Dance).
4. This version of the reinlender is described by the dancing masters of the late nineteenth
century (Isachsen 1886) and is also documented as a standard traditional dance throughout
Norway (Bakka 1970).
5. Steger is a technique where the partners are dancing side by side, turned in opposite
directions. A similar technique can be used in the waltz, where it is called stegvals.

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Figure 1. The oldest couple dance of Numedal is the springar, which has had the main
focus as a local dance tradition since around 1930 and has been connected with the local,
traditional costume in revitalization efforts. The springar has been filmed many times, here
from a recording at Kongsberg in May 1972. Even if newer dances, such as the reinlender,
have complex and interesting forms, these were hardly noticed till the mid-1980s (frame
from film recording, Norwegian Centre for Traditional Music and Dance).

newer dances like slow, swing, or perhaps even disco. Some of them, who liked the
older dances, had gone to courses arranged by the folk dance movement and had
learnt standardized forms of the same dances. Then they realized that their elders
did not use the standardized forms and wanted the local dances to be analysed and
written down so that they could be taught at courses and not be lost completely
their parents and grandparents dances had become heritage.
The story above is an illustration of a particular kind of ethnochoreology in
which academic research is coupled with an institutional agenda of cultural politics.
This brings a focus on filming and dance notation, which will be topics underlying
most discussions here. An explicit task of the Norwegian Centre for Traditional
Music and Dance is to combine documentation, research, and safeguarding measures (Bakka 1981). This results in research methodologies that are somewhat different from those based in more conventional research agendas. The latter may not
be so explicitly discussed, but they are perhaps equally influential on methodologies and priorities. An agenda that aims to bring dance research into interaction

6. Here Bakka has taken us back to one of his typical fieldwork situations from the mid1980s. He has placed himself in a corner opposite the music, with his 16-mm film camera
and synchronized tape recorder documenting the dancing crowd. The local initiators are
present, helping out. They will later come to Bakkas institution to assist in the writing of
the documented dances and at the same time learn them (Bakka 1994, 1999, 2001).

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with the most prestigious discourses of humanistic disciplines will probably work
in a different manner from research aimed at cultural politics.
Filming and dance notation in anthropology and ethnochoreology
In this article we will address dance research within the disciplines of ethnochoreology and the anthropology of dance, without addressing questions about agenda
any further; rather, our discussion circles around the epistemological basis for
knowledge about dance.
We would like to introduce the discussion by referring to the following statement from anthropologist Howard Morphy:
It is one of the great ironies of anthropology that until recently so little attention has
been paid to methods of gathering data, when, in some respects, it is the richness
of its data which characterizes the uniqueness of anthropologys contribution to the
human and social sciences. Whereas a great deal of attention is paid to the development of anthropological theory, to methods of analysis and to the craft of writing,
data gathering remains the poor cousin. (Morphy 1994:117)

For Morphy as for us, filming is a particularly efficient tool for collecting data.
Already in 1974 Alan Lomax proposed to launch large projects to film folk culture in general: Film, sound, and videotape records are today an indispensable
scientific resource They may contain information for which neither theory nor
analytic schemes yet exist (American Folklore Society 1974:51). Filming was the
basis for much of the broad Central and East European documentation and research
(Giurchescu and Torp 1991) and was also used in larger projects, such as Peggy
Harpers work in Nigeria (Harper 1969). It still is standard procedure in many
dance research institutions and for many dance researchers. It is strange then, that
methodological discussions on the use of film as a tool for documentation have
been rare in the field of dance research, at least since the 1980s. We propose that
the reasons for this could be attitudes within the anthropology of dance.
The aims of anthropological studies of dance have in general been quite different from the ones underlying the case of the Rff Centre at the Norwegian Centre for
Traditional Music and Dance in Trondheim discussed above:
While anthropologists of dance and movement study meaning, intention and cultural
evaluation, the activities that generate movement systems, how and by whom they

7. We do think that our discussion has relevance for academically constructed dance knowledge in general, but we find it too ambitious to claim that we will cover the full range consistently in the format of this article.
8. The Hungarian researcher and notation expert Janos Fgedi is an exception. He has
established exciting new methodologies for movement studies based on film and notation
(Fgedi 1999, 2003). The borrowing of techniques from hard science is also proposed for
learning dance (such as Wiley 1987), but has not drawn much attention from mainstream
dance research.

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are judged, their aim is to understand how the examination and analysis of movement systems can illuminate the sociocultural system. (Kaeppler 1999:16)

The American dance anthropologist Adrienne L. Kaeppler has studied dance

in Tonga since she went there as a PhD student in the 1960s. With her analysis
inspired by linguistics, she has influenced generations of dance researchers. She
based her technique upon participatory observation and upon learning dance from
local dancers, having them help her identify structure and meanings. For her, video
recordings are not a main resource, but
can be used for instant replay for preliminary analysis, for eliciting information
about intentions, for clarifying movement motifs and movement sequences and to
find out about mistakes and if movements (or whole performances) can or should be
evaluated. (Kaeppler 1999:20)

One reason for this position is perhaps expressed by Anya Peterson Royce, who
points to a central reservation toward film from many dance analysts: film provides a record of a particular performance, rather than a record of a particular choreography in its pure state (Royce 2002:53).This is taken further by Suzanne
Youngerman who argues from a practical point of view:
In many cases, however, a society may not have any set dances; improvisation may
be the standard of performance, or the same dance may never be repeated. Since
one must see a dance several times in order to transcribe it, an arrangement which
is rarely possible in a fieldwork situation, one must film or videotape the dance.
(Youngerman 1975:119)

This statement seems to underlie her argument that filming is something you bring
in, if, for some reason, you are not able to see a dance live a sufficient number of
times in order to transcribe it. It also seems to assume that many dances are always
repeated the same way, which is in principle problematic, even if it can be more or
less true depending upon the level of detail one is considering.
Arguing for the needs of Labanotation in reconstructing ballet works, the pioneer Labanotator Ann Hutchinson Guest claims that reproduction
would seem an appropriate term for works reproduced from film/video. Can the
viewer separate the structure of the piece, the choreographic work, from the performance? The learner too readily takes on the mannerisms and expression of the
performers seen on screen. There is not the accuracy of the notated score nor the
leeway for personal interpretation which the notated form allows. (Guest 2000:65)

9. Kaeppler makes a distinction between anthropologists of dance and other dance researchers: it seems to me that these researchers [folklorists who study dance and dance ethnologists] are more specifically interested in dances and dancing, and take a dance or dances
as their primary unit, while anthropologists are more interested in the larger subject of
human movement and the abstract concept of dance (Kaeppler 1999:15).

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As can be seen, there are reservations towards the application of film/video in

the documentation and analysis of dance among some notable researchers working in the field of dance.10 We have selected a few examples above that touch on
questions of how we can access and document dance. In this article we would like
to challenge some of the assumptions that seem to underlie the examples and the
reservations. If we ignore the particular performances, is there a dance that can
be accessed in its pure state? How canthe mannerisms and expressions of
performers be separated from the choreographic work if not by comparing many
realizations?We acknowledge Labanotation as an excellent tool for dance analysis
(Van Zile 1985), but if a notation represents a dance and not a single dance realization, we find it problematic in freezing its form. The aim to labanotate a dance
(Van Zile 1999) brings about a number of problems, particularly if the relationship
between the notation and the realizationsor other sources that it builds uponis
not transparent.11
It strikes us, however, that new artistic tools may herald change in attitudes
to recorded dance. Susan Kozel debates the objections she has been facing when
she works with motion-capture techniques and virtual representations of dance:
What is human movement in the absence of the body? Motion capture was
referred to as a technology that extracts movement from the performers body.
Kozel responds: To deny the abstract qualities of the real building or body, like
denying the sensuous qualities of a virtual creation, is to ghettoize both the real
and the virtual in definitional constructs that are incomplete (Kozel 2007:236).
Some dance critics such as the American Marcia B. Siegel also seem to disregard
earlier reservations and claim that film and video offer a perfect response to the
epistemic ephemerality of dance: On tape we can watch a dance again and again,
until it has impressed itself firmly upon our retinas and memories (as summarized
in Gere 2004:42).
The realization and the concept: Two dimensions of dance (ethnochoreology)
We suggest that dance has two dimensions: the realization and the concept.The
realization is the actual dancing of a dance.12 The concept for the same dance is the
10. There are examples of anthropologists defending film, such as social anthropologist
Felicia Hughes-Freeland. She argues for the value of film as a research tool in dance, meaning documentary film-making. She compares editing such a film with writing a book from
fieldnotes (Hughes-Freeland 1999:120). It is, in other words, not about accessing movement
to be able to analyse it, but a technique to present dance in its context. Morphy draws a
distinction between two uses of film: film as ethnography, referring to the use of film in the
process of data gathering, and film as text, referring to the construction of finished film
for a viewing audience. The book Dance in the Field (Buckland 1999) has a number of contributors (i.e., Felfldi, Giurchescu, Bakka) who consistently use film for data collection, but
this is not explicitly discussed in any detail as methodology.
11. The Hungarian folkdance notators goston Lnyi and his follower Janos Fgedi solved
this problem by always transcribing realizations, avoiding the problem of a dance.
12. We do realize that there are examples where the concept represents some kind of general
dancing rather than a dance with a name, as briefly discussed by Gore and Bakka (2007).

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potential of skills, understanding, and knowledge that enables an individual or a

dance community to dance that particular dance and to recognize and relate to each
particular realization of it (Bakka, Aksdal, and Flem 1995:21; Gore and Bakka
2007:93).13 We argue that the approach to dance through its realization is underestimated in anthropological research and ethnographic work in general (Bakka
2005:72).14 A realization is the only full and proper way in which a dance becomes
available for us. We consider demonstrations, rehearsals, and illustrated explanations as secondary andonly as hints to a full expression of the dance. Consequently
we see the full, normal realizationas the primary source to, and the only fully valid
form of, dance.15 The realization makes dance available perceptually. The skills
and knowledge of the dance concept are invisible, but they are necessary for and
integrated in the realization. As we see it, there is interdependence between the
realization and the concept. Each realization of a dance can in principle add to the
dance concept and this influenced concept willin turn affect the next realization.
This will be a continuous process for a dancer: her concept is not fixed, but can
be affected by each new realization, whether it is her own or she is experiencing
somebody elses realization. The changing concept will in turn affect each new
realization. When someone is in the process of learning a dance, these changes are
especially evident (figure 2).16

13. These terms are inspired by Ferdinand de Saussures langueparole distinction

(Saussure 2006); they also have a similarity to Noam Chomskys use of competence and
performance. It is, however, hardly possible to analyse dance with tools developed for
analysing language without making substantial adjustments. For further discussion on these
linguistic concepts in dance analysis, see Kaeppler (2001:53).
14. Susan Reed in a summarizing article states that: It is indeed ironic that, despite the
considerable growth of interest in the anthropology of the body , the study of moving bodies remains on the periphery (Reed 1998:504). Alexandra Carter edited what has become a
widely used reader for dance studies. She claims that the reader demonstrates the range and
depth of late twentieth-century scholarship (Carter 1998:1). Introducing a later chapter, she
states: It does not remain, however, at the level of movement analysis, but accommodates
issues of context, function, meaning and value (ibid.:121). Other examples of discussions
on movement analysis do not particularly take up the question of the systematic study of
realizations (Dils and Crosby 2001; Daly 1988; Sklar 1991).
15. In some kinds of dance, the narrative or conceptual aspects may seem prior, like in the
ballet daction or sacred dances. In these cases, dance is conceived as means for some other
purpose (Karoblis 2007b).
16. The distinctions of langue and parole (Saussure) or competence and performance
(Chomsky) do not, as far as we know, take into consideration a level between these two.
Wittgenstein (1958:12728) has argued that language competence is channelled through
language games. There is the level of a joke, a fairy tale, a poem, etc., where langue or competence is not used for a free flow of parole or performance, but realizes an established form
(Bakka, Aksdal, and Flem 1995). In dance and music, this level is the standard level: most
realizations are based on forms that the musician or dancer refers to a certain piece of music
or a certain dance (work). The lack of attention to the level of established forms can also
be seen in performance studies, see, e.g., Bauman and Briggs (1990).

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Realization

R RR R RR

Influences

Informs

Concept

CC C CCC

Figure 2. The concept informs the realization and the realization influences the concept.
The changes are more evident in a learning process.

The visible and the invisible: Two dimensions of the world (philosophy)
The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (19081961) has developed a philosophy of art that may contribute to the discussions above. First of all, MerleauPonty concentrated on the relevance of the body and perception in our life; this is a
point that naturally captures the attention of a dance researcher. In his philosophy,
Merleau-Ponty used many dualistic concepts, like abstract and concrete movement
inPhenomenology of Perception (1996:111), and speaking and spoken language
inThe Prose of the World (ibid. 1973:10). But his main aim was to overcome the
dominating, epistemological split between the subject and the object. For him this
Cartesian split seemed to contradict what his own experience told him. In his later
years Merleau-Ponty concentrated on the philosophy of the visible and invisible
(ibid. 1968), observing that the visible and the invisible are intertwined so that we
are capable of integrating invisible aspects into the visible. Even if we can see only
one side of an apple at a time, we have an experience of seeing the whole of it,
because we can fill in the invisible part from earlier experience. And evenif wesee
an apple only from one perspective at a time we are capable of exploring other perspectives in succession. Thus each new perspective contributes to the wholeness
of our experience.
In the interplay between dance realizationand dance concept that we discussed
in the previous section, there is obviously an interplay between visibility and invisibility of the kind that Merleau-Ponty discussed.

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The primacy of realization

In his essay The Primacy of Perception, Merleau-Ponty stresses that the perceived world is always the presupposed foundation of all rationality, all value and
all existence (Merleau-Ponty 1964:13).Any speculation should be based on the
fundamental knowledge we obtain from the perceived world. Moreover, the world
of perception for Merleau-Ponty had not only constitutive but regulative value as
well. His aim was to move back to perception. The primacy of perception means
that perception is the most authoritative source. He contends that we should always
start our interrogation by allowing ourselves to perceive what is in front of us; a
lot of things are given for us before we start asking questions.
Following Merleau-Pontys argument on the primacy of perception, wepropose the primacy of dance realization. Wepropose to follow a phenomenological
approach to dance that means concentrating as much as possible on a realization of
dance first of all (Levin 1983:92). As much as possible, wepropose toapproach a
realization of dance without any presuppositions, including the presuppositions of
the dancers themselves.
This seems to be contrary to attitudes in dance anthropology which often suppose that we cannot be sure of understanding the actions and the interactions of the
people we are observing, but always need to learn in dialogue with them. We agree
that there is an obvious need for us to orient ourselves if we are in a community
we do not know, as is often the case for anthropologists, but this is more a question of getting a reasonable, solid understanding of the society, not so much about
approaching dance per se. The dilemma in working with any kind of concepts
people may have about cultural systems is that norms and ideals may be strong and
clear enough for people to talk about them, but they may not be carried through
with the same consistency in realization. What people think and say they do, after
all, is not always what they actually do. Analysis of realizations can, in our experience, really give very surprising results, far more complex than what people may
be able to verbalize about what they do.
A very interesting example can be found in an article by Timothy Rice. As
an American professor of ethnomusicology, Rice worked intensively with a
Bulgarian master of the traditional instrument called gaida to learn to play traditional Bulgarian music. At a certain point his teacher could not explain and show
him any more. Rice went back to the United States and analysed the recordings of
his teacher:
When I finally solved the mystery of bagpipers fingers, I did so in dialogue with
Kostadins tradition of playing, preserved in recordings, after my conversations with
him had ended. In the process, I believe I moved to a place untheorized by the
insideroutsider distinction so crucial to much ethnomusicological thinking. After
talking to a cultural insider, which took me in the direction of an emic understanding of the tradition but not all the way there, I confronted the tradition directly as a
sound form and kinesthetic activity, and made it my own in an act of appropriation
that transformed me, my self, into something I hadnt been before, a person capable
of playing in this tradition with at least minimal competence. This transformation

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did not, however, make me into a cultural insider; I was not, at least it seemed to me,
a Bulgarian. While Kostadin couldnt explain his ornamentation to me in enough
detail to make me understand it, I came to be able to explain it to myself and to others; I now understood the finger movements and other mental processes necessary to
produce the gaidas characteristic ornamentation. (Rice 1997:110)

The idea of a dance

When someone is dancing, it is mostly thought about as being the realization of a
dance. This means that the dancers, and even other people related to the dancing,
will give it a name, but the name is not targeted only at this one instance of dancing.
It is supposed to be the name for an action that can be repeated. The relationship
between the name and the phenomena it is used to cover is an extremely complicated matter. Remembering the dispute between realists and nominalists in the
philosophy of the Middle Ages (Copleston 1990), lets also imagine two kinds of
dance researchers, the realists and the nominalists.17
The realist, like her colleagues in philosophy, would believe that it is possible
to grasp intuitively the idea of a dance (essence of dance realizations) through
realizations of dance. She would approach an invariant dance through singular
phenomenal variationsrealizations of itand would believe that the basis of her
dance knowledge is the real invariant dance, rather than variant phenomenal realizations of it.
The dance-research nominalist would rather think that a dance doesnt exist
in realityit is an abstract of our intellectual activity.According to her, our
intellectgroups singular dance realizations into the categories of dances either
by constructing concepts or by approximating resemblances. The dance-research
nominalist would believe that our understanding of a dance is constructed by our
categorizations and the concepts we use. The categories are never definitive or
absolute, there are always overlaps and exceptions, and each category is a more
or lessarbitrary construction.Consequently, for the dance realist, the concept of
dance would be of primary importance; while for dance nominalist, the realization
of dance would be so. We suppose that the prioritization of notation or filming also
depends on these basic philosophical presuppositions.
In a Nordic context, a dance could be, for instance, a pariserpolka, and a traditional dancer would probably be a realist seeingmainly his own community. For
him, the dance pariserpolka, as a conceptis the stable and real part of life, and
the realizations do not matter muchthis is perhaps true even for many dance
notators.A researcher comparing more communities will rapidly get into trou 17. The discussion of idealist and materialist approaches to dance as proposed by Jack
Anderson refers neither to the philosophical terms of idealism and materialism elaborated in
the German philosophy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries nor to the problem of universals that emerged in the philosophy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Anderson
(1983:412) himself also stresses that he did not intend to do this. The following part of our
argument is constructed on the basis of the latter epistemological debate (for recent discussions in philosophy, see Armstrong 1978; Gosselin 1990).

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blewith such a position. When we analysed a good number of realizations of a

pariserpolka in one dance community, Sauda, we found four motives that were
continuously repeated in the same order. These four motives represented one runthrough of the dance done to eight bars of music. There were, however, a number
of variations to most of the four motives. The pariserpolka was done as a fourmotive dance all over western Norway, but different communities could use different variations of the motives. We could ask: are the pariserpolka variants in hundreds of communities all over western Norway one dance, or would it make more
sense to say that the way pariserpolka is done in Sauda is one dance, pariserpolka
from Sauda. If the latter is the case, thenall the different communities would have
their own version of pariserpolka. Would it make sense to call the pariserpolka in
the neighbouring place of Sand, pariserpolka from Sand, even if it did not have
any other variation elements than what we found in Sauda and, to the contrary,
had even fewer? Consequently there is hardly any answer to the question How
many traditional dances are there in Norway, mainly because we cannot tell what
a dance is.
As far as I can judge, pure form analyses of all the spoken languages of the world
would probably provide the basis for concluding that language as human expression
can be seen as one enormous, ranging continuum. We can say the same of dance.
It would not seem possible to set absolute, consistent form criteria for division into
smaller units, even though there are many sharp, clear boundaries within the large
pattern. (Bakka, Aksdal, and Flem 1995:22)

Pariserpolka from Sauda was defined as a dance for the practical purpose of
notating it. Video recordings of some fifteen couples, each couple dancing the
dance several times, were transcribed. The transcription was done for one couples
realization of the dance at a time, although, due to the fairly simple patterns used,
the transcription was done in shorthand. All the transcriptions were then compared and summarized. In this way the structure of the dance with all the recorded
variations could be described (Bakka, Moen, and Srstrnen n.d.). The resulting
description could then be seen as a systematic compilation of the dance knowledge
realized by the filmed couples. We could probably claim that the description would
represent most of the communitys dance concept for the pariserpolka at the time
of filming.Such descriptions have become standard teaching material in Norway,
where there has been and continues to be a focus on dance as the heritage of local
communities (figure 3).
Hungarian approaches represent interesting parallels and contrasts. Hungarian
folk dance research and transmission have consistently been based on transcribing
individual realizations in Labanotation.Onthe other hand, in contrast with Norway,
the transcriptions of individual realizations have also been used as teaching materials. This is probably due toa different structure of the dance material, wheregeographical variation seems lessobvious. In this way, Hungarian dancersdo notexplicitly use the idea of the dance concept in their work (Lszl Felfldi, pers. com.,
December 2008).

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Figure 3. Pariserpolka at Folkets Hus (the labour unions house) in the small industrial
town of Lkken, April 1976. Folkets Hus was the main place for public dance parties
in the town in the mid-twentieth century (frame from a film, Norwegian Centre for
Traditional Music and Dance).

In the world of dance criticism, the dance realization instead of a dance (work)
(as in a dance concept) is supposed to be the main target. That is why Arlene
Croces refusal to see the realization of the dance-work Still/Here by Bill T.
Jones created such agreat dissonance(Croce 199495).How could adance critic
judge the concept of dance without seeing the dance realization? A choreographer,
a dancer, or an audience expects the dance critic to offer an argument or discussion that is based on the experience ofa singular dance event. They also expect the
dance critic to reveal aspects of the dance work that may not have been intended
bythe choreographer ordancers, and, perhaps, not even noticed by the audience
all based on her experiences from seeing the dance-work. Thus the importance of
the job of a dance critic is this unique opportunity to extend knowledge about the
dance-work by relying on the trained eye. It was already suggested thata dance
critic should first of all concentrate on experiential similarities and differences of
the singular dance-works, being able to grasp them as phenomenally given (Levin
1983:92), compare them, and distinguish peculiarities, improvisations, or, perhaps,
shortcomings here and there. Dance criticism is not an act, it is a process: seeing
and reviewing thenewly created and presenteddance-work. A dance critic constantly forms and reformsthe concept of the dance-work,continuously consulting
her phenomenological analysis of dance realizations. The idea of a dance would
be a dangerous path that may lead a dance critic into judgements that were too far
fromthe realized dances.We do not subscribe to the strong claim that criticism is

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a parasitic discourse (Steiner 1989), but we certainly want to promote the idea that
the primacy of realization should be the first rule for dance criticism.
The lakalaka,made known through Kaepplers analysis, has totally different
problems when looking at how to distinguish a dance.
Today there are six Tongan dance genres, each of which has a different combination
of structural elements. The three living Tongan dance genres (within which new
dances are still created), although reputedly created or diffused in historic times,
are closely related to three traditional dance genres that are still performed but are
no longer created. Indeed, the living genres seem to be mainly recombinations of
kinemic, morphokinemic, and motif elements of the older dance genres. (Kaeppler
1972:214)

The lakalaka is not a usual participatory dance, but has strong elements of the
presentational dimension (Nahachewsky 1995), since, as we understand,a group
of dancers and musiciansfrom a specific village may choreograph a new lakalaka
to a large formal event, for instance, to celebrate the king. Asingular dance could
in this context be the preset choreography made by one village. In principle, however, the lakalaka would be the set of elements and rules for composing a lakalaka,
and a genre of individually composed dances.
Three epistemic approaches: A philosophical point of view
For better understanding of the epistemic position of a dance researcher, lets
construct another part of our argument and differentiate between the first-person,
the other-person (or second-person), and the sub-personal (or third-personal)18
epistemic approaches. This differentiation among the epistemic approaches has
recently become one of the most relevant methodological topics in the interdisciplinary field of consciousness studies (Varela and Shear 1999; Dennett 2001),
where the traditions of phenomenology and cognitive science converged (Gallagher
and Zahavi 2008). In 1969 the concept sub-personal was proposed by philosopher Daniel Dennett (1986) as an attempt to separate personal and sub-personal
levels of explanation of human life (e.g., we could try to explain human life by
referring to personal intentions and actions or, otherwise, we could try to explain
it by referring to neural circuits, physical causation, etc.). Although Dennett has
deserted his previous stance, other philosophers still argue for preserving this difference (Hornsby 2000) and support the line of thinking that Dennett himself traces
back to Wittgenstein and Ryle (Dennett 1986:95). The differentiation between
the first and the other person has been sharpened in the recent methodological
debate on heterophenomenology, a term also proposed by Dennett (2003), but
strongly criticized by phenomenologists (Dennett 2007). As a consequence, two
18. We do not use the term third person as other researchers do (Overgaard 2004),
because it might be misunderstood as implying some kind of personal level, whereas the
sub-personal level is meant. For a personalized interpretation of this term, see Depraz and
Cosmelli (2003).

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methodological framesautophenomenology and heterophenomenologywere

contraposited (Marbach 2007; Dennett 2007). We do not claim that it might be
possible to reduce one epistemic approach into the other; therefore, the distinctions drawn between the first-person account (autophenomenology) and the otherperson account (heterophenomenology), and between personal and sub-personal,
in general, are preserved and explicated in the field of dance knowledge.
The first-person approach
The first-person approach is most clearly realized by doing autophenomenology
(Marbach 2007).19One of the aims of autophenomenology is description and analysis of phenomenal experiences that were/are accessible only to me as the subject of these experiences (the first person). The most widely used example of an
autophenomenological description isthe description of a pain that I am suffering
from. For example, even a small child saying that she or he feels a headache has
an exceptional authority over the truthfulness of this statement. As the phenomenal
aspect, a doctor has to take a childs statement for granted, even in the case of
the doctor having a clear explanation that a child could not have any idea about.
Could a small child get a better grasp of this phenomenon? Perhaps not. But a phenomenologist of pain who suffers from a headache would struggle to give a better
phenomenological account of what she or he actually experiences.
Autophenomenology does not have standard procedures that automatically
increase knowledge like mathematical formulae, nor can it suggest easy, unexplored ways of doing dance research.It just demands to change the attitude from
the natural to the phenomenological.20
Autophenomenology is rigorous in distinguishing an experienced content from
a judgement about it, visible from invisible, an experience that is mine from an
experience that belongs to others. Autophenomenological descriptions do not necessarily target so-called inner experiences. Inan autophenomenological description all our senses can be involved and consequently a rigorous field log from
participatory observation can be a good example of autophenomenology. Lets
imagine an anthropologist taking down notes during participatory observation:
I am sitting on a chair in the community house watching a young man21walking
across the floor, asking a girl to dance. She gets up very quickly, smiling, and they
embrace each other and start dancing.
19. The term autophenomenology is used as a synonym for rigorous Husserlian phenomenology. It is important to stress that it differs from the wide and loose usage of the term
phenomenological.
20. For further descriptions of how this methodology could work in dance research, see
Parviainen (2006) and Karoblis (2007a, 2010).
21. Eventhe concepts young and oldand the concepts man and girl contain judgements. There are genetic diseases which can make young individuals lookmuch older than
is usual for their age. We judge age from skin surface, movement style, etc. Young and
old might refer to birth date, but it is then a part of a narrative, not of experience. Man
and girl are perhaps mainly based on dressing, and we could get in trouble with, for example, cross-dressing.

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181

If I add to this that they seem to be in love, I am making a judgement that takes me
out of strict autophenomenology; but I could make an observation on my impressionthat is, empathy on the basis of which I attribute to this couple mental states
such as being in love, etc. We continue the field log:
An individual dressed as is conventional for a man walks over to me and makes a
bow. I interpret it as an invitation to dance with him, and get up. I recognize the
music as being a reinlender and start doing the dance as I usually do. My partner
goes on with the promenade motif, and his steps are clearly different from mine, but
he does not seem to mind or notice that I am dancing differently. Then he starts turning at a point I do not expect because it does not coincide with the musical phrases
in the way I am used to.

I could easily have made a judgement writing in my field log: I was invited to
dance a reinlender with a man who did not knowthe dance at all. The background
could actually be that the dancer did not know the dance or that I was doing the conventional square version, whereas he did the free-flowing Numedal version.In
summary, dance phenomenology is directed toward a perceptual phenomenon of
dancing that is: present-for-me or represented-by-me (remembered or imagined);
given to me, not only visually but to all senses,as kinaesthetic and tactile senses;
given to me, including myself and not-myself dancing (Karoblis 2010).It does
not exclude practical details or technical descriptions and does not prioritize introspection. Autophenomenology could efficiently work as a method in the analysis
of filmed material as it is given to personal observation. Autophenomenological
scrutiny makes it very clear that dancing in filmed material is presented not as a
dance, but as the movement patterns recorded by a moving or nonmoving camera
directed in one or another angle.
The sub-personal approach
In contrast to autophenomenology, the sub-personal approach aims at eliminatingany subjective aspects from the research and is often defined as the third-person
approach (Overgaard 2004:372). The less the sub-personalist researcher is involved
in making personal decisions or judgements, the closer she is to the sub-personal
ideal, as in The View from Nowhere (Nagel 1986). According to this point of view,
data collected with measurement instruments or by recording should always be
the starting point and basis for any interpretation. Measurement made with instruments or by recording provides information that extends the limits of knowledge
and, quite often, transgresses our limited capabilities of judgement based on pure
perceptions. From an extreme sub-personal point of view, the work of adjudicators
at a dance competition should ideally be made impersonal by having it done by
cameras and computers.
Recordings of dance are data stored in their physical sub-personal mode of
being. They are comparable to measurement data in the natural sciences. Data are
in themselves sub-personal, but as soon as we get into interpretation we enter the
personal level. In any science there is the problem of selecting what you docu-

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ment and how you document it, which is not on a sub-personal level. Decisions
and dispositions of a documentatorwhether in fieldwork or in scientific measurementsdetermine the selection of data and the mode of documentation. Still
the data recorded in such waysfor example, on film or other mediaremain in
themselves sub-personal and are alwaysavailable for interpretation. Interpretation
is always interpretation of something given. An archaeologist would construct a
story about an implement she finds by interpreting all traces on it and connected
to it. Additionally, she needs perhaps to fill gaps by using other data, such as
similar implements found elsewhere. In this sense science is always construction.
Nevertheless, normal constructions of science are far away from fabrications of
fake material. It is the normal integration of the invisible horizon of understanding
into historic or archaeological material. Moreover, modern technologies allow not
only inscriptions of static images into materialities, such as rock carvings, but can
also inscribe sequences of image and sound into materialitiesphysical containers
of encoded information, such as film. The problem for dance history is precisely
the lack of such information. The development of the sub-personal approaches in
science and technologysuch as the invention of cinematography at the end of
nineteenth centurymade historic sub-personal data available to us, thus extending our empirical field dramatically. If preserved, the films are present with us
and will remain present. Therefore, through film, a researcher of dance history or
anthropology can observe events or dances from the point of view of an extra eye
or an extra ear that can not be replaced by any other types of sources. It may seem
that the criticism of the superficial and literal interpretation of historical source
material tends to contaminate even the evaluation of the sources themselves (Sparti
and Adshead-Lansdale 1996).
The other-person approach
The other-person approach is based on testimonies and communication from
persons other than the researcher and corresponds to the broadly understood,
but undifferentiated, second-person approach (Depraz and Cosmelli 2003). This
approach originally inspired the hermeneutic turn in phenomenological philosophy
(Heidegger 1993; Gadamer 1960). It questioned if a pure subjective phenomenological standpointunaffected by intersubjective prejudices and preconceptions
was possible. Although the topic of intersubjectivity (the other-person problem) has
already been discussed by Husserl in 1931 in his Cartesian meditations (Husserl
1991), various criticisms of Husserlian subjectivism have been proposed (e.g.,
Derrida 1973) and rejected (e.g., Zahavi 2001).
Leaving aside this very broad philosophical discussion between hermeneutics
and phenomenology, we will concentrate on recent pragmatic methodological
reflections in phenomenology that argue for refined other-person approaches and
intersubjective validation (Depraz, Vermersch, and Varela 2002). These methodological reflections includethe evaluation of multiple second-person methods,
ranging from the advice of a spiritual friend to the consensus of the community
of researchers (Depraz and Cosmelli 2003:182).The other-person approach is

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involved where the researcher is interviewing other persons or benefits from their
mediation of knowledge. Anthropology of dance relies strongly on the interviews
or testimonies of informants, and there are a multitude of ways to interview people; for example, it may be possible for a researcher to help her informant describe
his or her immediate experiences by using the technique of explicitation interview (Vermersch 1994). In this way, the interaction between the researcher and
the informant is a guiding of the informant into autophenomenology and it should
be based on pragmaticsthat is, on the teaching of how to disclose experience
(Depraz, Vermersch, and Varela 2002). The intersubjective interaction ranges from
subjective personal expression to further modes that involve account (individual
first-person testimony as directed to the other person), report (detached verbalization of the experience of a given subject), and description (which should be seen
on the level that is the closest to being objective in a broad sense) (Depraz and
Cosmelli 2003).
These methodological refinements of the other-person approach are, however, still relatively rare in dance research, even in what could be called dance
phenomenology.22 Theloose, other-person approaches, which draw upon narratives told by other people from other fields of expertise, dominate. These narratives
could have in the background the first-person experience or sub-personal data, quite
often mixed in the totality of the narrative. They also often include many value
judgements. These narratives are often abstractions of singular cases from various
sources of knowledge. For example, one normally constructs the narrative of ones
birth by strongly relying on what ones parents say. One may, however, integrate
later first-person perceptions of the place of ones birth or material documentation
of the fact such as film. Even genetic tests are available on the sub-personal level.
But no one has experience from her own birth.
Moreover a multitude of scholars inhistory, sociology, politics, or anthropology seem to shareinfluential presuppositions that explain away first-person experiences as fatal interiorizations of social values, prejudices, etc., claiming that these
experiences are all based in social conventions and linguistic practices (Derrida
1984).Postcolonial theories share a similar critique of the first-person plural
ethnocentrism that is found entrapped in the cultural biasesabout the Other(Said
1978).The adherents of other-person approaches alsoclaim that the practices of
the natural sciences are equally dependent on decisions, conventions, science poli 22. An example could be the otherwise inspiring article of Parviainen (2006) that tackles
important issues in the application of phenomenological method in dance research, but at
the same time, unfortunately, involves some value statements such as the aerobic mover
observes her/his heart rate by reading the indication on his/her hand. The movers prefer to
trust the meters of the objective body to the immediately given quality of experience. In the
future, are we all followed by little robots which, measuring constantly our objective body
condition, tell us what we should do? The little robot as a personal trainer tells us when
we should eat, drink, have an exercise, go to bed. If we begin more and more to be faithful
to the machines concerning our bodies, what does it mean in the moral sense? (ibid.:143
44). Parviainen misses the point because the aerobic mover actually trusts the instructor or
the friend who advises to use measuring devices that could eventually become a personal
trainer, but only in a metaphoric sense.

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tics, and the consensus of the scientific community and society in general (Kuhn
1962; Feyerabend 1975; Latour and Woolgar 1979; Bourdieu 1988).
Dance researchers echo these general tendencies in thehumanities and the social
sciences, criticizing or ignoring first-personal and sub-personal approaches. For
example, Philippa Rothfield critiques the phenomenology of dance as developed
by Sheets-Johnstone (1979):
Taken corporeally, the point is that experience occurs in a body which is thoroughly
marked by history. According tothis position, Sheets-Johnstones historical omission was not a lack of eidetic vision on her part but anindication of the (limited)
means by which movement is experienced Sheets-Johnstones analysis grew out
of her own experience of movement which occurred within a particular historical,
intellectual and artistic context. (Rothfield 2005:47)

On the other hand, researchers exploring the possibilities of the neuroscientific

study of dance wonder
why and how dancers (or artists in general) might consider neuro-scientific study
of their disciplinesas intrusions, if not sacrilege. An encapsulation of the problems of neuro-sciencefrom the dancers perspective would include: (1) a bias for
scientiststo choose almost exclusively quantitative over qualitative data, (2) the
formulaictendency of science to reduce the whole to parts, and (3) the relatedtendency to analyse categorically rather than holistically. These methodsof analysis are
diametrically opposed to the ways in which our dancersenquire. (Dale, Hyatt, and
Hollerman 2007:99)

From our point of view, the critique from the side of other-personal approaches
directed at sub-personal and first-personal research overlooks that other-person
approaches can supplement, but not substitute, sub-personal or first-personal
approaches. These two sources of knowledge are irreducible to any other source of
knowledge. They are also inexhaustible within their own limits, in the same way
as other-person sources are. The impossibility of achieving the ideal phenomenal
transparency in the life of the first person or the impossibility of achieving the ideal
objectiveness of sub-personal research does not discredit them per se.
We, as dance researchers, often construct narratives combining our own experiences and knowledge, collected through other-person testimonies, as well as subpersonal data. We would like to test if there is a reason to keep them apart. It seems
important to usas researchers to remain aware of what sources of knowledge we
use: first-person sources, other-person sources, or sub-personal sources. We suggest that we need to reflect upon how they can be combined, but not confused
(Hanna 2002) or confronted.
Philosophy and ethnochoreology in discussion
As a conclusion to this article, we wentback to Bakkas innocent description
ofhis fieldwork in Numedal at the beginning; and Karoblis asked: You wrote,

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185

The musicians on the stage are playing. How high was the stage where the musicians were playing?
Bakkaexplained that the draftwas meant to be an illustration of fieldwork in
general. Duringhis 1985 fieldwork in Numedal,he filmed on four evenings in different localities. For this reason, hewas not referring to one singular event while
writing, but whenhe went back over it, planning the referencing he did see the
problems. On the one hand, he wanted to write an appealing, condensed story,
assembling what he felt were typical traits. On the other hand, he realized that all
those typical and perhaps colourful elements of dance evenings, hardly ever happen all together in one event. As for the stage, he was idealizing. Norway does
have a large number of community houses, often called youth halls, where a lot
of dancing went on from the 1920s till the 1950s and 1960s. Bakka did a lot of
documentation in such places, often with the set-up as described, but this was not
the case in Numedal, where he mostly filmed at schools.He certainly could have
filmed in typical community houses if he would have given priority to that aspect
and, in such a case, the stage might have been a bit more than a metre high.
Karoblishad beenconvinced that Bakka was presenting a singular event in his
introductory story. Now he understood that Bakkas story was a composition of
his experiences from various places plus stories told by dancers in various places.
It was an abstracted story.Narratives that circulate among us are composed from
somebodys experiences, abstracted according to the needs of listeners.Bakka
agreed and explained that he composed the story thinking about the people who
would read this article, trying to make it appealing and informative at the same
time. Most of the anthropological evidence presented in research papers is hardly,
so to say, raw data, but rather elaborated, filtered, and abstractednarratives.
Then Karoblis asked: When you wrote They are back in the arena, could you
distinguish how much of it was from your experience and how much did you find
out about from other persons?
Bakka explained that this partwas based onhis impressions from a large number
of interviews with people born between 1910 and 1930 from all over Norway, and
that it seemed to be more or less generally valid for most countryside communities
where dancing was important.He felt that therewas hardly anything fromhis own
experience in this.He could not experience or read anything of this directly in the
filming or fieldwork situation. As forhis personal background,hegrew up after
World War II andhis learning to dance took place in a folk dance group.Herarely
wentto the ordinary dance parties inhis community,buthe could still see the
strong importance of knowing how to dance the popular dancesamonghis agemates in the late 1950s.
Karoblis asked Bakka toexplain his basis for writing thatThe dancers typically know six or seven dances. Since Bakka was filming, could he combine
filming and observation?
Bakka said that of course he would observe in a filming situation, but it would
not be his focus, andhe would not have time or resources to do any kind of participatory observation with the kind of agenda that was and stillisthe basis forhis
work.He does not think that participatory observation and direct learning from

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traditional dancers would not have been valuable.Bakka did collect data about
each person present, primarily to get basic information from the dancers and
musicians.The estimate on thenumber of dances the dancers knew referred tothis
kind of informationwhichhe always collectedwhere the informants gave the
names of the dances they knew. Directly after the filming he also wrote short notes
about the filming situation, taking down what people said about what they did,
and about the mood and the attitude in the situation. Additionallyhe would tape
interviews with a selection of the dancers and musicians as far as time allowed.The
main problem was that he was extremelypressed by lack of time.
Karoblis asked Bakka to explain his basis for the analysis of the dance techniquein the paragraph beginning Numedal is one of those places.Was it based
on the film material, whichwould then be a source on the sub-personal level?
Bakka confirmedthat the analysis was made on the basis of film material. Bakka
made several attempts to have local people learn from their elders in a systematic
way. It was very difficult for several reasons; his conclusion was that the analysis
of filmed material had to be the first step. The contact with the people who knew
the dances would be a second step. The procedures were then asdescribed above
about pariserpolka:hetranscribed singular realizations in cooperation with local
people and comparedtranscriptions to find a basis for learning and teaching. A lot
of strategic decisions were made byhim and the local people. Such source material
has on several occasions been revisited by others to testthe interpretations; these
are also quite interesting and inspiring.
Karoblissuggested that the most important aspect of hard science is that interpretationscompeteon the basis of the same data. In 2001 the New Perspectives
in fMRI Research Award was announced for the most creative and convincing secondary examination of brain image data. It was established by the fMRI
(Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) Data Center (http://www.fmridc.org)
and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Karoblis thinks that the scientific decision to collect and share raw empirical material is of very great importance. With
this, we then have the common basis on which we can develop theories or interpretations; without this, it would be impossible! How could various interpretations be
falsified? Without such empirical material, we could only have the claims of one
person against the claims of another person.
Bakka suggested that sub-personal data is an eye into another time and space
that hardly any other kinds of sources can replace. We admit that without a competent reader it does not make sense, but a competent reader does not necessarily need
to have talked with people from the context. Competence can still be developed, as
in, for instance, archaeology.
Conclusion
This article may be read as proposing to resituate, re-actualize, and renew methodologies established by early European ethnochoreologists (Grau and Wierre-Gore
2005), particularly as developed in Hungary in the middle of the twentieth cen-

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tury (Felfldi 1999) and in Norway and other Nordic countries from the 1970s
(Bakka 1981, 1991, 1999). We have tried to do this by looking at the field of
dance research from the perspective of philosophy, as well as from the perspective of ethnochoreology. Additional perspectives have been based in the culturalpolitical agenda as represented by the Norwegian Centre for Traditional Music and
Dance and educational developments within the dance studies programme at the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology. At the beginning of the article
we told a story about how traditional dance is becoming heritage. The story also
illustrates the intentions of the UNESCO convention for safeguarding intangible
cultural heritage (Gore and Bakka 2009; UNESCO 2003). The convention creates a demand for methodologies handling movement and movement analysis for
the purposes of documentation and transmission, such as some of those that we
advocated in this article. Film/video recording for documentation purposes needs
to become a systematic and theoretically grounded tool, and the analysis of such
recordings needs renewal and development. This would be decisively aided by an
acceptance of and a new exploration into sub-personal methods and perspectives,
which could and should be done without getting trapped in positivism. We also
argue for a stricter discipline in the application of first-personal methodologies
following the way of the philosophical tradition of phenomenology. According to
our argument, the other-personal methodologies, such as conventional interviews,
have been prioritized at the cost of other methodologies and may have exhausted
their potential if they are not renewed and resituated theoretically. A bottom-line
in our argument is that, despite all the cumbersome work it takes, generalizations
need to be based upon the explorations of singular events, such as realizations of
dance. We argue that there is a need in dance research to work systematically with
empirical material and to strive for a transparency about how singular events bring
us to generalizations.
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