Message of Dance Around the World, Essay Example

Introduction

There is a considerable wealth of scholarly work on dancing and how it serves as a communication forum in many respects. This notwithstanding there is very little work dedicated to looking at the transmission and reception of nonverbal communicated messages within the social setting. It is with this in mind that this research will fundamentally be addressing this gap in dance scholarship.

Among other things, my work critically studied the message transmission paradigm within the context of individuals and groups engaging in social dancing in a natural environment. The study was hinged on key nonverbal indicators such as mainly haptics and proxemics with a limited focus on kinesics. At some point in the study focus groups were incorporated into the basic observational scope of the study, which eventually resulted in the realization that dancing especially within the social setting provides a platform that sustains the transmission and reception of peculiar messages during the dance process under a broad banner of an interpretational streams.

In the course of the study, it was noticed that the transmission and reception of messages is not in any way defined by a specific schedule especially within the social setting. It therefore goes without saying that the messages flow could be planned or unplanned yet in both cases varying degrees of impacts are made. Brabazon (1998, Pp 110) explains that dancing provides a legitimate precursor for socialization, flirting and attraction all within the structured scope in a communication process that is basically nonverbal in nature.

Literature Review

Communication of every form is an integral part of the human existence, with nonverbal communication being a part of this experience therefore exploring communication through dance is imperative in the bid to exhaustively put communication in its rightful place. De Vito et al (1999, Pp. 34) in a critical study of the role of communication in human interactions leaned credence to the above assertion by stating that over sixty per cent of information reception and transmission between humans is carried out in the nonverbal medium.

In examining dance in its apparent form, they contend that dancing enables people to send and receive messages in a nonverbally creative way. But their concern was mainly placed on the exactness of the message being relayed and also how that message is being received and assimilated. Posing a question such as this one can trigger complications because of the depth of the topic under consideration, to get over this difficulty this paper will lay principal attention on how it works in the social milieu of dancing. Some of the conspicuous elements of this communication process is seen in facial expressions, touches, eye contact, dancing space among other things.

Shue & Beck (2001, Pp 129) have addressed some level of haptic theories in their work and they have revealed that touch in dance is widely viewed as a means of demonstrating affection, sexual sentiments, but they have also been swift in indicating that the interpretation of touch is not the same between members of opposite sexes. The sexual sentiment message in touches is more associated to men than it does to women. Within the same vein, women are more inclined to communicating nonverbally than men will do in a social dancing situation.

Pioneering studies of nonverbal communication in the dance hall carried out by Cegala (1981, Pp120) identified eye contact and facial expressions as vehicles of sending a message across to a dance partner. This is the process known as kinesics. Eye contact in particular is an effective indicator of the degree of flirting that is taking place or even permissible under the existing circumstance. For instance a person can express a lack of interest by taking away or refusing to acknowledge a stern gaze where is the reverse can be true in a stimulation process.

It is easier to express feelings nonverbally in a dance session than it would otherwise be in other related situations. Affifi & Johnson (1999, Pp 22) asserts that such a mechanism is popular with young people, still within the same arena Devito et al 1999 also states that such nonverbally communicated messages can provide the impetus to get relationships of any sort started. Hamilton & Parker (2001, Pp 136) have also stated that the reason is simply because often times the social distance is subsumed under the weight of the dancing energy to a level that almost dissipates some conventional borderlines.

Research Method & Questions

My research was built on a number of questions designed to pry deeply into some of the contending details embedded in the practice of social dancing. It took keen interest in the following:

• How do individuals receive nonverbal messages during social dancing and how are the messages perceived?
• How do individual dancers send nonverbal messages to their partners and what motivates their choice of message?
• How are the nonverbal message codes demonstrated during social dancing?

As far as the methodology is concerned this work was based on participation and observation of how social dancing is carried out within the diverse social settings. Observations were carried out without prior notification of the subjects involved in the bars and clubs visited. The reason for this approach is to fulfill the core requirement of observing the dance process within the socially natural setting. Nonrandom sampling technique was employed in observing any body involved in dancing on the dance floor. The observation was careful in limiting the process to the dancers who were especially sending out nonverbal messages to their dance partners.

Observations

The observation tends to focus more on female dancers because on the average there were more female dancers on the dance floor than there were men. It was also observed that the female dancers always had dance partners, either with a male partner or a clique of friends. Female dancers typically engaged in touchy gestures, and the forms of touching differ on the sex of the particular dance partner at a given time. Female dancers are also more inclined to use facial expressions in the process of sending out a nonverbal message.

Male dancers are not quick to jump on the dance floor. They tend to take a careful scan through the dance floor to locate a likely female dance partner before getting involved. Male dancers use eye contact to precede their move to join a female dancer and when that is successful the rest of the communication process is followed sequentially as and when they are welcomed. Male to male dance partnering is very seldom.

Findings and Implications

Ultimately this study was able to identify the prevalence of a number of nonverbal communication styles expressed during a social dancing setting. Subjects of the study did indicate that nonverbal messages were issued and received during the dancing process, in line with the objective of the research questions. Clearly, besides casually dancing on the dance floor other rudimentary exchanges do take place in a precisely tentative manner. Among the principal nonverbal messages sent and received included attention, attraction, flirtation and sexual sentiments.

Conclusion

As stated in the opening section of this writing, the study had as its goal looking into the transmission and reception of nonverbal communication messages on the social setting. Though a wealth of scholarly work abounds on dance as a communication tool, there is very little scholarly materials that exclusively looks at the nonverbal communication regime that takes place on the social front. There is no universally prescribed medium of transmission and reception of nonverbal messages in the social dance setting, however the impact is always the same judging by the fact that communication does indeed takes place but how it is taken remains an entirely different issue all together. With this background, the prospect of future research in this area remains very enormous and pursuing it will provide deeper insights into the little that is already available by way of scholarly work.

Works Cited

Afifi, W.A. & Johnson, M. L. “The Use and Interpretation of tie Signs in a Public Public Setting: Relationship and Sex differences.” Journal of Social Sciences and Personal Relationships, 1999: 16-37.

Brabazon, T. “Disco(urse) dancing: Reading the body Politic.” Australian Journal Of Communication, 1998: 24, 104-114

Cegala, D.J. “Interaction Involvement: A Cognitive Dimension of Communication Competence.” Communication Education, 1981: 30(109-123)

DeVito, J.A., Guerrero, L.K & Hecht, M.L. The nonverbal Communication Reader. IL: Waveland Press, Inc, 1999.

Hamilton, C. & Parker, C. Communication for Results: A guide for Businesses and the Professions, CA: Wadsworth, 2001.

Shue, L., & Beck, C. “Stepping Out of Bounds: Performing Feminist Pedagogy Within a Dance Education Community.” Communication Education, 2001: 50 (125-143).