Ballroom Dance As A Social Science

Who's that guy in the ballroom with the long dark hair and the camera? And why is he taking all those notes? It's Jonathan Marion, and he's researching the ballroom dance community for his doctoral thesis. We see him everywhere… Canada, England, Germany and all over the United States. He's completely content to stay in the background and observe the ongoing dynamics of the competition and dance school environment. With so many notebooks brimming with his thoughts and audiotapes filled with interviews, Jonathan is not only interested in the most influential people in the dance world, but also the beginning dance students and teachers.

He gladly accepts input from anyone who wants to add to his research. If you have any stories or insights email to Ynot_@yahoo.com, or send to Jonathan S. Marion, University of California, San Diego, Department of Anthropology, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0532. Tax-deductible donations can also be made to help fund this worthwhile project. Make checks payable to "UC Regents," the memo should read "Anthropology-Ballroom Research" and mailed to: Division of Social Sciences, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0502

Why did you decide to write your paper on the ballroom dance community?

When I entered graduate school at San Diego State, I was studying something else entirely, and had never taken a step of any type of dance in my life. I had no interest in it. You probably would have had to put a gun to my head to try it. I happened to be at a conference where I met someone and fell in love, and dancing was something they were into. I decided I needed to dance to impress her. So I went into a studio to learn salsa, because that's what she did. Through that, I got exposed to the whole thing and it just snowballed. As time went on, I became more and more obsessed. I became sort of torn, because I had my other academic project, but it wasn't really where my interest was. I was very lucky that a scholar who was very prominent within my own academic field was visiting the school. I told him about my original project, but also told him I had this inkling in the back of my mind that I'd like to do something on dance. I really didn't think that the academic community would go for it; that it would be perceived as a little too fluffy. But this guy got really excited. That convinced me that this was something that maybe had teeth to it as far as the academic community was concerned. So I went back to the drawing board and started doing some background research in social science and social theory. I really found a lot of material, some very rich background. I presented it to my advisor, and he said that it looked good. What it basically comes down to is that I started dancing myself, at least in my conception of it, too late and with too little ability to actually be able to spend my life around this world based on dancing alone. So it serves two purposes simultaneously... it lets me spend my time and live amongst dancers and dancing, which I love. It also gives me a chance to say, "Look, this is such a concentrated social arena, that yes, my project is on dance, but if you think that it is only about dance, you're missing something, because people who dance aren't just dancing. There's so many other things involved." It's a very concentrated and focused arena in which a lot of different social dynamics and variables can be considered. Very theoretically illuminating, I think.

When you talked to your committee about this, did they have any idea that this kind of world even existed?

Of course, they've all seen the dancing on PBS. They know it's out there somewhere, but didn't really know much about it. I have one committee member who's actually in the ethnic studies department, and he does know a lot about the salsa research that's been done. But, aside from that, they knew it was out there, but really didn't know a lot about it.

What is the title of your paper?

The title of my dissertation, at least as it was proposed and defended as a proposal, is Dance As Self, Culture, and Community and then the sub-title is Meaning and the Construction of Personal and Collective Identity in Ballroom and Salsa Dance.

What is your major?

I'm getting my Ph.D. in socio-cultural anthropology. More specifically, my sub-field is psychological anthropology, which really looks at the permeable border between personality and culture… how personalities contribute to the cultural system and how the culture shapes personality. I think that's very much in evidence within the dance community. Twenty years ago an anthropologist would have gone to some island and lived with a tribe for a year or two. The tribe I'm looking at is dancers.

What are you finding in the dance community?

That's a good question, and as a rule of good social research, I don't want to comment on it until I'm done. I don't want to bias anything that's out there. A lot of people ask me, "What are you looking at?" And I don't want to come across as an idiot saying, "Well, I don't know." I have ideas. But I've been hanging around the dance community seriously for about a year now, and it's ludicrous to claim that I really know what's going on yet. The deeper I dig, the more time I spend and the more people I meet, I realize there's layers and layers and it's so complex. So if I say, "This is what I'm looking at," then someone might very helpfully, and thinking they're answering exactly what I want, tell me just that. And maybe that wasn't what was really even going on. Maybe there's another thing I didn't even know to ask about. So I'm trying to reserve my judgment for the time being. Of course, I have my ideas and impressions, at least in the interim.

Has this ever been done before?

Not on this scale, and not in exactly the same way. There's been good research done on dance, but for ballroom I found it to be mostly historical in nature. Because I got involved in dance myself through salsa, I am also focusing on that a little. It's closely related, but it is different. There's been some really good contemporary sociological and anthropological research on salsa, but it tends to focus on South America. I don't think anything yet has said, "Here's the entire institutional culture and system, as it is in the U.S." Japan and Australia have different systems. I'm not going to be able to get to them and include them in this, but I'm going to expand this one out to Europe.

When you finish your thesis, do you have plans on what you're going to do with it?

Absolutely. The dissertation project itself, when it's done, will probably be four or five hundred pages. Some of the material that's getting worked up for that might come out as Journal articles along the way. And then, as is traditional within Academia, the dissertation usually serves as the basis for your first published book. And so the idea is that the 400 page dissertation gets chopped down, and a lot of the overly theoretical and technical references get chopped out, and what's left will be a 200 - 300 page book. I'll have to see how the material unfolds. I'm currently thinking that it might make more sense to actually split it into two books. One geared more to the social science and theory, and the other one geared more towards dancers, or lay populace who are interested in dance.

Do you also work?

I work as a teaching assistant at the University for one of the undergraduate general education and writing programs, and I'm salaried at 20 hours a week. For the past four years that's what I've been doing to pay the bills.

How have you been able to get the money for all the traveling you need to do?

One of the real big problems I'm having is that as interesting as this project is, it doesn't really fall within traditional academic parameters. And as far as doing different grant proposals and things like that, it's been really hard, and I've been hitting my head against the ceiling, pretty much. Event organizers, for the most part, have been fantastic as far as providing me with passes and access to their events. But just hotel bills and air-fares are exorbitant. It's sort of a funny thing where you lose track of scales. Some days I get sort of freaked out… I'm looking at $800 air fares, and the next day I realize $10.00 is going to buy me four more tapes and the batteries to do that many more hours of interviewing. I've been fortunate to set up, through my University, that donations can be made to the University for the purpose of this research. And they're tax deductible.

Do you still take dance lessons?

Yes. I take some salsa from time to time, which to me is more of a club dance. That's my social dancing; you make it up as you go, you have fun. UCSD has a formation team, which I was on for two years and for which I was actually one of the co-captains a year ago. This past year I've been much more serious about my amateur competition. I have one partner that I danced rhythm and Latin with, then I picked up another partner for standard and smooth. Not that I have a lot of aptitude in all of these, not that I have any aptitude! I do it for personal interest. I wanted to learn, and also it feels different to dance the different styles… how it feels to be on the floor, how it feels to be with your partner, it really is a different thing. I felt that for my research, it really wasn't appropriate for me to turn around and say, "This is what it's like" if I'm only taking in second-hand information. Granted, the level I'm dancing at is very different from most of the people who I end up talking to. We're talking a completely different scale. I can't authoritatively say, "Well, when you're standing on deck, it feels like this," or "When you're expected to win, you're not happy when you do, it's a relief," or "You never thought you even had a chance and you get it, and it's ecstasy," if I haven't experienced it. It's one thing to say that because someone told me, it's another to have had that experience. So, at least at my given level, I could cover the spectrum and really be able to at least relate a little bit. I do make a steadfast point though. I don't dance at events where I am also conducting interviews with the organizers or judges, because I don't want there to be the appearance of impropriety.

Are you still involved with the girl who got you started in this?

I never actually ended up with her! I fell in love with her, but it never turned into anything romantically. We're still very good friends, but things work in very interesting ways. It's amazing to me. Before I met her… the whole dance thing… not in a million years! And now it's really so much of my life.
 
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