Gender Roles in Dance

While reading the book Women, the Recited Qur'an and Islamic Music in Indonesia I found myself taking notes of the different commentary on the dancing that goes along with the music. At the beginning of this book, Rasmussen talks about the importance of women in the rituals, but late in the book, she talks about their role in music and dance.

Before this semester I did not really have much exposure to dance, but I have always participated in Zumba on Tuesday nights. For this semester I was really looking for a 4th class that wasn't too hard for my senior spring semester, and Julie Searles sent out an email to the Zumba people about this dance class she was teaching. (an academic dance class not like a ballet class!) So I decided to try it out because she said it shouldn't be too hard. So this semester I learned about different ways that dance has made it into American vernacular culture from popular dance styles to the way some people walk! It has actually been really fun and we have watched a ton of fun movies. 

Here is an example of walking in a dancing way (start about a minute in)

Why am I telling you this? Well, it connects because one topic that we studied was the idea of gendered dances. We talked about how in some dances there is a leader and a follower, but in others, they go a step further and there is a gendered role to the dance. We then talked about how sometimes people will go against that and we watched videos of, for example, 2 men dancing the salsa and looking at the differences with that as well as videos where they danced the opposite role they were "supposed to". It was really fun and interesting to talk about. 

Here are men dancing the salsa together

So when I was reading about how men and women perform different roles in some ceremonies or dances it made me think of those discussions I had in different classes. The whole idea of a gendered role in something like a ceremony or dance is really interesting to think about. 

Another thing I found interesting when thinking about the musical aspects Rasmussen talks about in this book are the roles of religion in the music. Religious music is really important to their music industry. I found this interesting because I would say here in America religious music is not a major thing we think of when we think of the music industry. I just thought this book was very interesting because it gave me insight to a different culture's music and dance culture.