Lesson 1 Study Guide
1.1 Dancing: Chapter 1: The Power of Dance:
This chapter takes a broad look at the relationship between human movement, framed as dance, and important identities such as religion, ethnicity, gender, and social status. While not specifically focused on issues of identity in America, this chapter will provide an important foundation in understanding the broader scope of how dance can be seen as a representation of cultural values, which will underlie the remainder of our coursework.
1.1.1 Before starting this chapter it might be useful for you to write out your definition of dance. Let’s pretend for a moment that aliens landed on earth looking for intelligent life. Obviously they ended up at your apartment and asked …show more content…


1.2 Dancing: Dancing in One World
This video documents an international cultural festival that took place in Los Angeles. Again, while many of the groups presented here are not American, you will hear peoples from around the Pacific beautifully expressing how dance is an integral part of their culture. While the American public might not be as conscious of the powerful connection between movement and identity, it is the claim of this course that the former can be an important lens on the latter, even in America. Listen closely to how the participants at this festival talk about dance and culture. Compare this with how you relate dance and culture.
At the beginning of the video, the festival coordinator claims that: “Culture is the only way you can move across the boundary lines of language, race, and economic ghettoization.” Certainly language, race and economics are part of culture, but the speaker is using a narrower definition. 
1.2.1 Is culture only the artistic activities of a people (dance, poetry, drama, etc.), or is it the sum total of all their activities (arts, language, business, education, science, etc.)? How would you define culture?
According to the festival coordinator in the video, Culture is the only way you can move across the boundary lines of language, race, and economic ghettoization and I agree with that definition.
At the Los Angeles Festival, groups