FROM-THE-FIELD

FROM-THE-BALLROOM-FLOOR

I never set out to be a ballroom photographer but, in the course of my fieldwork with competitive ballroom dancers, the role and importance of the visual could not be denied.

“Dancesport,” as competitive ballroom is widely known, is practiced to be visually presented, critiqued, and judged, and this “to be performed” dynamic adds to dancesport’s visually communicative charge. While my initial research interests were geared towards exploring the role of activity in constructing personal and collective meanings and identity, I quickly found that the importance of visual presentation, critique, and analysis within dancesport, mandated attention to these dynamics as well. My foray into ballroom photography—originally intended just for illustrative purposes in future publications—has proven highly facilitative and illuminating along several lines, including:

Being a photographer provides me with a recognized role among even the most elite world-class competitors, and lets me “belong” in a manner that would never have been accessible to me as an anthropologist alone.

As a valued commodity among dancers, my photos have provided me with something I can return to the community, both to dancers I have interviewed and in ballroom newspapers and newsletters such as Dance Beat and Dance Notes.

Comparing comments (gathered both in person and on-line at www.Dance-Forums.com) made about my photographs has helped identify points of cultural value and salience between dancers of different levels and backgrounds, between competitive and social dancers, between dancers from different genres, and between dancers and non-dancers.

Jonathan S. Marion

Some of the cultural implications revealed by the photographs include the different uses of the body between the Standard and Latin ballroom styles. The split and low crouch in photo #1 and the crouch in photo #4 in the Latin dances are in contrast to the always upright, standing posture in the Standard dances as depicted in photos #3, #5, and #6. Similarly, the “straight on” presentation of “self” possible in Latin, seen in photos #7 and #8, have different implications for performance, presentation, and identity then the more oblique angles mandated by the unbreakable frame of Standard, as shown in photos #5 and #6. Equally noteworthy are the differences in costuming, both between styles and within each style by gender. The woman’s ballgown and the man’s tailsuit in Standard, for instance, evoke and embody different models of femininity and masculinity than do the woman’s short fringed dress and the man’s formfitting pants and sleeves in Latin.