Appropriation or Inspiration
The dance industry is known to borrow from other cultures and to be inspired by other cultures.
The Black culture has influenced many dance styles known today. The culture has been misinterpreted and appropriated by dancers and choreographers in so many ways in this millennia. Appropriation is the action of taking something for one owns use, typically without one’s permission. It occurs when people of one culture are either taking/borrowing the ideas of different dance moves and fashion styles and misusing it. Appropriation happens to every culture, but mainly Black culture, styles like The Charleston, swing dance, the Twist, the Running Man, the Electric Slide, most everyone understands the basic steps, though dancers tend to add their own personal flair.
. They are now considered social dances, but they all originated from the Black communities before becoming pop culture sensations. The Black culture is constantly being appropriated in the dance community. Terms and moves are being misused as well as the fashion style itself. Many genres that are known today were created by the black culture but are not known because many people claim the style for themselves and do not credit the real creators of the dance.
Black culture is being appropriated in the dance industry in many ways, shapes and forms. In an article that was being read it says “you can’t want the good without the bad. If you want to enjoy our culture and our lifestyle, bond with us, dance with us, have fun with us, twerk with us, rap with us, then you should also want to know what affects us, what is bothering us, what we feel is unfair to us. You shouldn’t not want to know that” ( Toth, L. (n.d.). Praising twerk: Why aren’t we all shaking our butt? — Lucille Toth, 2017. Toth (2018) brings up Nicki Minaj in her essay and Nicki states that a lot of people in this century want to be black or have the black culture in them or use things from the black culture but no one ever wants to deal with the bad things that come with the culture as well. Many people think that when they hear cultural appropriation, they automatically assume that non coloured or non ethnic people are stealing or misrepresenting the culture, but its not just them or ethnicities do it as well. For example In a hip hop documentary of how hip was created, who it was created by, and when it was created they had some people thinking that only black people created all of hip hop. In reality yes it was mostly the blacks, but many Hispanic people were apart of its upbringing as well. Then when it became famous and popular above ground others started to claim it and “bite” (hip hop dance term for steal or copy) the style.
For instance, Asherie begins to say that “you can’t be about these forms that come from the African diaspora and the trauma of slavery and participate in the fight for equality” Schaefer, B. (2019, October 11). At What Point Does Appreciation Become Appropriation? Many dancers and choreographers that at not apart of the black community treat black culture like an aesthetic. Everyone looks at only the good stuff and think it would be aesthetically pleasing to have or do something black culture does. This happens in a lot of other cultures but mainly black culture, and every time things like this are brought to light the black community gets bashed for it. The black community not only in dance but in other things as well need to be treated just like everybody else. We should not be looked at as objects that you can just take and use and then put back and ignore whenever you fell like it.
The black dance community is looked at as an aesthetic and not a culture.
Many people in the industry today would rather take only the good from black culture, but if you are going to support the good you must be able to fight back for the bad. For the bad representation black people get for equality.
Dancers/ choreographers can have fun, enjoy, and have freedom with dance but they need to remember the importance of the dance as well. In an article it mentions that “Performers could make a little more effort to ensure they are connecting with and representing a dance according to its true traditions and cultural heritage” as cited by (The Conversation, 2017). The conversation (2019) gives dancers advise on how to borrow dance from another culture and still be connecting to the culture’s roots at the same time, so that way the dance is not being appropriated, to illustrate “Justin Bieber launched a new video for his single “sorry”.
In the video, an all-women group of dancers perform a Jamaican- style dance called dancehall. Parris Goebel,
the choreographer of the video, was later accused of cultural appropriation since all the dancers were light-skinned and from New Zealand” Toth, L. (n.d.). Praising twerk: Why aren’t we all shaking our butt? — Lucille Toth, 2017.
This shows that people just take other cultures and use it in dance without giving credits to the original owners of the art form. Many people who speak about appropriation with the black community and dance they feel the right way is to mention the original creators of the dance and appreciate them for what they gave to us millennial dancers/choreographers .Most feel that if you are willing to teach another culture to people who do not really understand it or know a lot of the culture itself it is now the choreographers job to do a lot of research the cultures history and the meaning behind each movement and it is the choreographers job to inform their dancers about the history, so the dancers at least have a little bit of insight into what dance they are doing, why they are doing it and what the true meaning of the dance is. With the knowledge of the history behind the style of dance they are performing they will be able to perform it better and actually tell a story with a true meaning behind it. In the 21st century it is highly requested that if you as a dancer/choreographer is using another cultures art form you should inform your audience or make it known that your piece pays a tribute to the culture you are performing.
Dancers and choreographers should be more aware of how they interpret dances and should always give credit and acknowledge the owners and creators of the style. The black culture is constantly being appropriated in this era, people notice it but do nothing about it. Everyone only wants a piece of the good. Everyone should want the good and want to be able to help with the bad as well. Now days it is not something you can ignore anymore because it is constantly being brought up by the community itself and by others who do take a stand and want equality and recognition for the culture.
