Imitation- Oversimplification- Loss of Integrity
Dance is one of the most important aspects of black culture. Unlike European cultures where dance is used as a cultural practice, African Americans use dance to prove their blackness. “Dance becomes the Litmus test for cultural integrity” and gives them a sense of cultural identity and belonging (Gordon).
So when it comes non-black people accessing black dance through media, they must not only be aware of how engrained dance is in black culture, but also careful not to diminish black culture as the dance when trying to imitate “choreography” with little cultural or corporeal knowledge of the movement. For example, we were learning a new language (let’s just say French), we wouldn’t practice for a few days, then call ourselves fluent. No, we would spend years learning and practicing the foundational vocabulary, then we could consider ourselves conversational. And even when we believe we can have conversations in French, we would be shocked to see how different French slang is from the French language we have learned. We will continue to stumble over our words in conversations with French people, and will accept the fact that our accent may sound off to them. We will not jump straight into conversations with fluent speakers without accessing the situation and gathering our thoughts. And we will continue to practice, practice, practice.
For a culture where dance is equally as important as language, it is important to recognize these steps when learning black social dance too. Platforms like Tik Tok allow white people to imitate black cultural practices, without taking the steps to understand the culture and their place within this community. This allows for watered-down versions of black dance to be passed around social media.
Take the rengage for example:
The original creator, Jalaiah Harmon, doing the original movement:
Famous Tik Toker, Addison Rae, doing a appropriated version of the movement:
As you can see, some of the movements got lost in translation. But looking at more than just the moves- the nuances, the energy, the body’s accent, the vibe is just off.
And it’s not that these social dances should not be shared with a wider audience, its just that white creators are too quick to jump into black cultural dances without having any cultural knowledge (and therefore, movement knowledge).
And because of Tik Toks algorithm, other users will not be learning the Renegade from Jalaiah, they will learn the dance from watching white users, such as Charlie D’Amelio or addison Rae. Therefore, the movement undergoes the “telephone effect”- where the nuances of the dance get lost little by little the more its strays from the source. Soon we see renegades that are nothing like the original.
This allows for the meaning and integrity of the movement to get so lost, that it is nearly impossible to restore.
The renegade is one of the few dances where there has been effort to credit the original creator, Jalaiah Harmon. But in a social media platform dominated by white people, this redistribution of power is only recognized when the problem is highlighted by white people- in this case, when Charlie D’Amelio came out and credited the Jalaiah on national television. This reinforces the fact “that all American groups must take part in deconstructing racism,” dance appropriation and cultural disrespect (Jackson). Because, on Tik Tok, black people do not hold the power, therefore everyone (especially white people) must start the conversation and be proactive to make a change.
Ideas stem from Jackson’s The Origin of Black Body Politics, Bell Hooks’ Cultural Criticism and Transformation, and Gordon’s African American Vernacular Dance.
