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Dance and the Politics of Orality: A Study of the Irish Scoil Rince

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Moe Meyer
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Extract

I recently had the opportunity to reread Allegra Fuller Snyder's “The Dance Symbol” (1974), in which she claimed a central role for dance in non-literate cultures:

It is my observation that dance is most significant in societies that are least literate, i.e. non-literate… and it is least significant in societies, such as our own, which are highly literate.… I feel that there is something about this pairing or counterbalance of dance and literacy which may offer us some insights. I am implying that dance functions in some cultures, the non-literate cultures, with as broad a spectrum of functions as the written word includes for others.

Snyder explained that dance is able to occupy this all-inclusive, central role in maintaining and transmitting knowledge within such cultures because it communicates through what she calls the “dance symbol”. The dance symbol is the outer and observable aspects of the dancer (movement, costume, and paraphernalia) which are, in turn, both derived from and stand in relation to and for a culturally-specific environment, subsistence pattern, and mythic complex.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , Spring 1995 , pp. 25 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1995

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References

Notes

1. Snyder, Allegra Fuller, “The Dance Symbol,” New Dimensions in Dance Research: Anthropology and Dance—The American Indian, ed. Comstock, Tamara (CORD Research Annual 6, 1974): 213–14.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., 215.

3. I engage this critique while being aware that Snyder wrote this essay at a time before the advent of postmodern and postcolonial critiques of ethnography, and do not mean to insist that this is her position today.

4. de Certeau, Michel, Heterologies: Discourse on the Other, trans. Massumi, Brian (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 73.Google Scholar

5. For an introduction to the literature on orality and literacy see Finnegan, Ruth, Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance, and Social Context (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Havelock, Eric A., Preface to Plato (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963)Google Scholar; Heim, Michae, Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Lord, Albert B., The Singer of Tales (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Ong, Walter J., Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition as History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985).Google Scholar

6. The following critique of orality/literacy studies is from Finnegan, Ruth, Literacy and Orality: Studies in the Technology of Communication (London: Basil Blackwell, 1988) passim.Google Scholar See also the critique of orality/literacy studies in Street, Brian V., Literacy and Theory in Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

7. The name of this communication technology is “oral,” not “kinetic.” “Oral” means precisely that, i.e. of the mouth, of speech, of the shaping of sounds in space (the shaping of acoustic space). Within orality, a “poetry” refers to a reflexive shaping of acoustic space in such a way that it differentiates from ordinary spoken language for purposes of memorization and knowledge retention. Oral poetry is, by definition, a shaping of acoustic space. I am not denying that dance communicates through movement, or that it shapes space. But the physical space that dance shapes is kinetic and not a shaping of acoustic space, and therefore not a poetry. Oral poetry is specifically acoustic. Dance can rarely substitute as a medium for oral poetry because it does not have nuanced control or articulation of acoustics. Dance rarely shapes sounds in space, and hardly ever does it shape sounds that can be read independently of the visuals. For instance, you can read a mudra, but can you hear it? If you cannot hear it, then it is not working through an acoustic medium, and it therefore cannot, by definition, constitute an oral poetry. Because knowledge in oral cultures is transmitted via poetry (acoustic shaping), then this means that the role of dance in orality is always secondary.

8. Vansina, , 27–28.Google Scholar

9. Havelock, , 150–151.Google Scholar

10. In this regard, see Zarrilli, Phillip, “A Microanalysis of Performance Structure and Time in Kathakali Dance-Drama,” Studies in Visual Communication 9, no. 3 (Summer 1983): 50–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Ong, 35.

12. Heim, , 52–53.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., 57.

14. Hanna, Judith Lynne, To Dance is Human: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), 87.Google Scholar

15. Snyder, , 217–19.Google Scholar

16. Deely, John, Basics of Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 24–25Google Scholar; and Elam, Keir, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (London: Methuen, 1980), 21–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. Snyder, , 218.Google Scholar

18. Mukarovsky, Jan, “Art as Semiotic Fact,” in Semiotics of Art, eds. Matejka, Ladislav and Titunik, Irwin R. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976), 6.Google Scholar Snyder's “dance symbol” is simply a restatement of the basic Prague School configuration of the sign: movement, costume, paraphernalia = signifier; environment, subsistence pattern, mythic complex = signified; with an abstract concept of “dance” substituted for and foreclosing a concept of general signification. She argued that this sign was particular to dance, and specifically dance in non-literate cultures, whereas this is merely a general sign configuration applicable to both the performing or visual arts as oral or literate forms.

19. Elam, 16–19; and Honzl, Jindrich, “The Hierarchy of Dramatic Devices,” in Semiotics of Art, eds. Matejka, Ladislav and Titunik, Irwin R. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976), 118–27.Google Scholar

20. Elam, , 12–16.Google Scholar

21. Honzl, Jindrich, “Dynamics of the Sign in the Theater,” in Semiotics of Art, eds. Matejka, Ladislav and Titunik, Irwin R. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1976), 93.Google Scholar

22. In this regard see, Honzl, , “Dynamics of the Sign in the Theater;” and Mukarovsky, 3–4.Google Scholar

23. For a more detailed discussion of these oral performance characteristics see Ong, 31–77. For a discussion of the limitations of using these characteristics too broadly or for universalizing projects see Finnegan, Literacy and Orality, 146–161.

24. Havelock, 42, 52.

25. There may be other sets of conditions that could be met in order to produce an identical transformation of the sign. What I am presenting and have identified here is one configuration, and this particular configuration must meet these specific conditions.

26. My field observations are based on study of Irish dance schools in Ireland, the U.S., and New Zealand between 1968 and the present. I also draw on my experience as a student and teacher of Irish dance from 1968–1980.

27. Hutchinson, John, The Dynamic of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State (London: Allen and Unwin, 1987), 116.Google Scholar

28. Garvin, Tom, Nationalist Revolutionaries in Ireland, 1858–1928 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 79.Google Scholar

29. Ranelagh, John O'Beirne, A Short History of Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 110–128.Google Scholar

30. Isaacs, Harold R., Idols of the Tribe: Group Identity and Political Change (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 96.Google Scholar

31. Garvin, 9.

32. Ibid., 2. In some parts of the country, the change from orality to literacy occurred with astounding swiftness due to the implementation by the English of programs designed to purge the Gaelic language from the country and in the shortest time possible. In less than one generation the transformation was complete, making it difficult for Gaelic-speaking parents to talk to their own English-speaking children.

33. Hutchinson, 120.

34. Finnegan, , Literacy and Orality, 61, 159.Google Scholar

35. This created an unofficial triumvirate: the Gaelic League as the cultural organization, the Sinn Fein as the political party, and the IRA as the military wing.

36. Garvin, 9.

37. Malcolm, Elizabeth, “Popular Recreation in Nineteenth-Century Ireland,” in Irish Culture and Nationalism, 1750–1950, eds. MacDonagh, Oliver, Mandle, W. F., and Travers, Pauric (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983), 49–50.Google Scholar

38. Breathnach, Brendan, Dancing in Ireland (Cork: DalgCais Publications, 1983), 50.Google Scholar

39. Brown, Terence, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922 to the Present (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 43.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., 53.

41. There are forms of Irish dancing that exist outside the Commission's influence, but these are rare. Two such forms are adult social/recreational ensemble dancing (though most of these are indeed under the aegis of the Commission), and what has been called “traditional” dance or sean nos (“old style”) dancing. I do not deal with sean nos dancing in this essay because, in my opinion, it has absolutely no impact upon the dance community. Old-style dancing has been incorporated into the scoil rince where it occupies a central role in the first two years of dance instruction. Those few performers who label themselves as “traditional” or “old-style” function primarily as museum pieces who preserve intact some of the dances and dance styles of previous decades (usually styles from 1900–1950). Because Irish dancing possesses no notation systems, old-style dancing exists today primarily as a limited archives of historical choreography. For the most part, dances that exist outside the Commission's sphere of influence are held to be quaint and not vital. This is because sean nos dances are fixed compositions while the rince gaelacha of the scoil rince is a creative, choreographed form. It is important to remember here that Irish dancing was/is a choreographer's art. The fixed compositions of sean nos dancing, because they function as documents, are not part of the living oral tradition of Ireland.

42. MacFhionnlaoich, Cormac, Stair na Rinci Gaelacha (Atha Cliath: An Coimisiun le Rinci Gaelacha, 1973), 7.Google Scholar

43. Mandle, W. F., “The Gaelic Athletic Association and Popular Culture, 1884–1924,” in Irish Culture and Nationalism, 1750–1950, eds. MacDonagh, Oliver, Mandle, W. F., and Travers, Pauric (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983), 13.Google Scholar

44. Before 1980 hard shoes used nails instead of plastic additions to the toe. The construction of Irish dance shoes is always but slowly changing, both in terms of materials used for producing sound and in the shape and size of the heels especially. The substitution of plastic for nails in the last decade has caused, perhaps, as great a transformation in Irish dance as the toe shoe did in ballet. This is because the use of plastic reduces the weight of the shoes and thus allows the dancer to achieve much greater elevation and facilitates new kinds of movements.

45. Royce, Anya Peterson, The Anthropology of Dance (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), 67.Google Scholar

46. The way that technique is taught in Irish dancing schools is extremely uneven and depends totally on the specific knowledge possessed by a single teacher coupled with her ability to conceptualize and articulate that knowledge. Most of the teachers I have observed (and there are notable exceptions) are not able to articulate and explain adequately their own technique. Learning technique is primarily via imitation.

47. Havelock, 52, 42.

48. Garvin, 113.

49. Doyle, Mary Agnes, “Games of Lamentation: The Irish Wake Performance Tradition” (Ph.D. diss., Northwestern University, 1988), 70–82.Google Scholar

50. MacFhionnlaoich, 7.

51. For a record of the decline of the Irish language since independence, see Hindley, Reg, The Death of the Irish Language: A Qualified Obituary (London: Routledge, 1990).Google Scholar

52. Havelock, 157.

53. Ibid.