During the late 1920s, representatives from the English Folk Dance Society came across an unusual custom in a narrow valley in the northwest of England. Every Easter a small group of men would dance through the local streets, accompanied by a silver band and led by a whip-carrier who cleared a space in which they could perform.

On the face of it such ceremonial activity was similar to the annual practices of English morris and sword dancers whose repertoires and customs Cecil Sharp had rescued from oblivion in the early years of the century. Certainly, in broad terms, the custom conformed to Sharp's definition of the morris as a ceremonial performance by men only, in special dress, and at a particular time in the local calendar (1909: 10–12).

On April 3,1917, dancer Valentine de Saint-Point performed at New York City's Metropolitan Opera House. It is accepted as common knowledge (a term which may be stretching the point somewhat, given the relatively small body of writings which refer to her) that she was a) a Futurist, b) one of the very few, if not the only, female Futurists, and c) the only, if not one of the very few, Futurists to perform in New York.

Actually, none of these “facts” is entirely documented. In this essay, I will leave the third point untouched, assuming this aspect of Saint-Point's singularity to be at least relatively accurate. The second point I will deal with obliquely; that is, rather than debating whether her position as a woman among the Futurists was unique, I will consider how she saw being female as meaningful in her work. The first point interests me as well—again, obliquely. I will not argue here for or against Saint-Point's definitive categorization as a Futurist. Instead, by verbally reconstructing a performance and analyzing a body of written work related to it, I will examine Saint-Point's associations with Futurism and other experimental movements in performance taking place within the same general timeframe.

What is dance and what is the experience of dancing? What does dancing mean for those who do it?

Dance scholars and critics have written many words in response to these questions. Choreographers give their answers to “what is dance?” in the work they create and, often, in commentary about it. Professional dancers have also spoken, primarily in biographies and autobiographies, of what dance and dancing mean to them. Not all voices are heard in dance literature, however. In particular, the voices of children and adolescents, especial ly those not enrol led in professional schools, are silent. What is the dance experience like, and what does it mean, for them? What do their experiences—and the meanings they make of them—say to us, who work with young people in dance?

These were the questions that propelled three researchers into this study focusing on a group of 16–18 year old young women. In particular we were interested in finding out what young women dancers thought of their place within dance and dancing. This research focused initially on young adolescents and, as such, represents only a beginning of what we view as an important area of investigation.

Ballet and modern dance are aesthetic endeavors which utilize the human body as their primary instrument of expression. It therefore has been suggested by some dance theorists and authorities that competent aesthetic performance in these idioms requires support from enhanced physiologic capabilities including flexibility; muscular strength, power, and endurance; and cardiovascular endurance (American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, 1974, p. 405; Arnheim, 1980, pp. 74-85; Fitt, 1988, pp. 318-319; H'Doubler, 1974, pp. 150-151). However, original scientific investigations of dance physiology are in their infancy and have not yet fully substantiated these commonly held assumptions.

English sociologist of art Janet Wolff says that all art is situated both historically and in relation to the status groups that produce it and share a taste for it. Tracing the relationships between the situation and the art is the difficult task of the sociology of art.

The theoretical model used by art historians results in their focusing heavily on the body of art itself, showing how styles influence and develop out of each other. Alternatively, the “interpretive” theory of anthropologist Clifford Geertz—described in his essay, “Art as a Cultural System” —emphasizes the idea that the meaning system of the art participates in the larger meaning system of the culture: the larger system provides the key to the art.

The nineteenth century brought a tidal wave of immigrants from many European countries to the United States. The immigrants tended to cluster in various areas across the country. One group came from what is now known as Czechoslovakia and settled in an area of eastern Iowa. Today, Cedar Rapids has the largest Czech community in the state. The population of the town and its metropolitan area is 125,000 and the Czech population is estimated at 30%, counting third and fourth generation Czechs.

From their earliest arrival in the community around 1852 the Czechs congregated in an area that became known as “Little Bohemia,” where they formed their own community life. They continued their traditional hobbies of lace-making, egg-painting, theater, music, gymnastics, and dancing.