ABSTRACT
Dance, as an object of cross-cultural study, has produced a dazzling array of methodological activity. “How might one best approach the task of understanding a dance (or “Dance” or “The Dance” in general, for that matter) that does not originate from or exist within one’s own culture?” In the century or so that cross-cultural researchers and students of dance have been struggling with this question, no clear paradigm-setting answer has emerged. With respect to the question of how best to deal with the observable aspects of dance, for example-a key methodological question in this field of study-answers have ranged from a “no attention necessary” stance (the “and then they danced” ethnographic approach that has been so thoroughly critiqued in contemporary culturally focused dance research),1 to the employment of elaborate perception-enhancing instruments, both conceptual and technological, intended to ensure a rigorous “objectivity” with respect to the culturally different dancing in question (an interest now also subject to critique from postcolonial, poststructural, and critical cultural studies sectors). The methodological range in the specific area of cross-cultural dance observation has been so great that a common ground for discussion and debate has been difficult to achieve.
