ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the processes of ethnographically engaging with culturally contingent, shared sensory spaces. Drawing on extended experience as both dancer and ethnographer in Hungary, I examine the somatic dimensions of kinetic vitality generated through interactions between highly skilled couple dancers within the Hungarian folk dance tradition seeking to experience a state of collaborative flow known as “a good dance.” As an ethnographic field, this intimate collaborative space presents several unique challenges, including access and representation. Embodiment and the sensory experience are fundamental to the ways these dancers move through life, alone and with others asking us to enter the field on their terms. Engaging with these sensoriums, understood as an aspect of embodied and cultural knowledge, demands a mode of ethnographic attention requiring reflexive cultural and choreographic dexterity. A “good dance” within this community offers a foil against which to interrogate the process of getting close as an ethnographer.
