Fieldwork Diary Entry (March 19, 2014)

 Methodologies for Scrutiny in the Field

An obvious question prior to going into the field is, what methodologies should be used to critically assess the field? In other words, what perceptual tools will the researcher draw upon to, first assess what would be the most appropriate information to gather and then how to gather this information? Where should the researcher position him or herself? 
 
Below is my own dance system analysis which I devised during a short brain storm as to how I should go about assessing dance events taking place within my chosen field sites:


a) The person in the field, i.e. the subject

· What is their intent?

· What is their physiology?

· What is their socio-cultural demographic, e.g. race, gender, class, etc

· What is their perception of the event that they are participating in?

· Why are they participating in it?

· What is their expected outcome for participating in this event?


b) The context

· Where is the environment?

· What is the environment?

· Why is it there?

· What else is around it?

· What it the history of it?


c) The choreography/the dance

· How is the dance being manifest at the event?

· Why is it being manifested?

· What is influencing the dancing and affecting the final result?

· How is the dancing being experienced by the researcher, e.g. participation? Viewing?

· What is the impact of the dance on the event?


d) The big picture

· What impact will the above event have within a specific industry/context?

· What is it reflecting?

· What is it changing and/or transforming?

· What is its longevity?

· How does it compare to what is happening in similar areas?


Dance critic Marcia B. Siegel* similarly addresses key components within dance that are useful to pay attention to for a comprehensive critical analysis of it. These include:
 
The lexicon of the dance, eg.  key components of the dance such as people, sounds, objects, actions which draw the viewer’s interest.
 
Beat and rhythm of the dance and how it is expressed, e.g. musically, visually, and orally?
 
The structure of the dance. For example does the dance rise to a peak or is it equally level throughout its duration? How is this structure learned – beforehand or spontaneously?
 
Performance practice. Does the dance veers towards the natural or artificial?
 
The tools offered by Siegel are useful in providing a qualitative analysis of dance; one that is heavily subject to the researcher’s impressions and own personal viewfinder. To engage with the dance field using Siegel’s approach requires a high level of reflexivity and interpretation. It is interesting to note that Siegel primarily identifies herself as a dance critic, as well as author. I imagine writing as a dance critic requires a type of journalism which is compatible with the style of analysis she has described for one is not writing empirically for a science report or medical journal.


In comparison, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner** who is the Curator of Exhibitions at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, lays out a more systematic approach of dance analysis. Her approach includes the following questions:

 Empirical

· How many people are in the dance?

· Does the dance limit the number of participants?

· Can any number play?

· Does the dance require an even number of participants?


Gender census

· Who is dancing with whom?

· Does the dancing population stay within a social hierarchy?

· Is the answer exclusive (always men, always women, always mixed gender?)


Choreographic:

· What are the movements of the hips, feet, tors0 and so on?

· Is there a discernible pattern?

· Are the movements premeditated?

· Do they need to be learned? If so, how are they taught?

· When are they taught? Previous to the dance or during the dance?

· Are the steps learned by mirroring another dancer?

Cohen-Stratyner’s approach is more empirical than Siegel’s’ and seems to rely on what the researcher is actually seeing rather than interpreting what they are seeing. For an embodied ethnographic dance fieldwork approach, interpretation of the dance is as equally important for analysis as viewing the dance. By participating in the dance event, you have no choice but to interpret it, in part at least, experientially. 

On conclusion, I will attempt a pick and mix approach when in the field, utilising different components of the above three approaches; something that will also be determined by the field itself. 
 


* Siegel, Marcia B (2010) ‘Bridging the Critical Distance’, in Carter, Alexandra and Janet
       O’Shea, eds. The Routledge Dance Studies Reader, UK: Routledge, 188-196


** Cohen – Stratyner, Barbara (2001) ‘Social Dance – Contexts & Definitions’, 
        Dance Research Journal, 33, no. 2, Winter, 121-124