Last Fieldwork Diary Entry (July 7, 2014)

The fieldwork conducted for this research dissertation has been a work-in-progress throughout. Instead of an in-depth investigation of one field site, I have conducted a field skim over six different sites. I found this process appropriate for the research subject. Everyday dance, or spontaneous social dancing is so broad that it was useful to get a small taste of the dancing found at different places rather than concentrate on one venue or event.

It is always refreshing to be taken out of one's comfort zone so I particularly enjoyed visiting dance events in different areas of London that I had not been to before and interacting with the people that I found there. I was extremely heartened by the strong response I received in my survey. I had hoped to get at least fifty responses and so to have seventy four people respond was fantastic. My regret being that there is so much information contained within the survey that I could only touch upon the data contained therein. 

Here are some of the new places I visited during my fieldwork:

The dance floor at Duke's Bar
Image courtesy of http://www.designmynight.com

The Future Laboratory
Image courtesy of http://insidefmm.com/

Ovalhouse Theatre
Image courtesy of http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/

St Swithuns Church Hall
Image courtesy of
http://ourhithergreen.com/

As I visited field sites briefly, I didn't have the in depth engagement with people at each site as a more traditional field work set up might achieve. I found this engagement instead through the interview process. I enjoyed speaking with the eight volunteer interviewees. Some were known to me prior to the interview and others not.  But to speak with all of them in an in depth way about dance proved to be an enjoyable process.  Several times, I ended the interview regretfully as I found the conversation so interesting (although I'm not sure all my interviewees felt the same way) The interview process was my favourite research tool throughout this project.

Several friends supported me through the research process by sending me dance related information such as articles, YouTube clips, dance events to attend and other topical materials. The field broadened every day due their thoughtfulness and interest. Other friends put me in touch with potential interview subjects and others volunteered to go dancing with me. It was heart-warming to have such support and also to feel that because I was so focused on everyday dance, it perhaps passed into the awareness of others too. 

                           Some of the Youtube dance clips I was sent during the research period

It was a huge effort for me and my family to structure our lives to enable my fieldwork to happen. It has been tiring and expensive. It has been really enjoyable at times and not others. I have struggled with guilt throughout. How do you explain that fieldwork is the reason why you keep disappearing to a three year old kid and is it fair that your husband has no break for four months so you can go out dancing? Sometimes the last thing I wanted was to drag myself out to dance with my researcher's hat on. Which is why some intended field sites such as a night out with work friends at a bar or a time travelling DJ dance night became simply social nights out. Despite the ups and downs, the last four months of fieldwork have reaffirmed how much I relish it as a research method.

I was very much a part of the key demographic within my research; those who say that the older they get, the harder it is to go out dancing. Before I started this project, I had only been out dancing once in the last two years. My everyday dance life was non- existent despite my love for it. Once I got out there again via fieldwork, I was  reminded that time on the dance floor can rejuvenate in ways untold. It is hard to describe the sense of well-being that a good dance can generate. As I said before, it really does feel like the ultimate high. 

Going out dancing helped me reclaim an energy, attitude and perspective which I had let lapse since my twenties. My mind had calcified over the topic of everyday dance and I had become stuck in my thinking about it. Like many in my age demographic, I had ceased to think of everyday dance as a regular activity which I could participate in. My chief reason being that it was just too hard to organise myself to do it. But now I can see that was just an excuse. It is harder to do it than when I was in my twenties and childfree but not that hard.

Although I started out trying to find out what made people dance the way they do on the dance floor, my research question changed to three questions. One of these is:

Why do people stop going out to participate in everyday dance once they get to a certain age?

In my academic paper, I address this question more formally and take a stab at the factors which support or negate the act of everyday dance. But here in my fieldwork diary I summarise it as such:

It is perceived as being too hard. And our society supports them in this thinking for dance as a physical, socio-cultural leisure activity is not promoted as an activity to be prioritised.

Which indeed is a great shame. 

Whilst I am closing the chapter on the fieldwork I have presented here, I doubt that I will ever really close it for myself. I hope to keep going to new and known events and places where people are participating in everyday dance. For if there is anything I have learned from this research, it is that the more tired I am, the more stressed I am, whenever I am feeling the strain of life; I need to go out dancing.  

For I feel that as long as I am out dancing, everything will be ok.