Voicing the Move: Discursive Practices Of scottish dance Instruction

Abstract

Bridging dance anthropology and multimodal discourse analysis, the article focuses on language used to teach and/or describe various versions of the pas de basque step in Highland, Scottish country, Scottish step and “called” Ceilidh dancing of Scotland. It analyses pedagogic discourse observed during on- and offline classes and dance events across the globe alongside the author’s own embodied experience as a Scottish dancer, learner and teacher. When examining culturally and somatically contextualised uses of English in Scottish dance pedagogy, the article takes into account a range of dance manuals and instructions published between 1950 and 2020 by the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, the Royal Scottish Official Board of Highland Dancing, the United Kingdom Alliance of Professional Teachers of Dancing and other organisations and individuals. Revisiting issues of communicating (and delegating) authority, (re)shaping the dance tradition(s) and providing/refraining from regulation, the study is aimed at helping to better appreciate the mutual interconnectedness between pedagogic discourse, on the one hand, and dance learning and teaching as an embodied social and cultural experience, on the other.