Women in Pictures. A Dance Iconography of Gender Transformations

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to observe the attitude of the woman in the dance through iconography. In particular, the present study, through the observation of images from the community of Nea Vyssa in Thrace in Greece, aims to highlight the structure of gender relations in the society of this community over time. The data collection of was based on secondary sources. More specifically, the data collection was carried out based on the principles of historical archival research. For the analysis of the data dance iconography will be used. However, having visual components, dance shares a representative quality with the visual arts. So, in addition, the pictures of women dance in this study will be analyzed under the terms of visual anthropology. Finally, the interpretation of the data was held with the anthropological thinking about gender identity as it appears in anthropological views of dance and particularly in Hanna. From the data analysis was found that the position of women in dance evolved significantly over time, as did the society of Nea Vyssa, which from patriarchal, today became an equal society. So through dance iconography one can study various parameters that exist in dance and which Seebas (1991) also mentioned, however, through dance iconography one can study social stereotypes, gender discriminations and social structures and therefore issues that have to do with the evolution of society over time.