1. Introduction

In the last chapter, we explored various ways we might pin down whether a dance is a folk dance or not. But one recurring theme in the field of ethnochoreology (the study of folk dance) is how folk dances are often used as shibboleths for group identity. “Shibboleth” (borrowed from the Hebrew שִׁבֹּלֶת) is a term taken from the Judeo-Christian Bible (Judg. 12:6) that refers to some kind of special code, practice, keyword, or custom that marks an individual as an insider or an outsider to a particular group. Another term for shibboleth is “touchstone”. In this chapter, we look at the various ways this cashes out in folk dances. The characteristics of a particular kind of folk dancing can serve as shibboleths or touchstones that help people form a community or identify others who share their community’s history and values. Folk dance reinforces traditions surrounding group identity. Insider/outsider roles in the community can often be identified by knowledge of dance or technique.

2. Ethnicity and Religion

One of the key things that we see, no matter the reason for dancing, is that folk dancing is often tied to identity. Small variations in how a dance is performed can identify whether someone is part of a group or not.

From the early 20th century until the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Balkan nations of Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina (along with Slovenia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Montenegro) were part of a single country. These small nations are very close together and share a huge part of their cultural and linguistic traditions. The dialects they speak are very closely related and are typically considered by linguists to be part of the same language, even if written with different alphabets. The music of these nations shares many melodies, and there are numerous other similarities. However, these nations retain fiercely divided ethnic identities, partly based on religion. These differences led to a brutal and genocidal war in the late 1990s. The dances they perform are part of the way these communities distinguish themselves. The same basic circle dance, with very similar footwork, can be done in different ways that instantly signal group membership for community members. So, for instance, the same dance can be done progressing in a clockwise direction; this marks the participants as Croatians who probably practice Catholicism. But if the same dance is done with a counterclockwise progression, it identifies the dancer as a Serbian who probably practices Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

These subtle cues of identity are found in all folk dance styles. A shared knowledge of technique, music, rhythms, and particular dances is often a key indicator of someone belonging to a group.

These identifiers are often bound up in history. Take, for example, the significantly different dance traditions of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, and note how they have all influenced each other. Dances from the Middle East, for example, reflect a different religious tradition than those of Europe. For example, the dances of Lebanon and other Arab countries are typically sex-segregated, done in circles and lines, and reflect values of village/community centrality over familial bonds. These practices are influenced by both the traditions of Islam and the pre-Islamic culture of the area. Western European dances, by contrast, reflect Catholic and Protestant traditions, featuring couple dances that prioritize familial bonds over broader community structures. In between, we have Eastern Europe, which was greatly influenced by both Western European and Middle Eastern traditions—not only because of geography, but because of the long Ottoman occupation of the region. We find both couple and circle dances in this region. We also find remnants of prehistoric, possibly pre-Indo-European, dance traditions in Europe. For example, the widespread practice of ritualistic horse-culture dances appears throughout Europe variously as the Căluşari of Romania, the Mummers of central Europe, and the Morris dancers of Britain.

3. Political Philosophy

Closely tied to ethnicity and religion, allegiance to a particular political philosophy can also be a significant aspect of identity expressed through folk dance.

One example was in the use of traditional dance by the Nazi Hitler Youth. The resurgence of traditional German dance in the 1920s and 1930s was directly connected to the ethno-nationalism of the fascist government. Many folk dances, including the still-common Kreuz König, were invented dances in traditional styles used by the Hitler Youth to mark participation in the organization. Groups of youngsters in traditional costumes doing these dances were clearly identified with participation in state institutions. This practice was widespread in the countries occupied by the Nazis. For example, the Nazi regime in Brittany on the west coast of France encouraged the use of the Breton language, traditional Breton music, and traditional Breton dance to assert their allegiance to the local collaborationist political groups. This wasn’t limited to fascist regimes. In the former Yugoslavia, participation in one of the local folk dance groups (called Kulturno-umetničko Društvo or KUDs) was an indicator that you embraced the collectivist vision of the communist regime, although KUDs have now lost that association in the post-communist era. One of the most popular dances at Yugoslav folk festivals was the Partizansko Kolo, which celebrated communist partisans.

Even in the United States, we find examples where particular forms of folk dancing are tied to political affiliation. Although there are clear exceptions, many Square dancers affiliate themselves with the Republican Party, whereas people who do Contra dancing often identify as Democrats. There is nothing official about this particular alignment, but from my own experience (doing both forms of dance), it seems like a fairly accurate description of who does which kind of American folk dance.

My colleague Nancy Bannister observes the following about a much less obvious political example: Folklórico (Mexican) dancing in the US:

In the United States, particularly in the Southwest and in states along the border with Mexico, Mexican folklórico is a political statement as well as a way to define identity and culture. While formal folklórico in Mexico came directly from traditional dances that were “collected” and taught to dance groups for presentation on stage, in the United States, these same folklórico dances developed as a way to emphasize Mexican heritage, Mexican-American culture and identity, and the political struggles of the Chicano Movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Young dancers today may not know that the folklórico classes they take in school stem directly from that civil rights movement. (Bannister, p.c. January 2020)

The notions of ethnicity, national identity, and political philosophy are all deeply interconnected, so it should be no surprise that folk dancing plays a role in defining those relationships.

4. The Challenges of Colonialism

As we will discuss in chapter 4, Europeans, particularly Western Europeans, were sadly the primary perpetrators of colonialist expansion across the world in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries,^[1] with European empires controlling much of Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas. In many of these places, but particularly in Australia and the Americas, these empires came coupled with massive population exchanges and genocide. Under the guise of “civilizing” indigenous populations and relieving poverty and population pressures in their own countries, the imperial powers encouraged massive migration to the Americas and Australia. Whether via deliberate policies of cultural suppression and genocide or simply through the sheer overwhelming number of the colonists, traditional indigenous cultures of these regions were largely replaced by the European languages and cultures in these regions.

Quite independent of any ethical or moral concerns we might have with colonialist practices—which are indeed grave—two interesting things emerged in folk dancing during and after the imperial occupations. The first and most obvious is the emergence of unique colonial versions of European dances in diasporic communities in the Americas and Australia. Square, contra, country-western, and even tap dancing (to some degree) are all dance styles that emerged from British country dances and clogging, but they now have their own unique characters. Similarly, the dances of South America, Central America, and Mexico show their Spanish and Portuguese roots even though they form their own unique cultural traditions. The second interesting effect is in the emergence of “indigenized” forms of European dance by indigenous communities. While traditional dances can still be found in these communities, many indigenous people have also adopted Western dance styles and created their own versions. In the previous chapter, I mentioned the highly Mexican-influenced Waila music and dancing of the Tohono O’odham of Southern Arizona. The phenomenon is also seen in Native and First Nations square dancing of the US Midwest and Canada, and in Red River jigging, which is a clogging style done by the Métis people of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. One finds indigenized dancing outside the USA as well. For example, Gumboot dancing from South Africa also finds its origins in British clogging but has its own unique African flavor and technique.

Colonialism and genocide were terrible for the people who suffered under them. We saw massive cultural and linguistic loss, not to mention the massive loss of life. Yet it also marks the emergence of new art forms: both new dance styles of the colonizers and indigenized dances performed by the original population. For folk dance scholars, this is one of the greatest conundrums and challenges of colonialism. We have to reconcile the terrible effects of empire-building with the new cultural traditions that have emerged from it.

The effects of colonialism are evident even in the International Folk Dance (IFD) movement, which was founded to foster greater intercultural understanding. The vast majority of folk dances done in the IFD community come from Europe or the colonies of European powers. Dances from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and from indigenous communities are very much underrepresented in the IFD repertoire.

Because I am trained as a teacher in the IFD movement, I am embarrassed to say that this bias towards European dances is also exhibited in the scope of this textbook. I have extensive chapters on the dances of Europe and its former colonies, as well as the cultures of the Middle East. However, there is nothing in this work about the rich folk cultures of the rest of the world. The most populous countries in the world, such as China and India, have amazingly varied and important dance traditions, as does the rest of Asia, Oceania, Africa, and the indigenous peoples of the Americas. But this book would be three times as long if I included all those folk traditions, so I have reluctantly left them out, while recognizing that this reflects a colonialist bias.

5. Gender, Sex, and Sexuality

Folk dances reflect and enforce notions of gender identity, gender roles, and power structures in communities. For example, the dances of Western Europe are typically couple dances, with a strong expectation that the couples will be male–female and that the male will “lead” the couple through the dance. This both enforces strict heteronormativity and a patriarchal societal organization. Traditionally, men are in control, and men only dance with women and rarely with other men.^[2] This was highly consistent with traditional gender roles and identities. Recently, in North America, a new social movement called “gender-role-free dancing” or “all-position dancing” has become increasingly popular among practitioners of these Western traditions to counteract the negative social messaging in older forms. In gender-role-free dancing, the traditional roles of men are replaced with terms such as “leader” or “lark”, and the traditional roles of women are replaced with terms like “follower” or “robin”. The expectation is that people of any gender or sex can dance in either role and that people of the same gender can safely dance with each other. The gender-role-free movement is becoming dominant in the Contra dance community and gaining traction in the IFD and Square dance communities. I now regularly teach our IFD classes using the lark/robin terminology, and new and younger dancers who do not come into the classes with any gender-role expectations quickly adapt to its use. There is no a priori reason why men should do the traditional “men’s” role or lead the dance, and I find that, in fact, many new male dancers prefer to dance the follower role. Similarly, there’s no reason that people of the same gender can’t dance together if they so choose.

Gender roles also play a significant factor in the dances of the Balkans and the Middle East. In areas where the Ottoman Empire was strong, dances are typically sex/gender-segregated, reflecting societal trends for gender segregation in many Islamic cultures. The tradition of separate dance lines for men and women is fading in urban centers, although you still find it in rural and more traditional communities. In the Turkish Zeybek and Greek Zeibekkikos, where the dancers perform a ritualistic movement resembling eagles in flight, the dance was, until recently, restricted to men and the dance was performed in a way that recognized older community leaders before younger ones. However, now that women have taken on new roles in these societies, the dances have begun to include women in dominant roles. Another example is the role of the köçekler in Roma (Gypsy) and Turkish folk dance traditions. The köçekler were cross-dressing male entertainers and occasionally prostitutes (typically boys), who performed dances at the gender-segregated courts for the entertainment of male leaders.^[3] The dance styles they introduced have now become mainstream folk dances done by everyone and show up throughout the Balkans (in the form of dances called Čočeks).

6. Consent in Folk Dance

A discussion of gender, particularly in the context of an activity that requires people to touch each other—sometimes in quite intimate ways—would not be complete without some observations about the role of consent in folk dancing. As noted in the previous section, Western European dance traditions have traditionally underscored the unequal power structures between the genders: the man is the leader and in control; the woman is the follower and expected to be subservient, even if she is the more skillful dancer. Often, dance positions involve very close physical contact between strangers. In the early 21st century, of course, these ideas are highly problematic for many people. I think it is an important question to ask how folk dance cultures are adjusting to respect people’s rights to bodily autonomy and safe spaces. In the world of swing dancing and ballroom dancing, discussion of etiquette and consent is already well established.^[4] But in the world of folk dance, there has been very little discussion of this important topic.

Until very recently, the norm in folk dancing was that if someone asked you to dance with them, it was considered impolite to say “no”. But I think this is starting to change; people are now developing the attitude that the expected default answer to a request to dance should actually be “no” and that saying “no” is neither rude nor inappropriate. While it is always hard to find one’s gesture of friendliness rejected, there are a wide variety of reasons that someone might not want to dance with you. They might be tired or have a minor injury. They might want to sit out a dance and talk to their friends. They might have already agreed to dance with someone else. They might be uncomfortable with close physical contact with a stranger. So, it is important to go into the act of inviting someone to dance with the understanding that they are not obliged to dance with you, nor are they insulting you if they say “no”.

I also think it’s important to note that the right to ask someone to dance is not restricted to people who identify as male, as was the tradition in Western Europe until recently. Nor is it inappropriate to ask someone of the same gender to dance. In 17th-century England, dances and balls may have served the social function of finding a suitable opposite-sex spouse. But I think that is not how most people view social and folk dancing these days. We have apps and dating services to help you find romantic partners. The primary motivation for asking someone to dance is no longer to find a sexual partner, so we need to leave behind the old social codes about asking someone to dance. This doesn’t mean that we are ignoring the history and tradition behind the dances. We can still honor history and tradition, but we can now adopt practices that reflect more modern values while still respecting the dance’s original context.

Another important aspect of consent is how to address situations where dancing in close contact with another person brings you discomfort or distress. This could be a case where the person dancing with you is making unwelcome sexual advances. But it could also be that they are causing physical discomfort by holding you the wrong way or spinning and twirling you too fast. In any case, it is important that the offending behavior is addressed quickly. Addressing problematic behavior can be initiated by the person in distress. But I think the best practice is for the organizers or teachers to do it. Organizers and teachers must keep their eyes on the dance floor and ensure everyone’s safety. Addressing the behavior can be done in a way that causes neither person embarrassment. A quiet word to the person causing the problem is often more than sufficient to address the issue—they may simply be unaware of the consequences of their actions and will adjust their behavior accordingly. If they don’t, more drastic action may be necessary, but I expect that’s a rare situation. I personally recommend that dance communities have clear code-of-conduct statements distributed to participants. These statements set expectations for all participants and can help set the tone for a safe and inclusive social event.

When I teach dance, it is my natural instinct to reach out and touch someone if they are going the wrong direction or help them adjust their body position. But I have become aware that many people, especially beginners, are not accustomed to a stranger touching them—even the teacher. So even dance teachers need to ask before touching.

Consent is also not limited to couple dances; it also applies when the dance is done in a circle or a line. In this style of dance, you are holding hands with neighbors. In some very traditional Islamic or Orthodox Jewish communities, it is considered immoral for people of different genders to hold hands unless they are married or related. So, a man joining in a circle dance between two women could be considered a major breach in etiquette. By contrast, in conservative Western cultures, two people of the same gender (particularly men) holding hands would be considered unacceptable. Again, attitudes on these issues are shifting, particularly among people in urban dance communities. However, the issue of who you dance next to in the circle or line can still be fraught with social challenges. When I first started doing circle and line dances in the 1980s, the common rule of thumb was that when you are joining the dance, you join “at the end of the line”, which was typically the left end. But even this isn’t without its problems. What is the “end of the line” when the dance is done as a closed circle, and there are no “ends”? It also turns out that in many cultures (for example, Serbia and Croatia), both ends of the dance line are privileged positions reserved for either people of status in the community or the people who paid the dance musicians to play a particular tune. In those cultures, it is considered rude to join “at the end”, and people are expected to join in the middle of the line. Here, consent becomes really important. When joining a line, either at the end or in the middle, or when joining a circle, it is important to ask the people you will be dancing next to, “May I join here?” There are a number of reasons why people may not want you to join between them. For example, they might be romantic partners or best friends who simply want to dance next to each other or to talk while they dance. Or maybe one of them has an injury in their hand, and their preferred neighbor knows how to hold them without causing further pain. So, even in less intimate circle and line dances, affirmative consent is an important practice.

7. Authenticity, Cultural Appropriation, and Ownership of Dances

Since folk dancing can be such an important part of identity, it is particularly important to think carefully about the ethics of having people who are not native to the cultures themselves perform the dance. One frequent topic of discussion among folk dancers is how “authentic” a dance is. Similarly, there is often concern expressed over whether the dancers are performing the dances in an authentic/accurate manner. This, in turn, raises questions about who owns the rights to a particular folk dance or folk dance form, and whether performing that dance by people outside the original ethnic group constitutes cultural appropriation.

There are a number of intertwined issues here. In reality, authenticity is a squirrely notion to pin down. Intuitively, we might think a dance we perform is “authentic” if it is performed the way it would be in its country of origin. But what about dances from immigrant communities? In some cases, such as the diaspora of people from Western Armenia (now part of Turkey), the primary community of practitioners no longer resides in the country of origin. They live in the USA. When a dance emerges from this Armenian American community, but was never done in Western Armenia, is it authentic?

Alternatively, we might consider a dance authentic if we learned it from a teacher or group from the country of origin. But there are many examples of excellent ethnochoreologists from North America who have gone to the country of origin and studied the dances; these dance scholars actually know as much as local experts. In some cases, they probably know more than most locals.

One frequent challenge occurs when a dance has been arranged or choreographed for the audience of North American and European International Folk Dance enthusiasts. One of the discussion questions below asks you to think critically about whether such a dance is “authentic” or not, and whether it matters if the arranger is from the culture or not.

A tightly related notion to authenticity is accuracy and a strict adherence to traditional styling and technique. Let’s take what happens when a teacher goes to some country and learns a dance and brings it back to us. Often, but not always, it is the case that they’ve learned this dance from some folk dance group or some performance group director. They’re choosing to present a very particular arrangement of the dance to us. There can actually be significant variation in how the dance is done back in the country of origin. We are only getting one version. So why is it a problem if there is variation in the way we do the dance in this country? If in Toronto, they lift on the left foot before they cross the right, but in San Francisco, they omit the lift; how is that any different than the fact that they hop in Belgrade? There is no “correct” here; there’s variation. In my other job, I am a professor of linguistics, and this reminds me of a battle we linguists often have with non-specialists. Language is subject to massive variation. The idea that some varieties of language are inherently better than others is known in my field as “prescriptivism”. That’s a dirty word for us; it represents a kind of privilege and elitism. There is nothing inherently bad about a non-standard dialect; they’re all reasonable communication systems. What people who believe that some versions are better than others are really doing is making socio-economic judgments about others based on their language use, rather than looking at the non-standard linguistic variation as just variation. Linguists hold themselves to a different standard. They prefer descriptive approaches to language, where we look at what people do, rather than make value judgments about the people themselves. The same principle can be applied to folk dance.

Some dancers point out that there is an objective standard against which accuracy can be measured. Are the dancers doing the steps the way that the original teacher taught the dance? This, however, also proves problematic. I have seen several teachers teach dances in different ways within the same workshop, let alone at different places. They sometimes teach dances one way, and then—when they actually do the dance to the music—they do it a different way.

“Cultural appropriation” is a concept that has recently emerged to describe situations in which a person from outside a culture disrespectfully adopts key characteristics of that culture. Often, that usage is stereotypical and disrespectful. Examples of cultural appropriation include cases where people dress up in stereotypical costumes representing native people or Mexicans and wear them at Halloween or for college drinking parties. Another example is where an affluent white person starts wearing their hair in cornrows and speaking in African American English. People from the original cultures often resent having their cultures stereotyped and object to such uses. People who perform folk dances in North America risk accusations of cultural appropriation when they perform dances outside their own cultural contexts. I think the key here to determining if something is appropriation or not is intent. If the performer respectfully wants to honor the culture and dance style and does so with knowledge and understanding of the traditional context and techniques, their respectful intent renders them harmless, in my opinion. If they express stereotypes and perform the dances without respect, they are probably guilty of appropriation. It is a delicate balance, but one that can be navigated with forethought, good intent, communication, and compassion.

8. Conclusion

Folk dancing can be tightly tied to one’s identity. It can be a shibboleth for ethnic, religious, national, and political identity. It also serves a purpose, whether valid or not, in enforcing gender roles and identities. In this chapter, I’ve invited you to think critically about some of these notions, particularly those of gender roles, authenticity, and cultural appropriation. I also shared my thoughts on the importance of consent when performing folk dances with others.

Further Reading

• Bacon (1974), Friedberg (2005), Karayanni (2006), Ricciotti (2005), Shay (2014, 2019, 2021, 2023), Standiford (2011), Stratou (1966). Full citations are found in the Reference section at the end of the book.
• https://sfdh.us/encyclopedia/dance_and_music_nationalism_and_ethnicity_shay_part_1.html
• https://sfdh.us/encyclopedia/dance_and_music_nationalism_and_ethnicity_shay_part_2.html
• https://sfdh.us/encyclopedia/dance_and_music_nationalism_and_ethnicity_shay_part_3.html

Discussion Questions

Discussion Question 1

Consider your textbook author, a Caucasian folk dance teacher with ancestry that is almost entirely Scottish and Irish. My parents emigrated from Scotland to Canada in the late 1960s, just before I was born. I was raised in a community that was fairly ethnically homogeneous. While there were other cultural influences in the city I lived in (including Ukrainian settlers and a local indigenous population), it was predominantly a culturally British/Canadian city. Now, after many years of study with experts in Balkan dances, including people from the region, I have a pretty good sense of the style and structure of the dances. Now, if I find a piece of music from that region that I love, and I arrange it with some traditional footwork and some footwork consistent with the traditional style, but I’m doing it to music that would not traditionally have been used for dancing, have I committed cultural appropriation? Is what I did okay? Why or why not?

Discussion Question 2

A local international folk dance club in the United States decides to perform folk dances at a heritage festival. They have some traditional costumes as models, but they also supplement those with costumes they make themselves. They perform dances from many countries and try to use recordings made by musicians from those countries. Are they committing cultural appropriation? Why or why not?

Discussion Question 3

A person from Greece sees a performance by an American folk dance group and observes that the dancers are performing a dance that would traditionally be performed only at a particular religious festival. They are dismayed that the dance is being done out of context. What could the dance group have done to recognize the cultural implications of religious identity and its connection to the dance? Would the situation be different if the dance were being performed for tourists at a hotel in Greece, by Greeks? Why or why not?

Discussion Question 4

Many dancers, particularly older ones, object to the idea of gender-role-free couple dances. They argue that it ignores hundreds of years of tradition and history and delinks the dances from their traditional context. What do you think about this concern?

Discussion Question 5

A country with a strong history of traditional village folk dances has operated a national system of performing groups in which young people learn and perform dances outside their own village traditions. They later started dancing these dances at many different events, including parties, weddings, nightclubs, and celebrations of all kinds. Is this cultural appropriation? Why or why not?

Discussion Question 6

Have you ever been uncomfortable dancing with someone or near someone? What did the person do that made you uncomfortable? Do you think they were aware that what they were doing was making you uncomfortable? In the situation where you found yourself, what could have been done (by the organizers, by your friends, or by yourself) that could have made the situation less uncomfortable and supported your right to consent in the dance context?

Discussion Question 7

Under some oppressive regimes, the only form of protest allowed to people centers on artistic expression, including poetry, fiction, music, dance, and visual arts. Do folk dancers dilute the underlying message of a protest piece by dancing a choreographed dance to the protest music recreationally? If so, what does that mean for the protest movement itself? How can we reconcile dancing recreationally with the original intent of protest songs?