Problematisation
Personally, when I think about dance, it brings me back to when I used to choreograph dances to old RnB songs back in the day. Now that I’ve matured and lived my whole life with the background of dance, I’ve realised that it runs so much deeper than just chucking some movements together. Dance is an expressive outlet and it has countless benefits like fitness, creativity, expression and unity. Therefore, when I’m problematising dance, my first initial thought is to build on the idea that it’s best way to build acceptance to diversity, Dance is a common ground that offers a means for everyone to explore different cultures, ways of life, ideas, expressions, and thoughts.
“Dance has the ability to bring people together, no matter where they’re from”
– Onai Tafuma
After briefly doing some research and seeing the positive initiatives dance can have on individuals, groups and the society; some issues like execution began to arise. At What Point Does Appreciation Become Appropriation? Byrd-McPhee wrote that “People think that all you have to do is have certain postures, wear certain clothes, dance to certain music to make it hip hop, It’s that kind of disconnect from the origins of the culture and the people who created it that’s problematic.”
In today’s popular culture, where majority of dance videos are influenced by individuals on sharing platform’s like TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube, the notion to credit the originality of the moves are compromised and participators tend to repost their interpretation without developing mutually supporting relationships in the community that they’re taking from. A viral example of this, is when the renegade dance on Tiktok was recreated millions of times but no one credited the 14 year old girl “Jalaiah” who choreographed the dance. But instead Charli Damelio and other influencers rose to fame over her creation.
As dance videos are a way to express feeling, share creativity and offer learning purposes, some negative things are bound to occur. And that’s just life, things happen, but it’s how you choose to deal with it that can determine whether the situation escalates or deescalates. Although these issues may arise when millions of people are contributing to the “trend”, it’s not rare but genuinely easily avoidable. Therefore, during my media niche study this semester, I will analyse examples on how to correctly recognise original work and how to handle certain situations.
Research plan
In the upcoming weeks, I will be analysing my niche through various social media platforms. These including, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Specifically, creators or influencers that have branched out to another communication specific app like podcasts or Livestreaming. One particular influencer “MissRemiAshton” who discovers her health journey through the appreciation of the street dance hip hop.
Autoethnography as defined by Ellis, 2011, is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically evaluate personal experience in order to understand cultural experience.
So with the prementioned research methods, the approaches I will be conducting are all forms of ethnographic research methods. This is to ensure I thoroughly educate and immerse myself into the art of virtual dance.
How will I record field notes?
- Handwritten
- Screen shots
- Stream
- Podcasts
- Video
Schedule of research
As for mentioned, I will be mainly using social media to gather research for this project. Which will not be an issue as I spend countless hours scrolling through videos anyways. To further my analysis, I will also be participating in a thorough secondary research to filter the true benefits and disassemble the negative connotations based around dance videos
https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/africa-day-2014-ireland-2-1476208-May2014/
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