Critical Correspondence

Correspondence from Wanda Gala at the University of Limerick

February 25, 2009

This week I had the pleasure to attend seminars and workshops at the University of Limerick by Dr. Mats Nilsson, a Swedish dance ethnologist, historian and senior lecturer at the University of Gottenberg. Though the breadth of our study of Swedish dance culture was of intrigue, there was a particular element of his lecture which I found of great inspiration: the mapping of regional dance forms as they relate to the economic, political and chronological movement of their generation.

In creating a map of dance styles and their influences, Nilsson reconfigured the political/geographical boundaries of Sweden to map what culturally and historically unites individuals in this region of Europe. The expanse of these new boundaries brought about a new notion of what may comprise one’s cultural identity within this nation. This negotiation of geographical/national boundaries not only charted the affect and reach of cultural activity, but, in turn, recorded a landscape where cultural practices are negotiated to adapt to these boundaries.

After this lecture I was engaged in discussion on the potential use of this kind of movement research in the development of cultural policy. In particular the work of Dr. Deborah Heifetz-Yahav was brought to mind, and her application of dance ethnology to ethnographic research on peacekeeping. Her work provides us with yet another take on the building of national borders as an embodied phenomenon. In her 2005 paper, Choreographing Otherness: Ethnochoreology and Peacekeeping Research, Heifetz-Yahav discusses the choreography of peacekeeping within a transitional space on the Gaza Strip, where both Israeli and Palestinian troops worked together to “orchestrate conflict-resolution sessions and mobilize and supervise Israeli-Palestinian Joint Patrols.”

Whether or not the reorientation or choreography of a cultural identity is a solution for problems facing politically designed communities is not my focus. Instead, it is the ways in which Heifetz-Yahav records these men re-organizing their movement repertoires to perform peace, and how this creates a place of peace. Her work establishes a unique picture on how socio-political and geographical boundaries are drawn and created as an embodied phenomenon. Through adapting the physical rituals that direct the execution of military activity within their culture (idiomatic steps to the handling and firing of guns, modalities in greeting one another, etc) both groups find a language in movement that supports their understanding of the other.

In effect, it is studies like these, of border cultures and borders themselves, that make me contemplate how research on the physical cultures of our own civilians may affect the drawing and enforcement of political boundaries in our country.

Wanda Gala is currently a candidate for a Masters in Ethnochoreology at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at University of Limerick, Ireland.