Dancing Together. Behavior and Context in the Scandinavian Folk Dance and Music Community

Abstract

In this master's thesis I look at social interaction between dancers, musicians, and peripheral actors at social dance events, particularly in the Scandinavian folk dance community (both in the United States and Scandinavia). Through analysis of filmed material and personal experience, I identify a number of behavior roles and look at how these can be grouped together to understand how certain behaviors and influence consequent behaviors. Based on interviews with community members I determine a number of other factors that influence this interaction and explore how this influence is effected. In the final chapter I suggest a number of ways that the tools developed in thesis can be used to analyze social interaction at a social dance event, regardless of genre.