Economic, Social, and Aesthetic Desires Meet on the Dance Floor in Transylvanian Villages (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The social and musical/dance negotiation that is rural dance depends on a system of group and individual interactions and dependencies. For the band, bonds are based on skills, trust, and a joint need to produce an economically viable unit. For dancers, the situation is based more on developing social capital. For both, a large element of personal pride and enjoyment is a part of it, despite and at the same time as the endeavor meets these other more practical goals.

Though (mostly) Roma bands and villagers both need and depend on each other, their relationship is complicated and fraught through ethnic differences and often a lack of trust in day-to-day relationships. Quigley and Varga (2020) have identified many elements of these discords, but also how they can be transcended, as band and dancers strive together to create the dance, in a process they call “choreomusical intimacy.”

This paper considers musical and dance components of this moment, looking at the role of each member of the improvising community—all three musical parts and their contributions to the choices and actions of the dancer, the dancer him/herself, and assembled viewers, both potential participants and observers.

Then, using analysis, archival video, and video from dance events in Transylvania and elsewhere, as well as interviews with participants, we look at moments in the dance where this unity seems to evolve, exploring musical and dance gestures that occasion it, for example, as Quigley and Varga suggest, being in time, hitting the beat perfectly together.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judith E. Olson (NYU, U Colorado) historical musicologist working with traditional Hungarian music/dance in Romania, Hungary, and among Hungarians in the United States/Canada. She combines research in traditional settings, Hungarian dance camps, and revival groups with analysis of dance/music structure, process, and improvisation. She presents frequently at International Council for Traditional Music, International Musicological Society, Analytical Approaches to World Music, Society for Ethnomusicology, and AHEA. She performs research and organizes táncház in New York City with Hungarian House and American Hungarian Folklore Centrum. Secondary research areas include International Folk Dancing in the US, Balkan brass bands, and 19th-century German music/culture.