The Line Between Confiscation And Fusion

America is a multi-cultural country that has so many different people from different cultural background. The diversity also brings American people great cultural resources; even creates the unique and distinctive culture that represents America. In this class, I have taught so many great artists who were not originally from America and they mixed their own culture with the American spirits. In the class, I was introduced to two interesting terms: confiscation and fusion. Both words have the meaning of taking other people’s things as their own. However, “confiscation” has more negative feeling than “fusion”. There is one thing to draw the line between confiscation and fusion, whether the people who took other people’s culture view that culture
as equal. I will further clarity the differences by using real life events as examples. African dance is an example of confiscation because of the slavery history and race segregation.
African dances were usually described as powerful, spiritual, and fast. They learn their dances as a heritage and prefer to dance in circles. The tension of African and American dance is represented through movements. African dances are the influence of freedom, improvisation, and individuality, and the European dances are the influence of couple dancing. During the time of the Middle Age, African dance has changed in the new world. Because the white people didn’t like the drumming and dancing of the newly arrived Africans, they prohibited the traditional African dance. Later on, when the white people realized exercise keep slaves alive and health, they encouraged them to dance again but only to their master’s tunes. The Europeans and white Americans wanted to change the African dance style because of the difference originated at the
roots.
Later in the history of American dance, the trend of Lindy Hop verified the idea that the majority white people confiscated the features from African American dance. At that time, people come to the savory to dance lindy hop. The music is loud and alive which had lots of drums, fast steps, fast swings. coupe dance, body throw movements. Most people on the dance floor were African Americans and it was their "community center”. A lot of white people and African Americans came together in the same ballroom that was the first time. However, most white people still could not accept dance moves from African Americans. As Erine Smith said in the video “the suggestive movements (moving hips) were perceives as coming out of black culture, white folks did not do that. Not proper white folks”. Then white people created a dance called “jitterbug” which was also a swing dance that had a lot of up and down movements also it was not smooth but very jerky. This dance had a lot of commons with Lindy Hop. Norma Miller said in the video that white people already had everything, so they could not take African Americans’ Lindy Hop. The Lindy Hop had fast feed, horizontal movements, drums, fast swings, throw movements and fast feet movements. The Jitterbug also had fast pace of dancing movements, a lot of feet movements and swings. These two dances were practical the same but the white people took out what they did not like. Because of the political background at that time, people could not fully enjoy what they like no matter what race you were. In chapter 6 of “New Worlds of Dance”, Jonas introduced to his readers the idea of fusion.
He wrote that “when people leave the society they were born into, either voluntarily or involuntarily, dance is one of the things they take with them … And when people from different backgrounds find themselves living side by side in a new setting, the result is a fusion of dance forms, as people borrow from one another and transform what they borrow to reflect new social realities” (164). Jonas precisely explained the definition of fusion, and we could easily see some of these dance works that we reviewed unfolded the idea of fusion. Balanchine brought Russian ballet to America but the he did not infuse the idea of Russian dance to the American audience. He successfully accepted the openness of America and the technic of classic Russian ballet. He did not to choose the classic Russian dance piece to launch his first show in America, but created a new piece called “Serenade”. “Serenade” contained seventeen young American female dancers who wore light blue gowns arranged to adjoining square shape. Balanchine set women free in his piece, and in his work women were no long the accessary to men. Moreover, he changed the Russian dance style that had rich plot but he de-emphasized the storyline in his work so people could focus on the movements. These beautiful young dancers all wore elegant but simply customs just like what Balanchine expected. He successfully conveyed his expectation to
his audience. In “How to become an American”, Horowitz excerpted the review from American dance critic Edwin Denby that he wrote “Balanchine was able to bypass the uncertainties of the individual dancer. The thrill of Serenade depends on the sweetness of the bond between all the young dancers. The dancing and the behavior are as exact as in a strict ballet class” (33). Balanchine embraced the idea of individualism in America, but also kept the great dance technic from the Russian classic dance. Balachine had mutual respect for both dances, and he fused the best parts of these two dances then created his own dance to represent America. One the other hand, due to the race issue American people could not understand African American dance really well. The white folks confiscated the part of African American dance they liked and got rid of the part that represented African Americans. It was disrespectful to another culture. As Erine Smith suggested in the video that “proper white folk” did not do that. White people at that time did not fully accept African American culture and even thought African culture was a disgrace. It made viewer like me believed that it was confiscation not fusion. Every culture, every dance has its good and bad sides. Fusion will make something better, but confiscation will put off the development of great cultural resources and these two terms will always alert people.