Dança de salão e lazer na sociedade contemporânea: um estudo sobre academias de Belo Horizonte

Abstract

This research adhered to ballroom dance as a leisure activity in contemporary society from Belo Horizonte. Through game theory (especially Huizinga) and leisure (primarily Gomes concepts) sought to question, from theoretical point of view, the ballroom dance. Then, the objective was to understand better what ballroom dance is. The field research consisted of forms and semistructured interviews with people who experience ballroom dance in dance studios from Belo Horizonte. The survey results showed a series of tensions over the division of gender with established roles during the dance (male/leader and female/follower), in dialogue with society today. A point to be taken into consideration is that ballroom dance, when put people in direct body contact with someone of the opposite sex, creates a touch of intimacy. This contact occurs within what is understood here as a game that occurs within a unique universe that allows its players indulge in intimate physical contact with another being, but it ends there. The ballroom dance, in general, is presented in this study as being motivated by sociability and all the tensions that embraces this concept, since it is just being with others who leads his actors to attend the lessons of the ballroom dance studios. Another point, resulting of these tensions, is the idea that this kind of dance does not belong to the male nor the youthful universe. In general, the research has shown that this cannot be stated with absolute certainty because of the new configurations of ballroom dance that is even changing the process of "leading", where woman increasingly is replaced by an active role in this essential element of the definition of ballroom dance. All these factors are closely related to the invention of this kind of academies, of the technical development that ballroom dance is suffering and the creation of a dance invented to be an element of pleasure and sociability in the halls, which now wins the Italian stage. This creates a further refinement of the dance that leads to both leader and follower to take classes to understand the diversity of ballroom dance from all over the world and to get to dance with different people.