The First Step is Always the Hardest: Rhythm and Methods of Mutual Coordination between Novice Dancers

• In Event: 3152 - Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis: Talk, Dance, Adjacency and Non-adjacency

Abstract

The paper contributes to research concerned with how the body features in interaction. Whilst many existing studies often focus on data where bodily action accompanies talk we explore how the body itself is used to make interaction happen, often without—or with very little—talk. The analysis is based on data that we have gathered as part of a dance workshop where participants learned some of the basic steps of the Lindy Hop, a set of African American jazz partner dances from the 1920s-40s. Our interest is in how partners organize their actions in a way that they are able to make a first step in time with their partner, with the music and other workshop members. The analysis of the video-recorded dance workshop uses ethnomethodology and conversation analysis as its analytic and methodological orientation.

Authors

• Saul Albert, Tufts University

• Dirk vom Lehn, King's College London