Movement Style and Culture: Step Style

Duration: 10:00

Year Published: 1980

Creator: Alan Lomax

Complete Record: Subject: Cross-cultural study of leg and foot movements in dance styles throughout the world. The various step styles illustrated are shown to be related to productive activities, social structure, etc. The longitudinal foot-crossing step common in Eurasia, for example, mirrors the heel-to-toe stride of the plowman; dances that emphasize lower leg agility and the pointing of the heel and toe are shown to be typical of highly stratified, socially complex cultures, where lower leg activity is crucial in establishing social distance and levels. Shots: footage dating back to the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, scenes of traditional dance throughout the world-eastern European, African, western, child barely walking, tightrope walker, Mexican, ballet, whole bodies and feet only shots, Thailand, diagrams showing how high feet are raised, Burma, sewing seeds with feet in east Africa, “ground hugging”, Amerindian, potters foot revolving a wheel, flamenco guitar, singer and dancer, south Indian, Malay fisherman, Balinese rice thresher (linking step style to subsistence behavior), seven step types described: 1. Controlled (e.g. east Asia), mouth organ, Peking Opera, 2. Heal and tow pointing, Turkish equestrian, horsemen, Georgians, Slovak, Scottish, Basques, 3. Stepping, Yucatan, clogging, tap dancing, hopscotch, speed skating, bull fighting, Hungary, Crete, Malayan rafting, 4. Complex vertical stepping, Plains Indians dance n traditional costume, also hunting, Maragoso in South America, hook dance, 5. Simple Alteration, dance with spears, German Sword Dance, American Indian, Colombian natives, thatched housing, 6. Sliding, Eastern Brazilian natives, Java harvesting and dance, Northern India, Chad, Charleston, 7. Digging, Australian Aborigines, Bushmen of South Africa,