Folk Arts
CONTEMPORARY TRENDS
Revivals.
The revived interest in national folk dances is generally dissociated
from tradition, unless a folk dance group has a leader with
folkloric knowledge. Folk dancing inspires the weekly gatherings
of groups in civic centres, colleges, and other centres, even
the entire schedules of summer folk-dance camps. Congresses
sponsored by the Folk Dance Federation of California produced
a uniform repertoire for groups throughout
North America. In addition,
new immigrants introduced occasional new dances. Most of these
groups dance for the sheer pleasure of dance, and more expert
ensembles stage programs and enter contests, both in the New
and Old World. But although such revivals and the consequent
preservation of traditions were heartening and brought about
good fellowship, healthful exercise, and, avowedly, international
understanding, such dancing had no connection with the aboriginal
purposes of folk dancing, which continued only in villages or
on Indian reservations.
The modern style of
costuming is an exteme
departure from the masks for spirit impersonators and the symbolic
designs painted or woven on all costumes of the ritual dances.
Such paraphernalia survived in some dances that straddle ritualism
and folk dance, as the animal and corn dances of the
Pueblo Indians. But the
trend was increasingly toward contemporary dress. Even the Iroquois
ritualists usually wore ordinary clothes. Members of folk dance
clubs rarely wore traditional costumes at their informal gatherings,
although these clothes were customary for staged programs.
As a contrasting trend, professional folkloric troupes exaggerated
costume effects, doubled the volume of skirts, added spangles,
and increased the instrumental volume and the tempo. Frequently
the directors composed scenarios, as in the reconstructions
of Aztec rituals by the Ballet Folklórico de
México. Their
spectacles have a great audience appeal, compensating in part
for the nonkinetic and the prosaic in modern folk dancing.
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