The War is Long Over So Why Are we Still Dancing the Charleston?

Welcome to my fieldwork diary where I will be chronicling my foray into the world of solo Charleston dance in present day London. 

Historically (in first world history), Charleston developed and emerged post World War One as a dance craze in America.  The dance fitted the post war helter skelter attitude where people were embracing new technologies, values and identities.  The frenetic, don't-give-a-damn characteristics of Charleston dance reflected this gung-ho period in America.

Solo Charleston also seemed the most appropriate choice of dance form for this researcher following my own personal world war.  Dealing with the aftermath of birth, labour and the realities of having a young child whilst studying and working,  I looked for a dance style where one could totally cut loose in a non serious fashion, have fun and which required minimal commitment in terms of technique.*  I am guessing that those people hightailing it in 1920s America felt similarly.

Prior to starting the project, I had always been interested in Charleston but only knew of the form from movies, on stage or on TV.  In September 2012, I went to see an Australian theatre show called Cantina at the London Wireless Underground Festival at the Southbank Centre.  During the show the cast performed a few Charleston routines.  Seeing these re-stoked my interest in the form.  The following week I attended a workshop with The Bees Knees at Wild Times in London.  Following that I started an eight week course in Solo Charleston with Rosaria Sativa at City Lit in Convent Garden. 

The Charleston in Cantina. Picture courtesy of www.londontown.com

When the time came to choose my fieldwork topic, Solo Charleston seemed the most appropriate choice given all of the above.  My other area of interest was mature dancers and the realities of performing professionally as an older dancer.  However given my time restrictions, it seemed best to research a form which I already had some insight into.  I thus decided to base my fieldwork on a six week, one- hour per class, Solo Charleston course taken by Rosaria Sativa at the Cockpit Theatre in Marylebone.

Aside from learning the dance itself, the focus of my research is as the title suggests.  The War is Long Over so Why Are We Still Dancing the Charleston?   I wanted to find out what people thought of the Charleston and why they chose to learn it?   I was not interested in the vintage, nostalgic aspect of Charleston (although realising I would have to acknowledge the history of its emergence within my research)  but more so what it meant as a dance for now.  How does it fit within the dance spectrum of modern London as a dance to be experienced, rather than a dance to be watched?  How did the people who were doing it now feel about it?  I  summarised it as such on my participant consent form:

Prior to starting my research I contacted Rosaria and discussed my fieldwork project with her.  I also emailed her a copy of the Dance Fieldwork module outline and a draft mockup of what would come to be the final participant consent form.  Rosaria was very interested and supportive and offered her full support to me.

Thus my fieldwork parameters were set. I decided that I would do the following:

• Attend five**, one hour solo Charleston classes with Rosaria at the Cockpit Theatre. 
• Attend additional solo Charleston classes and/or workshops in London if available
• Conduct formal and informal interviews with  Rosaria, class participants and other teachers where possible.
• Record the fieldwork through  film and photography
• Issue questionnaires to class participants to get a sense of why they chose to learn Charleston and what they think of it
• Issue a survey to the general public to get a view of what the average person thinks of Charleston
• All fieldwork will be covert in nature in order to get consent for questionnaires, interviews, filming and photography.
• All the fieldwork to be conducted in an embodied fashion in that I will be an active participant of the dance classes.

So on Friday January 11, 2013 on a cold London winter's night, I travelled to the Cockpit Theatre and started my research.

* By this I mean that I wanted a form where the technique would be relatively easy to pick up for me and would not require hours and hours of labour to master. Although I am not trying to master the Charleston, I knew that I would get the hang of it fairly quickly and this appealed to me in terms of the parameters of this project and also what I was looking for in terms of dancing.

** I already knew I would not be able to attend the sixth session of Rosaria's course due to a prior medical commitment, the date of which could not be changed.