Dance Discourse and the Concept of Genre – Some Interpretive Elements

Abstract

The objective of this article is to examine dance as visual and verbal-visual discourse, and to identify the components that foster the production of meaning for an audience without any specialized training, but who are merely amateurs, and who attend dance shows. The first part of the article establishes the theoretical-conceptual basis for the study, supported by excerpts from the works of Bakhtin, Medvedev, and Voloshinov, which converge with the perspective of dance theorist, Rudolf Laban, who conceives of dance as language. Secondly, a corpus consisting of four discursive fragments from different genres are analyzed: classical ballet, modern ballet, hip-hop and street dance. The analysis focuses on the concepts of discursive genres, intonation, and value systems.