Segal, Barbara. ""Every Savage can Dance" or, Dance as a Class Identifier."

Segal, Barbara. ""Every Savage can Dance" or, Dance as a Class Identifier." In Ballroom, Stage & Village Green: Contexts for Early Dance [Proceedings of the Early Dance Circle Conference held on 11-13 April 2014], edited by Barbara Segal and Bill Tuck, 31-39. Cambridge: Early Dance Circle, 2015.

URL: https://www.earlydancecircle.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/4-Barbara-final-2-cols.pdf


Abstract:
“Every savage can dance,” replies Mr. Darcy sardonically in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, mocking Sir William Lucas’s innocent pronouncement that dancing is “one of the first refinements of polished societies.”
And Mr. Darcy has a point! But of course Sir William is not referring to just ‘any old dancing’ – he is referring to the kind of dance that is current in his particular set in society; and above all, to the ‘refined’ style of performing these dances, a style that confers admission into ‘polite society’, a style that has become a ‘cultural’ identifier, and more particularly in this case, a ‘class’ identifier’ for the beau monde of the period.
Dance as a class identifier is not a new idea, and is certainly implied in Sir William Lucas’s comment. But I’d like to explore the ways in which this has influenced dance styles through the centuries.