The Dance from a Distance. The Pandemic and Its Contribution to Changing the Context of Dance

Abstract

The ethnographic field of this study is the internet and specifically the virtual community called "Online Traditional Dance Seminars". The aim of this research paper is to study the reconstruction of the identity of Greeks involved in the kinetic activity of Greek traditional dance, during the covid-19 pandemic. Netnography was used to collect the data of the research. Oral history was also used as a method, through which everyday memory is projected as a quest of social history. For the presentation and analysis of the data, Geertz's model of "thick description" was adopted. Finally, the interpretation of the data was based on the theoretical visuals of the socio-cybernetic according to the control model of identity (ICT-identity control theory) that Burke proposed, under the terms of Berry's acculturation model. The analysis of the data showed that the traditional dance communities in Greece, in order to maintain the model of their identity, were acculturated and transformed into virtual dance communities, constructing a new identity of their collective and individual self. This new identity did not remain the same, but changed again when the conditions of the pandemic changed. This constant reconstruction of identity justifying the position that both the collective and the individual identity are not permanent, but are adapted according to the environmental conditions, being at the same time a process of interaction and internal control, that is a cybernetic process.