The study writes about dance and social etiquette courses for young people in Bohemia. It observes the transformation of particular aspects of this phenomenon since the mid-19th century up to the present with regard to differences given by location (Prague, Jičín environs). It mentions the changes that have taken place in the taught repertoire of ballroom dances, the development of music accompaniment, the good-manners teaching and the formal dress. It mentions the form and structure of courses (lessons, extended dancing lessons, balls and graduation balls). It also pays attention to the members of those courses, bringing the first information from the running field research focused on the issue why the young people attend dance courses today. As resulting from the research, the youth dance courses fulfil a lot of social functions (the educational, socializing, dating, romantic, amusing ones) and they are a kind of living tradition. The author proceeds on the study of various period materials (archives, period literature) and the interviews with dancing instructors. The research is also based on observing the contemporary look of dances in defined locations (Prague, Jičín environs) and interviews with participants of those courses.
In this article the author sheds light on how dancers act towards their bodies in the exceptionally competitive environment of competitive ballroom dancing. I also show how constantly performing on the boundary between two worlds, art and sport, and reconciling conflicting requirements influences perspectives on the body, how it is used, and how it physically changes. Drawing on specific examples from the field, the author argues that competition, the use of objects, appearance, emotions, and charisma during a ballroom performance are all socially created, actively reconstructed through social interaction, and shaped by institutional rules. The social context of those actions, which is formed by institutionalisation, high competition, and the aesthetics of the upper social classes, produces a specific approach to the body: treating it as an efficient tool to obtain social status. This tool requires both sharpening (strategies for constructing its effectiveness) and polishing (strategies concerned with aesthetics and transforming one’s appearance). The conclusions of the research include the finding that ballroom dancing involves the direct embodiment of cultural norms and the subordination of the human body to the ideas of the bourgeois classes. The above insights are based on data collected during a six-year ethnographic study in the social subworld of competitive ballroom dancing.
Cultural and educational work in NULES of Ukraine has fruitful influence on the formation of future social teachers’ preparedness to deal with leisure activity. The favorable conditions are created at the University with the purpose of individual and professional qualities improvement; theatrical, vocal and musical gifts perfection and physical development.
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