![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A small victory from speaking up
Jul. 11th, 2020 08:06 pmA year or two ago, there was a kerfuffle in the Balkan folk dance community about a "Bosnian" dance. Quotes around Bosnian because the music is certainly Bosnian, but the dance was choreographed by an American with at best a shallow understanding of Bosnian culture and dance.
The song, Ne Klepeci, is a Sevdah song, and people from Bosnia have said that it's inappropriate in their culture to dance to it.
There are complex and subtle cultural appropriation issues in International Folk Dancing. This isn't one of them. Folks from that culture say don't dance to that song, I don't dance to it. Simple. Easy.
Unfortunately, not everyone feels that way. ( Seriously?! )
I've been working on how to speak up in general. In this case, the words flowed easily, and I got positive responses. I don't know if I phrased things better than before, or the people were more receptive, or both. I did try to stay with "calling in" and asking for the behavior I wanted rather than arguing or shaming. Not sure what I would have done next if I had encountered more resistance.
The song, Ne Klepeci, is a Sevdah song, and people from Bosnia have said that it's inappropriate in their culture to dance to it.
There are complex and subtle cultural appropriation issues in International Folk Dancing. This isn't one of them. Folks from that culture say don't dance to that song, I don't dance to it. Simple. Easy.
Unfortunately, not everyone feels that way. ( Seriously?! )
I've been working on how to speak up in general. In this case, the words flowed easily, and I got positive responses. I don't know if I phrased things better than before, or the people were more receptive, or both. I did try to stay with "calling in" and asking for the behavior I wanted rather than arguing or shaming. Not sure what I would have done next if I had encountered more resistance.
