Becoming Beautiful: Ballroom Dance in the American Heartland
ISBN: 9780252096983
Platform/Publisher: Oxford Academic / University of Illinois Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Dance and Music;

In Becoming Beautiful , Joanna Bosse explores the transformations undergone by the residents of a Midwestern town when they step out on the dance floor for the very first time.

Bosse uses sensitive fieldwork as well as her own immersion in ballroom culture to lead readers into a community that springs up around ballroom dance. The result is a portrait of the real people who connect with others, change themselves, and join a world that foxtrots to its own rules, conventions, and rewards. Bosse's eye for revealing, humorous detail adds warmth and depth to discussions around critical perspectives on the experiences the dance hall provides, the nature of partnership and connection, and the notion of how dancing allows anyone to become beautiful.

Joanna Bosse is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology and dance ethnography at Michigan State University.

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