Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork with an elderly population in rural Russia, this analysis conceptualizes dance as social performance and examines its importance both in the communist political domain and the individual narratives of change in Russia.

Paper long abstract:

Throughout fieldwork in a rural Russian village on the outskirts of a large industrial city, the social importance of dance consistently emerged in the narratives of the elderly. Dances were part of the recreational program the communist state approved of and thus constituted contested embodied practices of freedom and power. Organized community dances were a site of social mobility by creating the conceptual as well as physical space for interaction between social groups. Such dances attracted youth from other villages and small cities; they were also opportunities for courting. These embodied memories stand in stark contrast with the current embodied experiences of the elderly, largely of pain and discomfort. The dances were important representations of the unity that is essential to socialist ideology and was important in the personal narrations of experiences of the Soviet Union of the participants. Thus, dance becomes embroiled in the politics of memory and nostalgia. This analysis conceptualizes dance as social performance and examines its importance both in the communist political domain and the individual narratives of change in Russia.