The Line Between Confiscation And Fusion

America is a multi-cultural country that has so many different people from different cultural background. The diversity also brings American people great cultural resources; even creates the unique and distinctive culture that represents America. In this class, I have taught so many great artists who were not originally from America and they mixed their own culture with the American spirits. In the class, I was introduced to two interesting terms: confiscation and fusion. Both words have the meaning of taking other people’s things as their own. However, “confiscation” has more negative feeling than “fusion”. There is one thing to draw the line between confiscation and fusion, whether the people who took other people’s culture view that culture
African dances were usually described as powerful, spiritual, and fast. They learn their dances as a heritage and prefer to dance in circles. The tension of African and American dance is represented through movements. African dances are the influence of freedom, improvisation, and individuality, and the European dances are the influence of couple dancing. During the time of the Middle Age, African dance has changed in the new world. Because the white people didn’t like the drumming and dancing of the newly arrived Africans, they prohibited the traditional African dance. Later on, when the white people realized exercise keep slaves alive and health, they encouraged them to dance again but only to their master’s tunes. The Europeans and white Americans wanted to change the African dance style because of the difference originated at the
He wrote that “when people leave the society they were born into, either voluntarily or involuntarily, dance is one of the things they take with them … And when people from different backgrounds find themselves living side by side in a new setting, the result is a fusion of dance forms, as people borrow from one another and transform what they borrow to reflect new social realities” (164). Jonas precisely explained the definition of fusion, and we could easily see some of these dance works that we reviewed unfolded the idea of fusion. Balanchine brought Russian ballet to America but the he did not infuse the idea of Russian dance to the American audience. He successfully accepted the openness of America and the technic of classic Russian ballet. He did not to choose the classic Russian dance piece to launch his first show in America, but created a new piece called “Serenade”. “Serenade” contained seventeen young American female dancers who wore light blue gowns arranged to adjoining square shape. Balanchine set women free in his piece, and in his work women were no long the accessary to men. Moreover, he changed the Russian dance style that had rich plot but he de-emphasized the storyline in his work so people could focus on the movements. These beautiful young dancers all wore elegant but simply customs just like what Balanchine expected. He successfully conveyed his expectation to