Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Go back ten thousand years and you will find humans toiling away at the many mundane activities required for survival: hunting, food gathering, making weapons..." (more)
Key Phrases: danced rituals, festive behavior, ecstatic rituals, United States, Middle Ages, Feast of Fools (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. It is a truism that everyone seeks happiness, but public manifestations of it have not always been free of recrimination. Colonial regimes have defined spectacles as an inherently "primitive" act and elders harrumph at youthful exultation. Social critic and bestselling author Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) teases out the many incarnations of sanctioned public revelry, starting with the protofeminist oreibasia, or Dionysian winter dance, in antiquity, and from there covering trance, ancient mystery cults and carnival, right up to the rock and roll and sports-related mass celebrations of our own day. "Why is so little left" of such rituals, she asks, bemoaning the "loss of ecstatic pleasure." Ehrenreich necessarily delineates the repressive reactions to such ecstasy by the forces of so-called "civilization," reasonably positing that rituals of joy are nearly as innate as the quest for food and shelter. Complicating Ehrenreich's schema is her own politicized judgment, dismissing what she sees as the debased celebrations of sporting events while writing approvingly of the 1960s "happenings" of her own youth and the inevitable street theater that accompanies any modern mass protest, yet all but ignoring the Burning Man festival in Nevada and tut-tutting ravers' reliance on artificial ecstasy. That aside, Ehrenreich writes with grace and clarity in a fascinating, wide-ranging and generous account. (Jan. 10)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

According to Dancing in the Streets, we are the only animals who come together to make music and then move in harmony with it. Most of us understand this pleasure. We even wish to dance ecstatically in large groups. In fact, we seem to like this most of all. What's more, argues Barbara Ehrenreich, the urge to do so is innate: In one form or another, the practice seems to occur worldwide and in most if not all cultures, including those of the Paleolithic peoples who depicted their dances in caves. Typically, such dancing involves music or drumming and perhaps also masks -- sometimes to create new identities for the dancers, sometimes merely to hide their true identities, thus erasing social inequality. When the dance is over, its pleasure continues as an afterglow. Group unity is achieved, social bonds are strengthened, and worries and irritations have been erased or at least put into perspective. Puritans have disapproved of such ecstatic behavior. Dictators and tyrants have successfully exploited it. But it continues to this day at massive events such as Woodstock and contemporary rock concerts, to say nothing of the annual carnivals in New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro.

So far, this is fascinating stuff. But if dance is in our genes, how would evolution promote it? This would seem to be among the most important questions of the book, yet Ehrenreich's answers are not satisfactory. Too often we invoke predators to explain evolutionary puzzles -- a trap for the unwary that Ehrenreich falls into. "Anthropologists tend to agree," she writes, "that the evolutionary function of dance was to enable -- or encourage -- humans to live in groups larger than small bands of closely related individuals. . . . Larger groups are better able to defend themselves against predators." But evolutionary biologists would have said that group size is determined by the food supply, and no creatures need "encouragement" to make their best efforts against predators.

Alas, Ehrenreich then compounds the improbability. Groups "capable of holding themselves together through dance," she writes, "would have had an evolutionary advantage over more weakly bonded groups and individuals: the advantage of being better able to mount a collective defense against any animals or hostile humans who encroached on their territory." Any truly social species has multiple, redundant methods of keeping a group together and multiple reasons for doing so. And all of these species -- from ants to our direct ancestors, the chimpanzees -- combat their enemies without dancing. Dance unites us, yes, but to understand why we may have it in our genes, we need to know more about its essence and origins than we are given here.

Ironically, Ehrenreich presents facts that would address the question, but she doesn't seem to see their implications. She tells us that dances were held in the Paleolithic era, that pleasurable festivals occur worldwide and that participants seem to get the same boost from those experiences. Most significantly, she provides abundant evidence that one man's dance is another man's devil worship. In 1805, for instance, a Christianized "Hottentot" saw European festivals in the same negative light (horrid, obscene, meaningless) as Charles Darwin saw the ceremonial dances of Australian Aborigines.

If an aspect of human behavior is innate, then it first appeared in Africa, where the first people originated. If the behavior is now worldwide, that's because it left Africa with the human Diaspora; if we no longer recognize its features in other cultures, that's because, over the intervening 50,000 years, each culture developed its own version of it.

In all this, dance resembles language, and in a search for its origins, Africa would have been a good place to start. Recent DNA studies show that the entire human race descended from the San or Bushmen. Many linguists believe that a Bushman language was the original language. Archaeological evidence shows that some of their recent campsites had been occupied continuously since the Paleolithic, with few if any changes in their material culture, suggesting extraordinary cultural stability. And to this day, these First People hold communal, semi-ecstatic dances for the same reasons that Ehrenreich recognizes in her study. None of this is brought to light here. Ehrenreich mentions the First People but only in passing, saying that their dances "are understood by their participants to serve an almost medical function." Not so. If Ehrenreich had considered our African prehistory and had known that Bushmen dance to alleviate not physical ailments (or at least not often) but spiritual ones -- the disappointments, jealousies and aggressive impulses that drive people apart, causing failures of cooperation and thus threatening survival -- she would have found the paradigm and probable origin of the dancing she discusses.

Dancing in the Streets has plenty of substance, and it's unfair to criticize a book for something it doesn't include. But if dance is a primal activity, and if we get primal benefits from it, the failure to acknowledge its primal components detracts from what is otherwise an impressive work.

-- Elizabeth Marshall Thomas,
author of "The Harmless People,"
"The Hidden Life of Dogs" and
"The Old Way: A Story of the First People."

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books (January 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805057234
• ISBN-13: 978-0805057232
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #197,188 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I WANNA ROCK, January 27, 2007

By	Anthony Pierulla (San antonio, texas USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you have ever wondered why you dance, when we and where dancing started,why has there always been dancing, why have some tried to stop it and most of all why does our heart beat faster, a glow come over our body, and our soul seems to rise to a place of unknown joy.
Well my friend this beautifully written work will give you a lot of ideas.
From the savannas of Africa to fiords of Norway you will have new insights into why we dance everywhere and why we will never stop until the last heart stops "beating."
I have always known dance has eternal powers but until I read this I never thought how these powers had been copted in the pursuit of bellicose motives that turned brother against brother.
Thanks to an NPR interview, that did not come close to doing this book justice, and the omnipresence of Amazon I was able to order, receive, read, digest and recommend this joy of a book in a matter of days. A Dionyesian feast that will dance in your mind for a lifetime. Thank you so much Ms. Ehrenreich.

48 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting, although biased, reflection on a phenomenon in social history, January 16, 2007

By	Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty (Port Orford, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Barbara Ehrenreich's "Dancing in the Streets" is a rather unique approach to the subject of a human behavior which has roots going back to, probably, prehistoric days. And her discussion of the topic will, I suspect, be controversial and criticized from some viewpoints, particularly those who may be bothered by the subtitle: "A History of Collective Joy." However, the fact is that this is one of humankind's oldest traditions, the communal celebration of whatever it was that was important to the community -- fertility, security, the annual harvest, or whatever. Promoters of an "autonomous" individualism take note: this is not a book you will happily read. On the other hand, those who think that the individual person doesn't really count -- only the group matters -- may not like it either.

Her purpose for writing this book is clearly stated in the introduction: "If ecstatic rituals and festivities were once so widespread, why is so little left of them today? If the 'techniques' of ecstasy represent an important part of the human cultural heritage, why have we forgotten them, if indeed we have?" Well, I, personally, am not so sure that her initial assumptions are, in fact, true. I think it might be argued that the ecstatic rituals and festivities are still present with us, but they have simply taken on a different "form" consonant with the requirements of a "mass civilization" which has evolved over the past few centuries. I am not as pessimistic as she appears to be about the "collective joy" phenomenon. I do have friends who regularly participate in such behavior, although not for the benefit of the media, and their "rituals," if that be the appropriate word, are not for public consumption.

One of the problems with reading any book which falls within the "history" genre is to grasp and understand the particular viewpoint of the author or the stance which the author takes in selecting the facts presented and the interpretation of those facts in the larger context of the era or topic under examination. We have, for instance, many books about American history which are written from a conservative point of view or from an economic-determinism point of view or from a socialist point of view or from some other sociopolitical point of view. History books of a truly "objective" character are rather rare; virtually every one of them is "framed" to present some bias which the author of the book wants the reader to accept. "Dancing in the Streets" is no exception.

So, first, let me get into the disclaimer mode, just to protect myself from being accused of selling out to many of the very ideas that I personally oppose. I am well aware that many (if not all) of Barbara Ehrenreich's works are written on the socialist, "radical" feminist, and neo-marxist pallet of class, racist, gender, and power-politics. I have read or heard her interviews and, from both the so-called "left" and "right" perspectives, studied the evaluations of her contributions to current thought. Furthermore, while I may disagree with some of her interpretations, I cannot disagree with the facts she selected for this book (citations provided) and, moreover, she does deserve a hearing, in spite of the opinions that some commentators may have regarding her own political and social philosophy.

That being noted, what can really be said about this new book of hers? Interesting? Yes. Valuable? Yes. Thoughtful? Yes. A good history of something which may have been lost or, probably in most cases, diminished -- the phenomenon of "collective" joy? Yes. The final say on the issue? I think not. But that doesn't matter. She has something to say and, in my opinion, that something needs to be addressed. The eleven chapters of her book, beginning with "The Archaic Roots of Ecstasy" and ending with "Carnivalizing Sports," I will, for the purposes of this review, ignore. These chapters simply provide the foundation for her conclusion section, which is what I found most interesting and to which I would like to direct my attention. Her conclusion section, titled "The Possibility of Revival," will likely upset some politically conservative readers but, nevertheless, Ehrenreich, in spite of her specific sociopolitical bias, has some important things to say and they should be thought about seriously.

For instance, she says: "There is no powerful faction in our divided world committed to upholding the glories of the feast and dance." I think that is true. Then she points out: "The Protestant fundamentalism of the United States and the Islamic radicalism of the Middle and Far East are both profoundly hostile to the ecstatic undertaking." I think that is also true. Both socio-religious views do seem to be opposed to what constitutes "joyful" celebration in the sense in which Ehrenreich describes it. Then, "Even communism, which might have been expected to celebrate human sociality, turned out...to be a drab and joyless state of affairs, in which, as in the capitalist West, mass spectacles and military parades replaced long-standing festive traditions." I also think that is true, as a brief perusal of modern social and political history will show. Any argument against these assertions?

While I do not accept the "class-warfare" or "class-consciousness" concept of historical determinism as a fundamental factor in the philosophy of history, the fact of the matter is that throughout human history one's social and/or economic status was important, even vital, to one's personal standing in the community, not to mention one's personal fulfillment and happiness, and simply cannot be cast aside, even though many commentators would like to deny it or ignore it. Like it or not, Ehrenreich is quite right in pointing out that civilization "tends to be hierarchical, with some class or group wielding power over the majority, and hierarchy is antagonistic to the festive and ecstatic tradition." And, for those of us who are lowercase "L" libertarians, she says that "This leaves hierarchical societies with no means of holding people together except for mass spectacles -- and force." And force, of course, we moderate libertarians understand -- and, for that matter, we don't much like mass spectacles either.

I recommend this book to all those interested in social history and cultural studies, as long as the reader recognizes that Ehrenreich writes from a particular sociopolitical perspective. Regardless, she has raised some interesting questions worth thinking about. Now that I'm finished with this review, I'm going out to find some of this "collective joy." In times like these, what other therapy is necessary?

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interesting look at how and why people have come together to mark special occasions, February 8, 2007

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

Throughout history, mankind has participated in a variety of rituals and celebrations. Some are somber and fairly simple (a wake, a funeral procession), while others are quite festive and elaborate (Mardi Gras in New Orleans, carnaval in Brazil).

DANCING IN THE STREETS, by prolific author and historian Barbara Ehrenreich, explains in great detail how and why human beings have come together to mark special occasions, the process by which these rituals have been passed down through the centuries, and what the events mean to participants.

Many of the rituals were planned and/or timed to celebrate a particular happening, such as a wedding, the bounty of the harvest, a funeral, or the rite of passage into adulthood. They often included many of the following components: a certain type of costume or dress, special foods and beverages, music and dancing, masks, body painting, headgear, etc. Certainly these celebrations frequently centered on a procession, a parade or athletic contests.

One only need to think about current-day Olympic games to realize just how much of the pageantry, ritual and symbolism has remained and been expanded upon. The special costumes (all team members of an individual nation are dressed alike), the opening ceremony (which includes the Parade of the Nations and proud flag waving), the lighting of the Olympic torch (which officially begins the competition) and music (the playing of the various national anthems at the medals ceremonies) tend to draw the observer in, making him or her feel like an integral part of the activities. When watching the Olympics on television, one is briefly transported to another time and place, where the similarities and successes (not the differences) of various cultures are being celebrated.

Cave drawings depicted dancing, masks and costumes. Dance was a common theme of ancient Greek art. French Revolutionary festivals included military parades, uplifting marches and officers in splendid uniforms. Explorers and missionaries who observed strange rituals (involving dance, fire, music and costumes) performed by darker skinned individuals were startled, puzzled and upset by what they saw. Even Darwin could not understand the stomping/dancing in unison by western Australian men as they beat their clubs and spears together. The drumming, the chanting and the music drew the observer in and encouraged him to participate and become part of the group.

Even today, at ballparks across the nation, fans are costumed in jerseys, caps and tee shirts emblazoned with their favorite team's logo. Some paint their faces or bare chests the colors of their team. One person moves a certain way, and soon thousands in the stadium are doing "the wave." And music? It might be a cheesy-sounding organ blaring "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" that causes spectators to stand, sway and sing along. Or a lively video is projected onto a huge screen, and soon fans are screaming "We Are Family." For a brief period of time they are part of a friendly crowd --- folks with whom they share a common bond, however briefly. When doing "the wave" or cheering on their team, they aren't strangers.

Barbara Ehrenreich laments the fact that we are very lonely people who lead separate and individual lives. Even though we may have strong family ties and/or find comfort and strength in religion, Ehrenreich firmly believes that we need to create more opportunities for people to experience and express collective joy.

--- Reviewed by Carole Turner