Papers by Sille Kapper-Tiisler
Mäetagused, 2011
The aim of this article is to show what is the living dance tradition in Estonia like, by whom an... more The aim of this article is to show what is the living dance tradition in Estonia like, by whom and how traditional elements are used in spontaneous amusement dance situations. The main data have been collected by observant participation in 2010 at Viljandi Folk Music Festival where contemporarily arranged folk music was played and theaudience was encouraged to dance. Based on the data, one can conclude that nowadays the traditional dance is very much improvisational and individual in fact, because usually the limits of the tradition are chosen by each dancer individually.Dance as a culture-bound bodily means of communication is, however, an opportunity to identify with some groups of people sharing similar values and folklore. Looking at dance movements and performance styles, one can identify the dancers' dance competencies and based on this, imagine communities with certain common background. In those imagined communities, entitled in the article as "dance club people&quo...
Teesid: Eesti rahvatantsu-uurimine vajab nuudisaegseid teooriaid ja meetodeid. Artiklis vaadeldak... more Teesid: Eesti rahvatantsu-uurimine vajab nuudisaegseid teooriaid ja meetodeid. Artiklis vaadeldakse rahvatantsu-uurimist uhelt poolt kui ajalooteadust ja teiselt poolt kui tanapaevast kultuuriuurimist. Vorreldakse tantsuantropoloogilist ja koreoloogilist uurimisviisi ning neid uhendavat holistilist ehk integreeritud lahenemist, tahelepanu leiab esitajakeskse rahvatantsu-uurimise teooria. Meetoditest kasitletakse valitood ja tantsuanaluusi. Viimases on eristatud tantsusundmuse kui kultuuriteksti ja koreograafilise teksti ehk tantsuliigutuste analuus. Vaadeldakse kahte pohimotteliselt erinevat tantsude kirjeldamise viisi: ettekirjutavat ja dokumenteerivat, millest viimane on eesti tantsu-uurimises uus ja perspektiivikas nahtus. Marksonad: eesti rahvatants, etnokoreoloogia, folkloristika, parimustants, seltskonnatantsu ajalugu, tantsuanaluus, traditsiooniline tants Kaesoleva artikli eesmark on tuua eesti lugejani informatsiooni maailmas etnokoreoloogia alal kasutatavatest teoreetiliste...
Abstract: The article presents a selection of contemporary theories and methods of ethnochoreolog... more Abstract: The article presents a selection of contemporary theories and methods of ethnochoreology. The selection was made based on the present reality of research into Estonian dance, which is currently at its very beginning. The need to bring into play recent ...
... Saab ka korra-ga: üks rühm kuuleb nt karoobuka viisi ja tantsib seda, teine rühm aga kuu-leb... more ... Saab ka korra-ga: üks rühm kuuleb nt karoobuka viisi ja tantsib seda, teine rühm aga kuu-leb peamiselt rütmi ja hüppab (Klapp2 Kultrahoovis). ... Videonäitel* mängivad kaks Pärnu koolipoissi Pärimusmuusika Aida ees akordionit ja kitarri, poiste jalge ees on avatud pil-...
Kapper (Estonia) focuses mainly on the twentieth century, basing her discussion on information fr... more Kapper (Estonia) focuses mainly on the twentieth century, basing her discussion on information from folk dance collectors and researchers connected to the folk-dance movement. She surveys round dance forms described or referred to as part of this information, and discusses the relationship between round dances and other dances in a local community, particularly if that community was known as a stronghold of traditional dance. She also refers in brief to the folk-dance movement. In this way, she includes two of the groups mentioned above: the ‘dancing crowds’ and the folk dancers, and discusses the place round dancing has within each.
Methis. Studia humaniora Estonica, 2011
Journal of Baltic Studies, 2016
The doctoral dissertation “Changing Traditional Folk Dance: Concepts and Realizations in Estonia ... more The doctoral dissertation “Changing Traditional Folk Dance: Concepts and Realizations in Estonia 2008–2013” explores the construction of the concept of traditional folk dance, and the causes and meanings of the variation traditional folk dance texts. The analysis of the Estonian concept pärimustants was based on data derived from paper and web publications, ethnographic fieldwork and a special inquiry. In the dissertation it is showed that in public discourse the concept of traditional folk dance was constructed with a mental relation to Estonian peasant culture that consisted in the connection of dance movement text or function to different knowledge- and experience-based imaginations of dance in past agrarian society. Consequently, for contemporary people, a connection to our collective past is an important idea that is realized, among other opportunities, in the bodily practice of traditional folk dance. The conceptual dimension of dance knowledge is made perceptually available in realization, and the concept as a potential that enables one to dance, includes historical values of a community as well as culturally determined practical skills, abilities and habits of individuals. Therefore, the variability of traditional folk dance texts reflects general cultural regularities. Audiovisual recordings made during the period explored and reflections within personal participant observations enabled the researcher to reveal traces of soviet colonialism in our cultural situation today. Elements of colonial mimicry that especially characterized national stage dance style were also found in traditional folk dancing which led to the understanding of strong institutional influences on dance processes. During the explored period in Estonia, in traditional folk dance, as an individual and subjective phenomenon where living human bodies remember former historical layers in different ways, national as well as several regional, local and imagined communities’ identities were manifested.
The article provides an overview of the changes that have occurred in the concept of ‘folk dance’... more The article provides an overview of the changes that have occurred in the concept of ‘folk dance’ in Estonia from the end of the 19th century until today. The diachronic analysis of both theoretical and practical discourses is based on Estonian-language paper and web publications where the word rahvatants (folk dance) has been used as a term or where the concept is defined; an inquiry among the members of a folk dance group, and my personal ethnographic fieldwork in the folk dance world of Estonia. My borderline position between the roles of a dance researcher and a dancer and folk dance teacher in practice makes it possible to switch between different discourses and find their intersections. Shifts that occur in terms and concepts used in both scientific and public classifications, as well as in specialised discourses situated between them, reflect varied trends in the Estonian dance tradition during the 20th century and explain the development of the present situation.
Tradition and Mimicry
Estonian dance history and traditions can in some respects be viewed as ... more Tradition and Mimicry
Estonian dance history and traditions can in some respects be viewed as colonised culture. Folk dance research can help clarify which period or periods in our history could be discussed within the framework of colonialism. In this article, I analyse a style of staged folk dance, posing the question if a colonial situation came into being in Soviet-occupied Estonia in 1940 – 1991, and whether or not any colonial traits can be observed in Soviet Estonian cultural life and arts.
The limits for what constitutes folk dance became extremely wide during the course of the 20th century, and came to encompass traditional as well as staged folk dances. The creation and performance of the latter became particularly popular in the days of the Estonian SSR. Looking at stylised dances performed at dance festivals or amateur concerts through the prism of post-colonialism could help find markers pointing to the colonial situation within the Soviet-era compositions. Stage and stadium performances at times share more similarities with classical ballet and character dance than with traditional
dance – a situation which inspires to interpretations through Homi Bhabha’s notion of mimicry (Estonian:
jäliendus; Annus 2003: 138–139). The style based on homogenization and other canons of classical dance
has even after the re-independence of Estonia preserved the characteristics which came into being during
the colonial period; out of the colonial interference, a new tradition has been born (for comparison, see
Bhabha’s ’English book’).
In post-colonial Estonia, the tradition of staged folk dances has little in common with folklore and a lot in common with performance arts. The hybrid art form which came into being mimicring a colonialising culture has its own – and if dance festivals are also taken into account – rather broad following of amateurs and spectators, in certain respects representing or wishing to represent the entire nation. At the same time,
the paths of form and content have been different: if the outside has stayed true to the different forms resulting from defensive adaptation, the contents can after the restoration of independence be said to have returned to the values of patriotism and national romanticism which were ascribed to folk dances before the Second World War. Thus, the colonialist echoes of the Soviet regime within contemporary Estonian culture are reflected in staged folk dance.
The aim of this article is to show what is the living dance tradition in Estonia like, by whom an... more The aim of this article is to show what is the living dance tradition in Estonia like, by whom and how traditional elements are used in spontaneous amusement dance situations.
The main data have been collected by observant participation in 2010 at Viljandi Folk Music Festival where contemporarily arranged folk music was played and the audience was encouraged to dance. Based on the data, one can conclude that nowadays the traditional dance is very much improvisational and individual in fact, because usually the limits of the tradition are chosen by each dancer individually.
Dance as a culture-bound bodily means of communication is, however, an opportunity to identify with some groups of people sharing similar values and folklore. Looking at dance movements and performance styles, one can identify the dancers’ dance competencies and based on this, imagine communities with certain common background. In those imagined communities, entitled in the article as „dance club people“, „folk dancers“ and „active audience“, their traditions are invented in different ways, based on different movement materials deriving from the past. The „dance club people“ and „folk dancers“ share some repertoire but their overall performance style is rather different. The „active audience“ has no significant former experience in traditional dancing but this audience knows some widespread movement elements that are considered traditional among them. Some soloists with richer movement competencies belong to every community and some dancers move between different communities, adapting their dancing according to situations.
Today, traditional dancing is very much influenced by conscious learning through more or less organised, regular or irregular activities like dance clubs, stage folk dance groups, and festival workshops. Professional dance teachers and some musicians, especially interested in traditional dancing have taken an important role in disseminating the dance repertoire as well as performance styles. In dancers’ movement their dance learning past and background reveals.
Historically, traditional dancing in its entertainment function has been rather international, but the imagined community of Estonian folk dancers is distinguished by their rather conservative attitude, expressed in quite clear ideas about “our own” and “foreign” elements in dancing while dance club people or active audience do not prefer dances with longer local history. The identity of “folk dancers” seems to be more connected
with an ideal culture, based on archival data about Estonians’ dancing (deriving mainly from in the end of 19th century) while the dancing behaviour of “dance club people” could be described as intended culture which is more flexible and open. This way, comparing the dancing of both communities, a reflection of continuous balance seeking of overall Estonian culture can be seen.
Openness also seems to be the main value of “active audience” whose dancing is based on every dancer’s individual movement memory. Core traditions that would be valued by community members are hard to determine in this case. If the “active audience” can be imagined as a community, the distinction from overall public comes from their interest towards folk music but not from special dancing competencies.
Nowadays, in most dancing events the improvisation is used but the level of improvisation – conservative, innovative or free – depends on individual values and decisions of dancers as well as the music, companions, place and space. Creative use of
older traditions is the domain of small number of devoted enthusiasts. Generally, older traditions are unknown and their limits are not adhered to, because of the very tolerant
overall cultural environment. Instead of local traditions, still inner rules of imagined communities can be noticed. Instead of limiting, traditions are rather used by individuals in the role of inspiration source.
Mäetagused. Hüperajakiri, Jan 1, 2009
How to Conduct Research on Estonian Folk Dance
Today?
Key words: analysis of dance, Estonian ... more How to Conduct Research on Estonian Folk Dance
Today?
Key words: analysis of dance, Estonian folk dance, ethnochoreology, folk/ethnic dance, folklore studies, history of social dance, traditional dance.
The article presents a selection of contemporary theories and methods of ethnochoreology. The selection was made based on the present reality of research into Estonian dance, which is currently at its very beginning. The need to bring into play recent theoretical and methodological approaches emerged in connection with project “Original Choreographic Text and Style of Performance of Estonian Folk Dances on the Basis of Recorded Audiovisual Material”, which aims at studying the authentic style of performing folk dance and at the identification and explanation of the changes that take
place in folk dances during different periods and in revival processes.
In the article, the concept of ‘folk dance’ (Estonian: rahvatants) is used in its broadest meaning which incorporates the ritual and social dancing of people in the past and
present, and the changing meanings that have been attributed to the concept of ‘folk’ (Estonian: rahvas), as well as author works which elaborate and stylize the genres of folklore. Participatory and presentational dancing are discussed in connection with the concepts of the first, second and third existence of folklore. The author aims to stress the importance of specific research into the real use of the key concepts and
terms in the field of folk dance and how they are understood by different groups of Estonian-speaking people.
The article briefly addresses the historical research into folk dance studies, revealing some current problems in the history of European social and traditional dance and introducing the theory of dance paradigms. The author points out that next to studying local peculiarities in the Estonian dance tradition, more attention should be paid to parallels with the dance history of other nations and trends in the international dance
practices.
Ethnochoreological research as a distinctive branch of contemporary cultural studies is also discussed in the article. The (so-called American) anthropological approach and
(European) choreological one are compared in terms of their disparities and similarities, and the article introduces the holistic or integrated dance research which incorporates
the two approaches. Special attention is paid to the so-called performer-centred folk dance research, which may be very relevant in Estonia today. In dance analysis, two levels can be discerned – the analysis of a dance event as a cultural text and specific analysis of choreographic text, or dance movements. Two principally different ways of notation – prescriptive and descriptive – are discussed. Descriptive notation is quite a new approach to Estonian folk dance tradition and may bring along revolutionary changes in research in this field. The article has been written with the conviction that even a brief introduction of recent theories and methods may help potential Estonian folk dance researchers effectively continue the first steps taken in scientific research
into Estonian folk dance.
Books by Sille Kapper-Tiisler
Waltzing Through Europe: Attitudes towards Couple Dances in the Long Nineteenth Century, 2020
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Papers by Sille Kapper-Tiisler
Estonian dance history and traditions can in some respects be viewed as colonised culture. Folk dance research can help clarify which period or periods in our history could be discussed within the framework of colonialism. In this article, I analyse a style of staged folk dance, posing the question if a colonial situation came into being in Soviet-occupied Estonia in 1940 – 1991, and whether or not any colonial traits can be observed in Soviet Estonian cultural life and arts.
The limits for what constitutes folk dance became extremely wide during the course of the 20th century, and came to encompass traditional as well as staged folk dances. The creation and performance of the latter became particularly popular in the days of the Estonian SSR. Looking at stylised dances performed at dance festivals or amateur concerts through the prism of post-colonialism could help find markers pointing to the colonial situation within the Soviet-era compositions. Stage and stadium performances at times share more similarities with classical ballet and character dance than with traditional
dance – a situation which inspires to interpretations through Homi Bhabha’s notion of mimicry (Estonian:
jäliendus; Annus 2003: 138–139). The style based on homogenization and other canons of classical dance
has even after the re-independence of Estonia preserved the characteristics which came into being during
the colonial period; out of the colonial interference, a new tradition has been born (for comparison, see
Bhabha’s ’English book’).
In post-colonial Estonia, the tradition of staged folk dances has little in common with folklore and a lot in common with performance arts. The hybrid art form which came into being mimicring a colonialising culture has its own – and if dance festivals are also taken into account – rather broad following of amateurs and spectators, in certain respects representing or wishing to represent the entire nation. At the same time,
the paths of form and content have been different: if the outside has stayed true to the different forms resulting from defensive adaptation, the contents can after the restoration of independence be said to have returned to the values of patriotism and national romanticism which were ascribed to folk dances before the Second World War. Thus, the colonialist echoes of the Soviet regime within contemporary Estonian culture are reflected in staged folk dance.
The main data have been collected by observant participation in 2010 at Viljandi Folk Music Festival where contemporarily arranged folk music was played and the audience was encouraged to dance. Based on the data, one can conclude that nowadays the traditional dance is very much improvisational and individual in fact, because usually the limits of the tradition are chosen by each dancer individually.
Dance as a culture-bound bodily means of communication is, however, an opportunity to identify with some groups of people sharing similar values and folklore. Looking at dance movements and performance styles, one can identify the dancers’ dance competencies and based on this, imagine communities with certain common background. In those imagined communities, entitled in the article as „dance club people“, „folk dancers“ and „active audience“, their traditions are invented in different ways, based on different movement materials deriving from the past. The „dance club people“ and „folk dancers“ share some repertoire but their overall performance style is rather different. The „active audience“ has no significant former experience in traditional dancing but this audience knows some widespread movement elements that are considered traditional among them. Some soloists with richer movement competencies belong to every community and some dancers move between different communities, adapting their dancing according to situations.
Today, traditional dancing is very much influenced by conscious learning through more or less organised, regular or irregular activities like dance clubs, stage folk dance groups, and festival workshops. Professional dance teachers and some musicians, especially interested in traditional dancing have taken an important role in disseminating the dance repertoire as well as performance styles. In dancers’ movement their dance learning past and background reveals.
Historically, traditional dancing in its entertainment function has been rather international, but the imagined community of Estonian folk dancers is distinguished by their rather conservative attitude, expressed in quite clear ideas about “our own” and “foreign” elements in dancing while dance club people or active audience do not prefer dances with longer local history. The identity of “folk dancers” seems to be more connected
with an ideal culture, based on archival data about Estonians’ dancing (deriving mainly from in the end of 19th century) while the dancing behaviour of “dance club people” could be described as intended culture which is more flexible and open. This way, comparing the dancing of both communities, a reflection of continuous balance seeking of overall Estonian culture can be seen.
Openness also seems to be the main value of “active audience” whose dancing is based on every dancer’s individual movement memory. Core traditions that would be valued by community members are hard to determine in this case. If the “active audience” can be imagined as a community, the distinction from overall public comes from their interest towards folk music but not from special dancing competencies.
Nowadays, in most dancing events the improvisation is used but the level of improvisation – conservative, innovative or free – depends on individual values and decisions of dancers as well as the music, companions, place and space. Creative use of
older traditions is the domain of small number of devoted enthusiasts. Generally, older traditions are unknown and their limits are not adhered to, because of the very tolerant
overall cultural environment. Instead of local traditions, still inner rules of imagined communities can be noticed. Instead of limiting, traditions are rather used by individuals in the role of inspiration source.
Today?
Key words: analysis of dance, Estonian folk dance, ethnochoreology, folk/ethnic dance, folklore studies, history of social dance, traditional dance.
The article presents a selection of contemporary theories and methods of ethnochoreology. The selection was made based on the present reality of research into Estonian dance, which is currently at its very beginning. The need to bring into play recent theoretical and methodological approaches emerged in connection with project “Original Choreographic Text and Style of Performance of Estonian Folk Dances on the Basis of Recorded Audiovisual Material”, which aims at studying the authentic style of performing folk dance and at the identification and explanation of the changes that take
place in folk dances during different periods and in revival processes.
In the article, the concept of ‘folk dance’ (Estonian: rahvatants) is used in its broadest meaning which incorporates the ritual and social dancing of people in the past and
present, and the changing meanings that have been attributed to the concept of ‘folk’ (Estonian: rahvas), as well as author works which elaborate and stylize the genres of folklore. Participatory and presentational dancing are discussed in connection with the concepts of the first, second and third existence of folklore. The author aims to stress the importance of specific research into the real use of the key concepts and
terms in the field of folk dance and how they are understood by different groups of Estonian-speaking people.
The article briefly addresses the historical research into folk dance studies, revealing some current problems in the history of European social and traditional dance and introducing the theory of dance paradigms. The author points out that next to studying local peculiarities in the Estonian dance tradition, more attention should be paid to parallels with the dance history of other nations and trends in the international dance
practices.
Ethnochoreological research as a distinctive branch of contemporary cultural studies is also discussed in the article. The (so-called American) anthropological approach and
(European) choreological one are compared in terms of their disparities and similarities, and the article introduces the holistic or integrated dance research which incorporates
the two approaches. Special attention is paid to the so-called performer-centred folk dance research, which may be very relevant in Estonia today. In dance analysis, two levels can be discerned – the analysis of a dance event as a cultural text and specific analysis of choreographic text, or dance movements. Two principally different ways of notation – prescriptive and descriptive – are discussed. Descriptive notation is quite a new approach to Estonian folk dance tradition and may bring along revolutionary changes in research in this field. The article has been written with the conviction that even a brief introduction of recent theories and methods may help potential Estonian folk dance researchers effectively continue the first steps taken in scientific research
into Estonian folk dance.
Books by Sille Kapper-Tiisler
Estonian dance history and traditions can in some respects be viewed as colonised culture. Folk dance research can help clarify which period or periods in our history could be discussed within the framework of colonialism. In this article, I analyse a style of staged folk dance, posing the question if a colonial situation came into being in Soviet-occupied Estonia in 1940 – 1991, and whether or not any colonial traits can be observed in Soviet Estonian cultural life and arts.
The limits for what constitutes folk dance became extremely wide during the course of the 20th century, and came to encompass traditional as well as staged folk dances. The creation and performance of the latter became particularly popular in the days of the Estonian SSR. Looking at stylised dances performed at dance festivals or amateur concerts through the prism of post-colonialism could help find markers pointing to the colonial situation within the Soviet-era compositions. Stage and stadium performances at times share more similarities with classical ballet and character dance than with traditional
dance – a situation which inspires to interpretations through Homi Bhabha’s notion of mimicry (Estonian:
jäliendus; Annus 2003: 138–139). The style based on homogenization and other canons of classical dance
has even after the re-independence of Estonia preserved the characteristics which came into being during
the colonial period; out of the colonial interference, a new tradition has been born (for comparison, see
Bhabha’s ’English book’).
In post-colonial Estonia, the tradition of staged folk dances has little in common with folklore and a lot in common with performance arts. The hybrid art form which came into being mimicring a colonialising culture has its own – and if dance festivals are also taken into account – rather broad following of amateurs and spectators, in certain respects representing or wishing to represent the entire nation. At the same time,
the paths of form and content have been different: if the outside has stayed true to the different forms resulting from defensive adaptation, the contents can after the restoration of independence be said to have returned to the values of patriotism and national romanticism which were ascribed to folk dances before the Second World War. Thus, the colonialist echoes of the Soviet regime within contemporary Estonian culture are reflected in staged folk dance.
The main data have been collected by observant participation in 2010 at Viljandi Folk Music Festival where contemporarily arranged folk music was played and the audience was encouraged to dance. Based on the data, one can conclude that nowadays the traditional dance is very much improvisational and individual in fact, because usually the limits of the tradition are chosen by each dancer individually.
Dance as a culture-bound bodily means of communication is, however, an opportunity to identify with some groups of people sharing similar values and folklore. Looking at dance movements and performance styles, one can identify the dancers’ dance competencies and based on this, imagine communities with certain common background. In those imagined communities, entitled in the article as „dance club people“, „folk dancers“ and „active audience“, their traditions are invented in different ways, based on different movement materials deriving from the past. The „dance club people“ and „folk dancers“ share some repertoire but their overall performance style is rather different. The „active audience“ has no significant former experience in traditional dancing but this audience knows some widespread movement elements that are considered traditional among them. Some soloists with richer movement competencies belong to every community and some dancers move between different communities, adapting their dancing according to situations.
Today, traditional dancing is very much influenced by conscious learning through more or less organised, regular or irregular activities like dance clubs, stage folk dance groups, and festival workshops. Professional dance teachers and some musicians, especially interested in traditional dancing have taken an important role in disseminating the dance repertoire as well as performance styles. In dancers’ movement their dance learning past and background reveals.
Historically, traditional dancing in its entertainment function has been rather international, but the imagined community of Estonian folk dancers is distinguished by their rather conservative attitude, expressed in quite clear ideas about “our own” and “foreign” elements in dancing while dance club people or active audience do not prefer dances with longer local history. The identity of “folk dancers” seems to be more connected
with an ideal culture, based on archival data about Estonians’ dancing (deriving mainly from in the end of 19th century) while the dancing behaviour of “dance club people” could be described as intended culture which is more flexible and open. This way, comparing the dancing of both communities, a reflection of continuous balance seeking of overall Estonian culture can be seen.
Openness also seems to be the main value of “active audience” whose dancing is based on every dancer’s individual movement memory. Core traditions that would be valued by community members are hard to determine in this case. If the “active audience” can be imagined as a community, the distinction from overall public comes from their interest towards folk music but not from special dancing competencies.
Nowadays, in most dancing events the improvisation is used but the level of improvisation – conservative, innovative or free – depends on individual values and decisions of dancers as well as the music, companions, place and space. Creative use of
older traditions is the domain of small number of devoted enthusiasts. Generally, older traditions are unknown and their limits are not adhered to, because of the very tolerant
overall cultural environment. Instead of local traditions, still inner rules of imagined communities can be noticed. Instead of limiting, traditions are rather used by individuals in the role of inspiration source.
Today?
Key words: analysis of dance, Estonian folk dance, ethnochoreology, folk/ethnic dance, folklore studies, history of social dance, traditional dance.
The article presents a selection of contemporary theories and methods of ethnochoreology. The selection was made based on the present reality of research into Estonian dance, which is currently at its very beginning. The need to bring into play recent theoretical and methodological approaches emerged in connection with project “Original Choreographic Text and Style of Performance of Estonian Folk Dances on the Basis of Recorded Audiovisual Material”, which aims at studying the authentic style of performing folk dance and at the identification and explanation of the changes that take
place in folk dances during different periods and in revival processes.
In the article, the concept of ‘folk dance’ (Estonian: rahvatants) is used in its broadest meaning which incorporates the ritual and social dancing of people in the past and
present, and the changing meanings that have been attributed to the concept of ‘folk’ (Estonian: rahvas), as well as author works which elaborate and stylize the genres of folklore. Participatory and presentational dancing are discussed in connection with the concepts of the first, second and third existence of folklore. The author aims to stress the importance of specific research into the real use of the key concepts and
terms in the field of folk dance and how they are understood by different groups of Estonian-speaking people.
The article briefly addresses the historical research into folk dance studies, revealing some current problems in the history of European social and traditional dance and introducing the theory of dance paradigms. The author points out that next to studying local peculiarities in the Estonian dance tradition, more attention should be paid to parallels with the dance history of other nations and trends in the international dance
practices.
Ethnochoreological research as a distinctive branch of contemporary cultural studies is also discussed in the article. The (so-called American) anthropological approach and
(European) choreological one are compared in terms of their disparities and similarities, and the article introduces the holistic or integrated dance research which incorporates
the two approaches. Special attention is paid to the so-called performer-centred folk dance research, which may be very relevant in Estonia today. In dance analysis, two levels can be discerned – the analysis of a dance event as a cultural text and specific analysis of choreographic text, or dance movements. Two principally different ways of notation – prescriptive and descriptive – are discussed. Descriptive notation is quite a new approach to Estonian folk dance tradition and may bring along revolutionary changes in research in this field. The article has been written with the conviction that even a brief introduction of recent theories and methods may help potential Estonian folk dance researchers effectively continue the first steps taken in scientific research
into Estonian folk dance.