Talk given by Saul Albert and Dirk vom Lehn, Gothenburg, Department of Philosophy, Linguistics, Theory of Science, 22nd September 2026
Abstract
Every cultural practice has standards: shared, often unspoken norms that let members recognise when something has been done well, badly, or not quite right. Sociologists and philosophers of aesthetics have long debated where such standards reside, whether in individual taste, institutional authority, or tacit embodied knowledge. Partner dance offers a useful site for addressing this question empirically, since its aesthetic norms must be visibly produced and assessed in real time. This talk draws on video recordings of a beginners’ Lindy Hop class, analysed using ethnomethodology and multimodal conversation analysis. I show how teachers and students assemble the idioculture of the dance through sequences of instruction, demonstration, attempt and correction. Steps are rarely learned as isolated forms. They become accountable as parts of a social structure of action: timed to the music, coordinated with a partner, and fitted to the local expectations of the class. Novices’ early ‘errors’ are analytically revealing because they expose the practical work of alignment that experienced dancers take for granted. I argue that aesthetic standards are best understood as interactional achievements, located in the observable details of coordinated movement.
Transcripts
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