Cottle Discovers Dancers' Libido Now Lodged Smack in the Pelvis

The latest skirmish in the battle between aesthetes and sociologists has proved inconclusive. Clive Barnes, dance critic for the New York Times, took steps to parry a Harvard sociologist's study of dancing, but his sarcasm couldn't diminish the deadpan humor of the scientist's study.

In an article last Sunday, Barnes commented on a recent piece by Thomas J. Cottle, lecturer in Social Relations and head of Soc Rel 120, that appeared in the Sociological Quarterly.

Titled "Social Class and Social Dancing", the article described a study of 16 Chicago dance halls. Cottle's "choreographic voyeurs," as Barnes called them, interviewed or observed more than 100 people in 30 sessions. While concluding that for all classes "about 60 years have been required for the focus of the dancer's libido to travel from her feet up through her knees and on to the pelvis where it presently resides," Cottle emphasized the difference in upper, middle and lower class approaches to dancing.

In the lower-class bar, he wrote, "the odors of colognes, after-shave creams, and hair tonics compete ably with vapors of alcohol and tobacco ... Lower-class dance forms, often animalistic, ... are undeniably suggestive: variations of the sexual act, sexual play, the chase, the sudden unexpected consummation of a wild fury, and then stillness, all communicate the dancer's intense drives."

Cottle found that middle-class dancing is characterized by "intimate aloneness," particularly in the woman. "Dressed in tight fitting stretch pants and sweater, she stations herself in a self-appointed precinct and moves to the delight of her partner and audience ... slowly undulating beneath soft lights, hands together behind her head, eyes closed, and sensuously involved in her private excitation."

"Elite" dancing, observed in country clubs and "two swank hotels," is marked by restraint and "the carefully planned masking of sexual demonstrations." "Swirling and side-stepping about the floor, the upper-class couples present a handsome contrast to lower-class couples who barely move during slower dances."