Prater 1

Jada Prater

Professor Gardiakos

ENC 1102

20 September 2020

Genre Analysis and Intertextuality

Dance is an art form known for its rhythmic movement that involves diversity and

inclusive styles to convey a certain expression or emotion. However, society has

constucted certain styles of dance to be predominantly masculine, even though there

are many women dancing underground today. “There Were Females That Danced

Too”: Uncovering the Role of Women in Breaking History is an academic journal article

published in the​ Dance Research Journal​ written by Serouj Aprahamian. She thoroughly

explains how females are often not publicized in the dance industry as much as males.

This academic journal includes a wide range of personal scenarios to showcase the

lack of female attention through quotes, facts, and personal research.

In “There Were Females That Danced Too”: Uncovering the Role of Women in

Breaking History it is clear Serouj Aprahamian wants to prove to people that women are

marginalized in the dance industry through her extensive research on the topic and

personal quotas from professional dancers. She is motivated to validate the purpose of

women in certain styles of dance because they hold some of the highest records in

history. B-boy dancing was invented in the 1970s in what's now called “underground

dancing”. A style that incorporates strength, raw talent, and flexibility. Women are
 Prater 2

known to be graceful and delicate so society took women and told them ballet seems

like a perfect match, and leave the rough dancing to men. Despite societal standards,

“b-girls' ' are one of the best dancers in the dance community solely because of their

raw talent in break dancing. The author's passion and understanding of this topic help

her audience grasp the concept of how much power these women hold.

This article is considered to be a part of the genre of academic journals for

multiple reasons. It is organized in sections with headers, footnotes, and outside

evidence to display an understanding of the topic. The author (Serouj Aprahamian)

incorporates professional outside sources to establish credibility to the discourse

community so they rely on the information being given. Dancers are more likely to

believe and learn something from someone who was an actual dancer, rather than

someone who knows little to no knowledge about the style. She is a well-known pop,

locker, and breakdancer that has a Ph.D. in dance studies, therefore her personal

research is highly valuable to the community itself. She organized her article to highlight

each professional quote from a dancer, historian, and even DJs. By doing this she is

advancing the genre and its trustworthiness as a whole. In the book, Naming What We

Know, Charles Bazerman explains the importance of genres and how they create

relations with the writer and reader. By incorporating these outside sources, it allows for

a deeper understanding of the writing and the underlying message.

Another characteristic of this academic journal is the language and dialect used

by the author. Considering this is an academic journal, it is geared towards people if

academic scholars. People who want to learn or write about this topic and new

information. However, while the language is formal and advanced, not your average
 Prater 3

scholar would understand what is being written. The article uses many phrases and

words that only dancers would understand. “Breaking”, “underground style”, and

“funk-infused freestyle” are only a few examples that are written throughout the paper.

Not only does this separate the normal reader from an actual dancer, but it facilitates

the discourse community that the author knows what she is talking about. It is likely for

a genre to have a large following if the context is supported through knowledge and

evidence, and language falls in the midst of understanding. Language can sometimes

hinder the possibilities of an author, but in this academic journal it is not only formal and

sophisticated but detailed on dance vocabulary itself, that the discourse community can

appreciate.

This academic journal also includes various forms of factual information to

express its claim and fit into its genre. The article continuously mentions the specific

years dance became popular, what styles, and the men and women that made it

possible. The addition of these facts allow the discourse community to have significant

and reliable data to support this academic journal. The author quotes, “To begin, most

practitioners associate the “b-boy/b-girl” era of breaking with the mid-1970s prominence

of DJ Kool Herc. This is when the dance is said to have become more physical and

virtuosic, developed alongside the repertoire of music Herc popularized, known today as

“breakbeats”. This small piece of information proves her claim that dance began in the

music industry with men and women claiming the name of b-boy and b-girl. Using

information like this works because it shows dancers that there is extensive research on

this topic, as well as it is coming from a dancer herself. This establishes solidity for the

genre. This author is using not only facts to her audience but examples and real-life
 Prater 4

instances to her dancer audience. James Porter in this article, “Intertextuality and the

Discourse Community”, mentions how important using qualified evidence and facts in

your writing is because it expands on the genre and allows for a reliable source. He also

explains how important using credible sources are to your discourse community so they

can further the knowledge and communicate about the common goal.

Speaking about James Porter, Intertextuality is very important to not only this

academic journal but to all of them in general. Authors will use intertextuality to get

ideas and knowledge from other sources and put them in their own understanding. In

this academic journal, the author uses plenty of other texts to support her claim. The

first source highlights the importance of competing in the breaking industry as a male

and female. This article explains, “a growing number of scholars have critically analyzed

the role of women in breaking, with many highlighting their contemporary contributions

to the dance and the formation of b-girl​ ​collectives around the world.” By adding this

article in the journal, it creates a background of women being recognized in dance,

which is the author's main claim. Mary Fogarty, the author of the article, pinpoints the

idea that women have contributed many styles in the dance industry, however, the

“b-girl” name isn't well known. It is obvious Fogarty agrees with the author's viewpoint

therefore validating her argument. Frogurt is also a professor of dance with a Ph.D. in

music at York University, so her knowledge is important to use because it is a

professional opinion and facts about the dance community itself. The author could’ve

also used this article to touch on the fact b-girl wasn’t an often used term just because

women weren’t shown in the media or talked about during this time.
 Prater 5

Aprahamian not only uses intertextuality to showcase women but to exemplify

the diversity within its discourse community. The two other articles that were mentioned

quite a lot were talking about how the African American community has played a major

role in the beginning of dance. The first article “The Dance Party as a Socialization

Mechanism for Black Urban Pre-Adolescents and Adolescents” (Clark, 1974) explains

where the dance community started from and where it is now based on its target

audience. This article goes on to talk about the club, house parties, and social

gatherings where the idea of breaking began. It started with African Americans in the

Bronx, men and women, that came together to form a dance style. This not only

enhances the academic journal's purpose, but it allows for new information to be taught

which is the main purpose of using intertextuality. The author mentions it isn't just men

and women since the beginning, but it's also the people of color that created the

foundation. It was a group of teenagers of all genders, race, adn age that came together

to have fun. Then after that the media focused the dance style on masculinity and white

males that got the majority of the attention for this style. The movement of hip hop is

often misunderstood because of its foul language and raw movement, which is why

society doesn't want to see women doing it. Which coincides with the third article that

talks about how breaking and hiphop isnt what they seem. “It is incumbent upon us to

interrogate these underlying frameworks and correct them, both to gain a fuller

understanding of an art form such as breaking and, more importantly, to properly

acknowledge the communities and influences from which they arose” (DeFrantz, 2004).

He is speaking on the fact that this specific dance needs to be better understood and

appreciated by its original culture and community. The author would include this journal
 Prater 6

because it extends the various stereotypes in dance. By adding this information, it can

be understood that the media has made hiphop look different than it really is which

includes people of color and women that haven't got the credit they deserve. In these

academic journals, it is important to use intertextuality to produce a clear and concise

idea to the audience.

This academic journal includes many “conversation” pieces about females in the

dance community. The article is educating readers on the important aspect of the

background history of underground dancing. This is critical if someone is wanting to

learn more about dance or even to begin getting involved in dance. These articles give

facts about the history of women in the competitions of the b-girl world and the African

American involvement in the creation of dance. These small details build onto the

conversation because they elaborate on the author's main claim and allow for new ideas

to be sparked to then gain more knowledge about the topic. They allow the author to

continue her own knowledge and background in the dance industry and her willingness

to motivate people to show recognition to females of all colors in the community.

Genres can be a very broad or very intricate concept in literature. The genre of

academic journals is written to impose academic ideas meant for academic scholars.

Through the use of formal diction and various outside sources, these academic journals

are created for a discourse community to further their own ideas. This academic journal

is organized through heading and footnote with more information explaining the context

at the end of each page. It also incorporates a wide range of outside sources to make it

more complex, as well as the author's personal information and studies that created it to

become dependable. The discourse community targeted to this information is the dance
 Prater 7

industry itself. No matter if it is a beginner or a verteran at the style of underground

dance, it was written to bring back inclusivity in the community. This academic journal

demonstrates its genre through its organization skills and intertextuality. The evidence

provided and the facts prove that the genre is working to get things done in the

discourse community.
 Prater 8

Works Cited

Aprahamian, Serouj. “‘There Were Females That Danced Too’: Uncovering the Role of Women
in Breaking History.” ​Dance Research Journal​, vol. 52, no. 2, Aug. 2020, pp.
41–58. ​EBSCOhost,​
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sph&AN=145120365&site=ed
s-live&scope=site.

Clark, R. Milton. 1974. “The Dance Party as a Socialization Mechanism for Black Urban
Pre-Adolescents and Adolescents.” Sociology and Social Research 58 (2):
145–154.

DeFrantz, Thomas F. 2004. “The Black Beat Made Visible: Hip Hop Dance and Body Power.” In
Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory, edited
by Andre Lepecki, 64–81. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Fogarty, Mary. 2010. “Dance to the Drummer’s Beat: Competing Tastes in International
B-boy/B-girl Culture.” Ph.D. diss. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.

Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies​, by Linda Adler-Kassner and
Elizabeth A. Wardle, Utah State University Press, 2016.