Rhythmic process : a filmic study of western dance integration in Japan.

• Main Author: Wee, Zi Ning.
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Literature
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/44309
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This thesis looks at film as a representation of the culture of its producing country, specifically on how dance is integrated by a community through the fictional but representative world or society as encapsulated in film. This thesis will discuss how two films, "Shall We Dansu?" by Masayaki Suo and "Hula Girls" by Lee Sang-il, portray a segment of Japanese society, and how Western dances, ballroom dancing and hula respectively, come to be integrated into their lives, and forms part of their identity as Japanese. This process of cultural integration,as will be explained in this thesis paper, is necessarily gendered, and that male and female characters must take on differing and specific roles in this process in order for audiences to recognize how they can bring Western dance out from the limited space of alternate reality, to become a permanent and indistinguishable part of Japanese identity.