Editing Dancehall (section)

==Culture==
{{More citations needed section|date=August 2008}}

Donna P. Hope defines dancehall culture as a "space for the cultural creation and dissemination of symbols and ideologies that reflect the lived realities of its adherents, particularly those from the inner cities of Jamaica."<ref>Donna P. Hope Inna di Dancehall: Popular Culture and the Politics of Identity in Jamaica. UWI Press, 2006</ref> Dancehall culture actively creates a space for its "affectors" (creators of dancehall culture) and its "affectees" (consumers of dancehall culture) to take control of their own representation, contest conventional relationships of power, and exercise some level of cultural, social and even political autonomy.

Kingsley Stewart outlines ten of the major cultural imperatives or principles that constitute the dancehall worldview. They are:

# It involves the dynamic interweaving of [[God]] and [[Haile Selassie of Ethiopia|Haile Selassie]]
# It acts as a form of stress release or psycho-physiological relief
# It acts as a medium for economic advancement
# The quickest way to an object is the preferred way (i.e., the speed imperative)
# The end justifies the means
# It strives to make the unseen visible
# Objects and events that are external to the body are more important than internal processes; what is seen is more important than what is thought (i.e., the pre-eminence of the external)
# The importance of the external self; the self is consciously publicly constructed and validated
# The ideal self is shifting, fluid, adaptive, and malleable, and
# It involves the socioexistential imperative to transcend the normal (i.e., there is an emphasis on ''not'' being normal).<ref>Kingsley Stewart "So Wha, Mi Nuh Fi Live To?: Interpreting Violence in Jamaica Through Dancehall Culture", ''Ideaz'' Vol. 1, No. 1, 2002: pp. 17–28</ref>

Such a drastic change in the popular music of the region generated an equally radical transformation in fashion trends, specifically those of its female faction. In lieu of traditional, modest "rootsy" styles, as dictated by Rastafari-inspired gender roles; women began donning flashy, revealing – sometimes X-rated outfits. This transformation is said to coincide with the influx of ''slack'' lyrics within dancehall, which objectified women as apparatuses of pleasure. These women would team up with others to form "modeling posses", or "dancehall model" groups, and informally compete with their rivals.

This newfound materialism and conspicuity was not, however, exclusive to women or manner of dress. Appearance at dance halls was exceedingly important to acceptance by peers and encompassed everything from clothing and jewelry, to the types of vehicles driven, to the sizes of each respective gang or "crew", and was equally important to both sexes.

One major theme behind dancehall is that of space. [[Sonjah Stanley Niaah]], in her article "Mapping Black Atlantic Performance Geographies", says

{{blockquote|Dancehall occupies multiple spatial dimensions (urban, street, police, marginal, gendered, performance, liminal, memorializing, communal), which are revealed through the nature and type of events and venues, and their use and function. Most notable is the way in which dancehall occupies a liminal space between what is celebrated and at the same time denigrated in Jamaica and how it moves from private community to public and commercial enterprise.<ref>''Mapping Black Performance Geographies'' By Stanley-Niaah</ref><ref>''A Story of Space and Celebration'', by [[Sonjah Stanley Niaah]].</ref>}}

In ''Kingston's Dancehall: A Story of Space and Celebration'', she writes:

{{blockquote|Dancehall is ultimately a celebration of the disenfranchised selves in postcolonial Jamaica that occupy and creatively sustain that space. Structured by the urban, a space that is limited, limiting, and marginal yet central to communal, even national, identity, dancehall's identity is as contradictory and competitive as it is sacred. Some of Jamaica's significant memories of itself are inscribed in the dancehall space, and therefore dancehall can be seen as a site of collective memory that functions as ritualized memorializing, a memory bank of the old, new, and dynamic bodily movements, spaces, performers, and performance aesthetics of the New World and Jamaica in particular.<ref>Sonjah Stanley-Niaah ''Kingston's Dancehall: A Story of Space and Celebration'', ''Space and Culture'', Vol. 7, No. 1 2004: pp. 102 -118</ref>}}

[[File:Girl dancing Holi feest 2008.jpg|thumb|Dancehall-inspired dancing to music]]

These same notions of dancehall as a cultural space are echoed in Norman Stolzoff's ''Wake the Town and Tell the People''. He notes that dancehall is not merely a sphere of passive consumerism, but rather is an alternative sphere of active cultural production that acts as a means through which black lower-class youth articulate and project a distinct identity in local, national, and global contexts. Through dancehall, ghetto youths attempt to deal with the endemic problems of poverty, racism, and violence, and in this sense the dancehall acts as a communication center, a relay station, a site where black lower-class culture attains its deepest expression.<ref>Norman Stolzoff, ''Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica'' Durham: Duke UP, 2000. pp. 1 & 7.</ref> Thus, dancehall in Jamaica is yet another example of the way that the music and dance cultures of the African diaspora have challenged the passive consumerism of mass cultural forms, such as recorded music, by creating a sphere of active cultural production that potentially may transform the prevailing hegemony of society.<ref>Norman Stolzoff, ''Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica'' Durham: Duke UP, 2000. pp. 14–15</ref>

In ''Out and Bad: Toward a Queer Performance Hermeneutic in Jamaican Dancehall'' Nadia Ellis explicates the culture of combined homophobia and unabashed queerness within Jamaican dancehall culture. She details the particular importance of the phrase "out and bad" to Jamaica when she writes, "This phrase is of queer hermeneutical possibility in Jamaican dancehall because it registers a dialectic between queer and gay that is never resolved, that relays back and forth, producing an uncertainty about sexual identity and behavior that is usefully maintained in the Jamaican popular cultural context."<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Ellis|first=Nadia|date=July 2011|title=Out and Bad: Toward a Queer Performance Hermeneutic in Jamaican Dancehall|journal= Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism|volume=15| issue = 2|pages=7–23 |doi=10.1215/07990537-1334212
|s2cid=144742875 }}</ref> In discussion of the possibility of a self identifying homosexual dancer performing to homophobic music she writes, "In appropriating the culture and working from within its very center, he produces a bodily performance that gains him power. It is the power or mastery, of parody, and of getting away with it."<ref name=":2" />

Ellis not only examines the intersection of queerness and masculinity within the Jamaican dancehall scene, but suggests that the overt homophobia of certain dancehall music actually creates a space for queer expression. In general, homosexuality and queerness are still stigmatized in dancehalls. In fact, some of the songs used during dancehall sessions contain blatant homophobic lyrics. Ellis argues, however, this explicit, violent rhetoric is what creates a space for queer expression in Jamaica. She describes the phenomenon of all male dance groups that have sprung up within the dancehall scene. These crews dress in matching, tight clothing, often paired with makeup and dyed hair, traditional hallmarks of queerness within Jamaican culture. When they perform together, it is the bodily performance that give the homosexual dancers power.<ref>Ellis, Nadia, "Out and Bad: Toward a Queer Performance Hermeneutic in Jamaican Dancehall."</ref>

=== Dances ===
The popularity of dancehall has spawned dance moves that help to make parties and stage performances more energetic. Dancing is an integral part of bass culture genres. As people felt the music in the crowded dancehall venues, they would do a variety of dances. Eventually, dancehall artists started to create songs that either invented new dances or formalized some moves done by dancehall goers. Many dance moves seen in hip hop videos are actually variations of dancehall dances. Examples of such dances are: "[[Like Glue]]", "[[Bogle dance|Bogle]]", "Whine & Dip", "Tek Weh Yuhself", "[[Whine Up]]", "Shake It With Shaun" (a mix of various genres), "Boosie Bounce", "Drive By", "Shovel It", "To Di World", "[[Dutty Wine]]", "Sweep", "Nuh Behavior", "Nuh Linga", "Skip to My Lou", "Gully Creepa", "[[Breakdancing]]" ,"Bad Man Forward Bad Man Pull Up", "Keeping it Jiggy", "Pon Di River", "One Drop", "Whine & Kotch", "Bubbling", "Tic Toc", "Willie Bounce", "Wacky Dip", "Screetchie", "One Vice" and "[[Daggering]]".<ref>Niaah, Stanley, ''DanceHall: From Slave Ship to Ghetto''(Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2010)</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.inthemix.com.au/news/intl/42967/Spate_of_broken_penises_caused_by_dance_style_daggering |title=International News – Spate of broken penises caused by dance style "daggering" |website=Inthemix.com.au |access-date=2010-01-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100118224919/http://www.inthemix.com.au/news/intl/42967/Spate_of_broken_penises_caused_by_dance_style_daggering |archive-date=2010-01-18 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Schneider |first=Kate |url=http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25580440-17102,00.html |title=Erotic "daggering" dance craze causing bodily harm – The Courier-Mail |website=News.com.au |date=2009-06-03 |access-date=2010-01-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090608161902/http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25580440-17102,00.html |archive-date=2009-06-08 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.dancehall.tours |title=The Origins of Dancehall Reggae &#124; Dancehall Reggae |website=Dancehall.tours |date=2009-08-17 |access-date=2010-01-07 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170708054910/https://www.dancehall.tours/ |archive-date=July 8, 2017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Lifestyle/Story/STIStory_385317.html |title=Dance craze causes bodily harm |website=Straitstimes.com |date=2009-06-03 |access-date=2010-01-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100218140732/http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Lifestyle/Story/STIStory_385317.html |archive-date=2010-02-18 |url-status=dead }}</ref>