International Ballroom Dance and the Coreographies of Transnationalism

Once regarded as a preserve of the upper class, international-style ballroom dancing has reached an unprecedented level of popularity with the success of the television series, Dancing With the Stars. All but lost in the media frenzy is the majoritarian presence of Asian Pacific ballroom dancers in the very region that produces the show. This article examines both the history of international ballroom dancing—with the imperialist anxieties accompanying that history—and the meanings of widespread Asian Pacific ballroom dance participation. Unstable to begin with, ballroom dancing's colonial race and class signifiers are renationalized by American television but more deeply unsettled by Asian Pacific dancers, who renormalize ballroom dancing as a transnational social activity. Both studios and dancers choreograph space and time, as well as tensions between different types of ballroom dancing, to create a daily performance archive of transnational interactivity.