Acceso usuarios
Since the 19th century, Polish teenagers have opened their high school proms with a particular dance—the polonaise. Political systems change, but the custom remains, implying that dancing the polonaise affirms, or even performs one's national identity. This dance is viewed in Poland as a pillar of national tradition, so investigating it can bring one closer to understanding how nationality has been embodied through movement. This article presents a sociopolitical history of the polonaise, including banal and everyday theories, as well as affective nationalism and national habitus. In doing so, the category of ‘kinetic Polishness’ has been introduced to describe the Polish variant of ‘kinaesthetic nationalism’—a national habitus shaping moving bodies, so they feel part of the given national community and may be recognised as such by outsiders. This article not only reconstructs the history of the polonaise but also calls for more in-depth studies related to dance and its affective dimension in the academic understanding of nationalism and provides conceptual tools for such an analysis.
