Backtracking to Benjamin, or "Your Belly is a Thing of Glory!"

So I had an ATS belly dance performance on Friday night at the FESA Fest folklore and enthomusicology event, and my tribe (largely folklore grad students) was forced to deal with issues of authenticity. Apparently this is always a big issue in folklore studies, and arguments go around that sound something like "That's not authentic!" "Oh, really? Define authenticity and then you can tell me what's authentic!"

The issue was that our form of dance was created in the late 70's by a woman in California who combined different types of folk dances to create a new tradition, so in introducing ourselves we had to make sure we pointed out that our style of dance is not "authentic". Benjamin says that "the presence of the original is the prerequisite of the concept of authenticity" (1234), and the presence of a copy is necessary in order for authenticity to exist. Something cannot be authentic unless there is something which is inauthentic.

In going over Benjamin, I see ways in which it could be argued we are inauthentic. He writes: "To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose 'sense of the universal equality of things' has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction" (1236). If I were the creator of ATS, and I were (one could say inaccurately) reproducing moves from traditional Indian dance, Egyptian style belly dance, Moroccan folk dance, etc., I would lose the aura of the original.

Another key to an authentic work of art is the fact that it is based on ritual, and "the existence of the work or art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function" (Benjamin, 1236). It is intended to be used or to mean something, which situates it in a particular time and space, whereas the reproduction's purpose is politics (1237). This is where our dance starts to look less inauthentic and more like it is merely new. If the reproduction serves politically or economically, it does not involve ritual. The reproduction  is without context, but that cannot be said in terms of dance, because when these different styles come together they create a new context. Perhaps if one were reproducing the dance of whirling dervishes for a performance in, say, Busch Gardens, the dance would be inauthentic because it would no longer be connected to its ritual function and thus its aura. I feel like my idea is that the dance is not being reproduced, it is being re-purposed.

As an aside, if what authenticity requires is an inauthentic reproduction, ATS has that. I saw it last night at my tribal hafla (i.e. giant belly dance party). There are times when one has to say, "That's cute, but it's not really ATS" and times when one just says, "WTF?". But is it possible all those styles that are not-really-ATS have the potential to become authentic in themselves once someone begins to reproduce them? Is the line between authentic and inauthentic really that blurry? If I reproduce an ancient ritual tool for my own use in a similar ritual, is it authentic? Maybe it is authentic in its relationship to me and inauthentic in its relationship with the original tool, implying  that authenticity is relative.

Sooo many questions. I think I will now go watch videos of kittens playing on YouTube.