Let’s go! Across the Floor! : affective practice at the Sweat Spot

The Sweat Spot, an adult dance studio in Los Angeles, fosters the shared intention of moving together in specialized ways that are guided by and promote affectivity. In a phenomenology-centered ethnographic study, dancers at The Sweat Spot discuss affectivity as the energetic charge crucial to their experience. In this article, I utilize Margaret Wetherell’s concept of affective practice to argue that engagement at The Sweat Spot is intentionally designed to cultivate affectivity and, through a particular approach, which I describe in detail, the studio reshapes conventional considerations of dance technique, shifting from an emphasis on individual development to collective experience. The classes socially situate affectivity as part of dance technique building a community-in-the-making, or an ephemeral ingroup that is sustained for the duration of the class. This view on dance education is novel, because it describes in detail how fostering ‘energy’ as a component of a class, enacts a dynamic group leading to a meaningful dance experience.