RC Question 8 Explanation
DISCUSSION: The main point is that Dunham had special expertise in dance and anthropology that let her study Caribbean dances. She used what she learned to impact North American dance.
___________
- Not necessarily true. Katherine Dunham defied anthropology (second sentence of the third paragraph). It’s not clear that she transformed it. Anthropologists eventually recognized that they couldn’t stay isolated from their research subjects (second half of the third sentence “now fortunately” of paragraph 3), but this might not have been due to Dunham.
- Not even true. Katherine Dunham was the first to incorporate dance-isolation and African-American themes in North American dance.
But there are thousands of traditional cultures in the world – some of these other traditions might have already been used in North American dance. - Where did this come from? The passage never mentioned African-American dancers, choreographers, or their aesthetic and political concerns. I don’t know how to explain that this is wrong. If you picked this, try to figure out what your thought process was, as the answer is completely unsupported.
- The passage never says that Dunham discovered the link between Caribbean dances and African dances. It just mentions that there was a link (first sentence of the third paragraph), and that Dunham was interested in studying it.
- CORRECT. This covers the main themes of the passage. Dunham was uniquely suited to study dance (third sentence of the second paragraph). Paragraphs 1 and 4 show that her studies let her impact modern dance.
The passage mentions the aesthetic concerns of african and carribbean dance explicitly and repeatedly by talking at length about how ‘dance-isolation’ is a core element of traditional afro-carribbean aesthetics. They also talk at length in the conclusion about how her work was crucial in establishing african-american dance as its own recognized artform, which is clearly both aesthetic and political… C is a better supported version of E.