Passage 2 from the set and here we're looking at a passage about

Catherine Dunham who's a anthropologist and a choreographer and her contributions to

modern American dance. So this is a very cookie cutter type of passage where we

talk about a particular person and their contribution to some field.

The passage kind of flows just chronologically, you know, detailing the important parts of her

life that we want to focus on. So let's take a look and you get you get clued in onto this

pretty early on, you know, just in the first paragraph. It starts to become apparent what

kind of passage this is going to be. Now I say this on the assumption that you've done a bunch

of R.C. passages, right? If this is like the first one you've seen, obviously you wouldn't know that.

But okay, let's take a look. One of the more striking developments in modern American

of technique known as dance isolation. So that's the technique which was introduced by Catherine

Dunham. What is dance isolation? This is what dance isolation is. These are details. Now,

doesn't change the fact that what she's doing is she introduced dance isolation to

modern North American dance. All right, let's find out what dance isolation is. It's where one

part of the body moves in one rhythm while other parts are kept stationary or are moved in different

rhythms. Okay, that's pretty impressive. Let's keep going. The incorporation of this technique,

referring to dance isolation, into North American and European choreography is relatively recent,

although various forms of the technique, same technique, have long been essential to traditions

of certain dances of certain African, Caribbean, and Pacific Island cultures. So dance isolation

is new to North American dance and European dance, but not new, right? Essential to African,

Caribbean, Pacific Island cultures. Great. So her success in bringing dance isolation

and other traditional techniques. Okay, so not just about dance isolation. Dance isolation seems

to just be an example of one of the techniques, but she brought dance isolation and whatever

these other techniques, other traditional techniques are. She brought those from those

cultures, right? African, Caribbean, Pacific Island cultures into the mainstream modern North

American dance is due in no small part to her training both anthropological research and

choreography. Okay, so this last statement seems to be the most important statement. Why do I say

that? Because everything up to this last statement seems to be leading to it, right? This statement

here just tells you that dance technique, what it is, right? It already preempts this part by

telling us that she introduced dance technique, dance isolation to North American dance. Over

here tells you more about this dance isolation technique and its roots. And then this last bit

is what I think is important because it tells us why she was able to do it, right? It's because of

her anthropological training, research, and her choreographic training, core training and

core training and choreography, right? That's why she was able to do this. So I think I would just hypothesize

that this is the main point, right? Because it just sounds to me like the type of passage I've

read before where we talk about a person and their contribution and then the rest of the passage is

detailed. Like they tell you here what the rest of the passage is going to talk about. The rest

of the passage indeed just details out, right? How is it that her anthropological research combined

with her choreography allowed her to inject dance isolation and other traditional techniques into

modern mainstream, modern North American dance, right? So let's see if that hypothesis bears out.

As an anthropologist in the 30s, Dunham was one of the pioneers in the field of dance ethnology.

social scientists gravitated towards areas likely to be recognized by their peers as befitting,

scientifically rigorous, and therefore legitimate modes of inquiry. Okay, so here they're saying,

how come no one else studied dance before? You know, why is it that Dunham was like a pioneer

in her field? I mean, it's the 1930s. I suppose anthropology had been around for a while, right?

How come no one beat Dunham to be, you know, to be the first anthropologist to study dance, right?

This is why. It's because, you know, it had been neglected because most social scientists just

didn't think it was rigorous, didn't think it was befitting scientific rigor, and therefore not

legitimate, right? Moreover, no other social scientist at the time was sufficiently trained.

Ah, okay, that's one reason. The other reason is nobody had the training in dance to be able

to understand traditional dance techniques, while dance experts were not trained in method

social research, right? So you didn't have a social scientist who could dance well, and

you didn't have a dancer who knew anything about social science, right? So unfortunate that these

two segments of humanity did not share an overlap, right? So those are the two reasons. But here,

the low res would be, you know, you can say this is reason number one, this is reason number two,

for what? For why KD, Catherine Dunham, was a pioneer, was the first, right? I mean, you know,

look, if she wasn't the first, if she wasn't a pioneer in this, I'm sure we would not be talking

about her. We would be talking about whoever was the pioneer in this, right? Okay, so this paragraph

saying no one else got there first, she got there first. Why? Because, well, look, first reason is

that people just didn't think this is a scientific thing, right? Studying dance was just, you know,

not rigorous, not scientific. Second reason is because, okay, even if they did think it was

scientific, the existing social scientists couldn't understand dance well enough to do it,

right? And the existing dancers didn't know social science well enough to do it. So she, you know,

had the fortune of being both a social scientist and a dancer, and she also thought it was okay

to do this. She didn't think it was like beneath the dignity of science to study dance, right?

Okay, so let's keep going. Starting in 35, right, this is chronological. Dunham conducted a series

and African culture. So she's studying some Caribbean dance forms. Especially critical to

her success was her approach to research, which diverged radically from the methodology that

prevailed at the time. Okay, so she did something different, right? Her methodology was different

from the prevailing methodology. Wow, like what? What do you mean? Colleagues in anthropology

advised her not to become too closely involved in dances she was observing, both because of the

extreme physical demands of the dances, and because they subscribe to the long-standing view

that effective data gathering can and must be conducted from a position of complete detachment.

Ah, okay, see, her colleagues in anthropology told her, hey, look, you're getting a little

too attached there. Don't get too close to the dance you're observing. Why? Right, for two

reasons. One, it's just extremely physical, so I guess they were worried she would get injured or

exhausted or I don't know what, right, like extreme physical demands. And the second reason is that

they believe, they subscribe to the long-standing view that to effectively gather data, you have to

be completely detached, right? And this is the opposite of being completely detached. You are

totally attached, right? So those are the two reasons why they advised her not to become too

closely involved in the dance she was observing, right? And I'm guessing this is where her

methodology departed because she was closely, right? But because of her skill and interest

before, she generally eschewed such caution and participated in dances herself. Great, yeah,

so that's her unique methodology, okay? This is her unique methodology. And here, you know,

I skipped this bit because it's interjected, right? The author is offering to us her opinion about

what's going on. She is saying, and we are going to have to come back to this in a question in

question 14, but let's just preempt this. She is saying that, you know, what is now fortunately

recognized is unrealistic. What's unrealistic? That we now recognize, and it's a good thing that

we now recognize is unfortunate. What? This, this long-standing view. That is unrealistic.

What's the long-standing view? Well, for the meat of the long-standing view, you got to read this

bit, right? That effective, this is the view that effective data gathering can be conducted from

position of complete detachment. No, totally unrealistic, right? We recognize that now.

Effective data gathering cannot be conducted from position of complete detachment, right? And it's

a good thing that we recognize this. Okay, second view. Effective data gathering must be conducted

from position of complete detachment. No, totally unrealistic. It's not true that you must position

yourself in a complete detached, from a detached position in order to effectively gather data. In

fact, you know, if you can't, then obviously it's not a requirement, right? Be weird to require you

to do things that you cannot do. Okay, so that's the, that's how the grammar is working here. Okay,

so let's do that again. View is the noun, right? This is an adjective describing the view. It's a,

it's not just any view. It's not like a view somebody came up with yesterday. It's a long-

standing view. What is the view? This starts the details of the view, right? The view is

effective data gathering and they, they compound, right? This is like a, as a verb,

forgive, excuse my lack of grammatical precision here. But what they're doing is they just save

themselves. They don't want to write two sentences, right? So they just compounded this.

So the view is number one, effective data that gathering can be conducted from position

complete detachment. View number two, effective data gathering must be conducted from a position

of complete detachment, right? That's what, that's how this works. And now, once you get the

long-standing view and the details of it, now our author gives us her opinion of it, right? Which is

that, look, this view, this can and must, both are unrealistic, right? No, unrealistic. And we now

recognize that it's unrealistic. And on top of that, it's a fortunate thing. It's a good thing

that we now recognize that it's unrealistic. Okay, so this is, this goes a long way to preempt

question number 14, which, which, you know, well, anyway, let's keep going here. As we said,

this is how her methodology departed. Everyone was telling her to be detached. She's like, nope,

nope, nope. I'm going to be attached. And through the prolonged immersion of this kind of her

dancing and learning how to dance, she was not only able to comprehend various dance, complex

cultural practice, also learn techniques well enough to teach them to others, incorporate

them into new forms of ballet. So there you go. Finally, you know, we know at some point we're

going to talk about how her sort of unique combination of skills was able to bring these

dance isolation, other techniques into the mainstream of modern North American dance. And

finally, this is just kind of like a setup paragraph telling us why nobody else was, why

she was the first. And here is telling us how she actually did it because her methodology was very

different. Right. And because of it, she can, she learned first, of course, and now, and then she

taught, right. Learn first, then teach, bring into North America. So I think we're done, right?

If it were up to me, we'd be done, but it's not up to me. So we have another paragraph. Great.

We started with the, in the thirties, 35, 37, 45, Dunham developed a researcher performance method

that she used to adapt Caribbean dance forms for use in theatrical performances. Oh, okay. I guess

here, you know, they said incorporate them into new forms of ballet here. I think they're going

to give us more details about how she did this, right? More details about the details about how

she incorporated into the mainstream. She used to adapt Caribbean dance for use in theatrical,

combining them modern dance style. She learned in Chicago. Okay. So she, some, something about her

method to do this, the ballet she created in this fashion were among the first North American

dancers to rectify the exclusion of African-American themes from the medium of modern dance. Her work

was thus crucial in establishing African-American dance as an art form in its own right, making

possible future companies such as Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theater of Harlem. So yeah, this does give

us more details about her, you know, details about her incorporating these techniques into the

mainstream of North American dance. Great. So I'm going to do a low res rundown, but before I do that,

I just want to point out something here. They did not ask a question about this, but they easily

could have. Okay. Look at this, you know, this word rectify. Why? If I ask a question like,

what is the purpose function of this word in context, right? I could ask that question,

or I could ask author's attitude towards the exclusion of North American, sorry, towards the

exclusion of African-American dances from North American dance. Author's attitude, right? The use

of this word rectifies reveals a lot. Our author here is saying that by saying it's something to

be rectified, that implies that there was a wrong here, right? If there was nothing wrong,

then there's nothing to rectify. You're only rectifying things that are wrong, right? So

our author is saying the exclusion, right? Look at the thing that's being rectified. The exclusion

of African-American themes from the medium of modern dance, that was a wrong, right? And it's

been rectified, right? She was the one to rectify this. Okay. So like I said, this is just kind of

a side point. It's just extra practice, if you will. I could easily see them asking a question

about this, but they did not. Okay. So let's do a low res rundown and then we'll turn our attention

to the questions. So starting at the very top first paragraph, we get the idea that Katie

introduced dance isolation. What is dance isolation, right? Well, it's this thing,

and it had been around for a long time in these cultures, but it's new to North America.

And she introduced it, plus other themes into mainstream North American dance. She was able

to do it because of her training in anthropology and choreography. Second paragraph tells you why

no one else did it, right? Why was she the first to do it? You know, how did it, you know, why was

it her? Well, because look, at the time, social science didn't think dance was rigorous enough

to be studied scientifically. And second, no social scientists knew how to dance, no dancers

knew social science. So there was a vacuum of talent. She was just uniquely well positioned

to study. And third paragraph, her special methodology, right? We actually get to see

what methodology she used and the methodology she used was different, was unique. It was not

the one that prevailed at the time, which said to be detached, right? She was not detached.

She engaged, she learned how to do the dances, and then she taught how to do the dances. And

then the last paragraph, we get details about how she incorporated it into modern North American

dance. So yeah, good. Like we said, in the very first paragraph, this kind of hypothesized main

point is borne out. This claim gets fleshed out in details. Okay, so that was not a low-res,

that was a pretty high-res summary actually. But with that, we should take a look at the questions.

First question 8 is to be expected, the main point question. What's the main point? Well,

we hypothesize that this would be the main point and after reading the passage we feel pretty good

about this being the main point, right? The main point being Catherine Dunham because of her

training in anthropology and choreography was able to study dances of these cultures and then

bring those techniques into the mainstream of North American dance. That's the main point and

as you're reading this you might have, well here actually let's just read it in order and

I'll try to simulate what might have happened. Catherine Dunham transformed the field of

right? She definitely developed innovative research methodology, the whole attachment thing,

but did that transform the field? We don't even know if this is factually true,

right? For studying Caribbean other dance traditional dances and connecting them with

African-American dance. It's not even African-American dance, right? It's broader than

that. It's just mainstream modern American dance, right? Mainstream of modern North American dance,

meaning non-African-American dance in North America, right? So factually it's just all off

in all sorts of ways and of course the point is, you know, the point is this which is not well

stated by A, right? B says Dunham's ballets were distinct from others produced in North America

know if those other ballets didn't also incorporate dance techniques from traditional cultures. I mean

surely they didn't include the dance techniques of dance isolation and whatever else that Catherine

Dunham brought back because, well, Catherine Dunham brought those back, right? But maybe they

incorporated dance techniques from, I don't know, traditional Russian culture or traditional French

culture, right? Do you see what I mean? Like you just that's authentic, that's a traditional culture,

right? So factually again it's just no, right? Plus B also commits the additional error of just

completely missing out on the fact that her anthropological training was important for this,

right? For what she did for her contribution. C says her expertise as an anthropologist allowed

of what African-American dancers, what? Okay, so here let's sort of layer this up, right?

The bottom layer C's claim is that African-American dancers had certain aesthetic and political

concerns, right? They had certain concerns about the form, the beauty of the, you know, of the dance

and they had political concerns as well. And then it says African-American choreographers also had

a similar concern, political and aesthetic concerns. I don't even know that's true, right? Like at this

point it's like what are you talking about, right? And C's additional claim is that because she was

an expert in anthropology it allowed her to somehow use Caribbean-African dance traditions

to express those concerns. Yeah, that's the worst salad if I've ever seen one, right? Just take

some words, mash them together, see what happens, right? You get answer choice C. D says the innovative

her attachment, her actually getting close to the subject that she's studying made possible

her discovery that the traditional dances of Caribbean were derived from earlier African, what?

Okay, so they do say here that the Caribbean dances had origins in Africa but did she discover this,

right? Did she discover it or does she already know this, right? This is a special interest, right? Maybe

she already knew it, that's why she had a special interest in this. Maybe she discovered it, it's just

totally unclear, right? But again, this point is not even, it's not, is it because of her, you know, let's

just concede the point, right? Let's just say, okay, fine, she discovered it, okay? Is it because of this

that she discovered it? I have no idea, right? Or I put an X but really I should put a question mark.

I have no idea if this is true, right? So I can't even let answer choice D pass the factual accuracy

test. And lastly, E says Catherine Dunham's anthropological and choreographic expertise, very

of modern dance in North America. Yeah, and here they're just referencing, like, what contributions?

Injecting dance isolation and other traditional techniques, that's what, that's the contributions,

right? Which changed modern dance in North America, right? Very good.