An exploration of the social and economic factors behind the glamorous world of competitive ballroom dancing, based on the author's personal experience, interviews, and limited research into similar ethnographies.
Why I'm reading
I've been participating in competitive ballroom dancing for nearly ten years now, so I wanted to check out what sort of literature is out there.
Where I got the book
Interlibrary Loan from the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library.
Expectations
A researched look into how the ballroom industry works. I've seen a preview, and it seemed a little wordy.
So how was it?
Glamour Addiction is an exploration of the "Glamour Machine" that drives the American ballroom industry.
Honestly... I couldn't really get into it. She has some excellent insight, but ignores many aspects of the ballroom world that don't fit her model of an omnipresent oppressive glamor machine. Every point she made brought to mind similar experiences in my own ballroom career, but tons of counter examples too. And many of her points are just subjective opinion masquerading as fact.
Recommendation
This will really only appeal to ballroom dancers. I would recommend it to pro/am dancers (both pro and amateur). BUT I would only recommend with a warning: this is an interesting perspective, but not the be-all and end-all of the ballroom world.
Feels
Jaded. Even just a few pages in, I started to feel the author's resentment of her chosen profession.
Favorites
She makes a lot of painfully true points about the intersection of immigration and ballroom, and the image professional dancers must project. She's certainly made me think about certain relationships in the studios I visit... not rethink, because the relationships are pretty obvious, but to put them in the context of a bigger social system.
Least favorites
Not one of her characters isn't hustling, struggling, or taking advantage of someone. No student who respects their teacher and just wants to dance. No am/am partnerships. No happy, fair, supportive studio owner with a white picket fence and two kids. No teens having fun and helping to pay for college. I know these people. I know they may not be the majority, but to simply ignore their resistance because they don't fit her thesis is a joke.
Writing style
Bounces erratically between formal academic language and flowery prose. You can tell that the author has glued together several smaller essays.
