Cybernetic Approach of the “Κ’na” Dance: The Construction of Ethnic and National Identity in Nea Vyssa, Thrace , Greece

Abstract

AbstractThe research field of this project is the area if Greek Thrace, which is a great geopolitical-cultural unity that was divided - due to political process - in three subareas that were distributed to three different countries: Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. A dance happening that took place before the lining of the boundaries to date in the Greek and Turkish Thrace is that of “K’na”. “K’na” is a female dance happening which is danced to date by the people of both areas in spite of their religious beliefs, social - economic and cultural development. The purpose of this project is to study the different expressions of this dance in Nea Vyssa and examine if these are related to matters of search and conformation of ethnic and national identity of this group under the terms of the social cybernetics. Data was gathered through the ethnographic method as this is applied to the study of dance and the interpretation of the data was based on the theoretical visuals of the social-cybernetic according to the inspection model of identity that Burke proposed. From the data analysis, we established that the dance of “K’na” in Nea Vyssa constructs and reconstructs not only the ethnic but the national identity of the groups who use them in order to react to the messages they receive via the communication with “the important others”.