Quote Originally Posted by unixken View Post
Colin, from the link you gave, I read this quote...

"The dance was passed to the Flett's from Mary Isdale McNab who stipulated that she would teach it only on the condition that it was a 'personal' dance and not to be taught to anyone else. "

I have to wonder how much tradition (in any culture) is... not "lost" per se, but deliberately thrown away. (Or allowed to die?)
My own research on Chinese martial arts percussion music, which includes aspects of dance, shows another example of preservation in the diaspora versus change in the place of origin. I spent 9 months in Hong Kong last year and was surprised by how much living tradition there is in Toronto's Chinatown, compared to the more modern scene in Hong Kong. The difference was even greater in mainland China.

I was told by my research collaborators that while some people are struggling to preserve traditions in the old country, popular taste has favoured an "out with the old, in with the new" approach. A colleague of mine has done research on the retention of traditional Ukranian music and dance in Alberta, which shows another marked case of diasporic resistance to change, despite the ravages of modernization and the legacy of Soviet nationalism in the Ukraine. I suspect this to be a fairly widespread phenomenon.

Part of this is based on the efforts of diasporic peoples to preserve their identities through their practices, when confronted with a new environment. Part of it is the implicitness of identity in the homeland, which facilitates the withering of practices thought to be archaic. Sometimes, however, the value of those traditional practices is not realized until it is too late.

I think it is wonderful when the transnational bonds between peoples of the same cultural nation allow for the rekindling of traditions that were lost in the homeland, by the spark carried in the diaspora It can go the other way too, as we have seen with many members of Xmarks who have been separated from their Scottish heritage and seek to reconnect with it by wearing the kilt, which is one tradition that has thankfully not faded in Scotland