Using Music to Assemble Dance and Exercise Class Experiencescapes

Abstract

This chapter examines how service providers use music in assembling experiencescapes in the context of contemporary and street dance classes and group exercise services. Taking a socio-material approach, the role of music is explored in the interplay of practices, meaning making and entanglements between material/digital and social entities making up the service brand experience. The chapter discusses ways in which music is utilized, and draws attention to elements and interactions, and symbolic complementarities and tensions involved with its integration into the dance / exericise experiencescape. The rich empirical account draws on multiple forms of qualitative, ethnographic data, including in-depth interviews with dance and exercise class instructors.