Latin dance courses in İzmir and sexuality in dance practice

This study I have done about the Latin Dance and Argentinean Tango practices in Izmir, focuses on the sexual codes that the acts of the students and the educators contain, during the teaching-learning and the application phase. As a result of the participant-observation method used in the research, it has been observed that the communication and the interaction between the educator, student and the audience contain sexual messages, verbal or non verbal acts are displayed in order to deliver these messages and after the interviews, various sexual expectations have been found behind the reasons of these individuals participating in such activities. Dance classes have been in demand in Izmir, especially for the last ten years. When the practices of attendants? attending, being a part of a group, dancing on special nights, and participating in ritualized dance activities observed; it can be seen that the identities of these people and the role of their sexual identities in the crowd are brought forward with dance and the music. Besides the differences in the expectations of dance class attendants in Izmir, the difference in practices they learn and apply during the course can also be observed. This difference is closely related with the self expression of the thesis I primarily base on sexual origin. Interviews in this research were done with 26 class attendants, and 18 dance educator including class owners and their assistants. Classes of the dance schools and dance classes were attended to and videos were shot at different nights of different dance schools. This text includes quotations of the people with whom one on one interviews were done with. Parallelism between the sexuality the dance involves and the sexuality, which Hanna mentioned, of the attendants who attend with sexual expectations and their efforts for flirting and making friends have been explained. Definitions used for dance, such as, fun, passion, freedom, self expression, self exhibition, joy and compatibility, have presented sexual meanings.