Society and the dance : the social anthropology of process and performance
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Society and the dance : the social anthropology of process and performance
Cambridge University Press, 1985
- : pbk
Available at 37 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
-
Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto Universityアフリカ専攻
: pbk389||Sp486060221
Note
Includes bibliographies and indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Dancing has its place in all societies; yet the phenomenon of dance has been oddly neglected by most anthropologists. This volume is intended to further anthropological awareness of its critical relevance. It is claimed that, in a very important sense, society creates the dance, and it is to society and not just to the dancer's experience that we must turn to understand its significance. Performance has meaning within social process. The anthropological analysis of dance can be approached in a variety of ways. These are identified in the introduction to the volume, and then illustrated by seven case examples drawn from Africa, Southeast Asia, Melanesia, and Oceanis. In successive chapters, dancing is presented as a controlled emotional outlet whose form reflects cosmology; as a creative experience that draws adolescent girls into the adult world; as an extension of speech and gesture that adds further levels of meaning to formal occasions; as a strategy for orchestrating the climax of a successful exchange; as a challenge to the power of elders that generates an alternative reality; as a communial response to crisis that recreates order out of confusion; and as a sequence of transformations that periodically resolves an inherent social dilemma. The volume concludes with an assessment of the relevance of the work by a dance scholar. By revealing dance as an aspect - often the most spectacular aspect - of ritual behaviour, this work is intended to stimulate more anthropologists and those in related disciplines to realise the full potential of its study. It also offers insights to those who are principally interested in dance itself, as well as appealing to any reader who shares a curiosity about the ways in which the spectacle of dance can be interpreted.
Table of Contents
- List of figures and tables
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1. Temiar dance and the maintenance of order Sue Jennings
- 2. Movement, dance, music, and the Venda girls' initiation cycle John Blacking
- 3. Structured movement systems in Tonga Adrienne L. Kaeppler
- 4. 'A line of boys': Melpa dance as a symbol of maturation Andrew Strathern
- 5. Dance as antithesis in the Samburu discourse Paul Spencer
- 6. The dance among the Lugbara of Uganda John Middleton
- 7. Style and meaning in Umeda dance Alfred Gell
- Epilogue: Anthropology and the study of dance Peter Brinson
- Notes on contributors
- Name Index
- Subject Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"