World Dance Cultures

Patricia Leigh Beaman is on the dance faculty at Wesleyan University and teaches dance history at New York University. As a Baroque and contemporary dancer, she has worked nationally and internationally, and is currently exploring the juxtaposition between historical Baroque and Postmodern dances of the 1960s.

CHAPTER 1 - India: Devotion, dance, and mythology

1.1 Overview

1.2 Bharatanatyam: concertizing a sacred form from South India

1.2 Exploration: excerpt from Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India, by Davesh Soneji

1.3 Kathak: entertainment for Hindu Maharajas and Muslim Moghuls

1.4 Kathakali: narrative dance theater from Kerala

1.4 Exploration: excerpt from "Who Wears the Skirts in Kathakali?" by Diane Daugherty and Marlene Pitkow

CHAPTER 2 - Bali and Java: from temple, to village, to court

2.1 Overview

2.2 The baris dancers: bodyguards of Balinese gods

2.3 The sanghyang dedari: child mediums to the spirit realm

2.4 The legong: when sacred dances become secular

2.5 The calonarang: keeping a community in balance

2.5 Exploration: excerpt from "Clowns, Kings, and Bombs in Bali," by Ron Jenkins

2.6 Javanese bedhaya: celestial palace dance

2.6 Exploration: excerpt from The Dance that Makes You Vanish, by Rachmi Diyah Larasati

CHAPTER 3 - Cambodia and China: Dance as a political tool

3.1 Overview

3.2 Cambodia’s royal dancers: survivors of the Khmer Rouge

3.2 Exploration: excerpt from "Mediating Cambodian History, the Sacred, and the Earth," by Toni Shapiro-Phim

3.3 Jingju: Chinese Beijing Opera--stylized beauty, staged

3.4 Mao’s Cultural Revolution and The Red Detachment of Women

3.4 Exploration: excerpt from The Story of Dai Ailain, by Richard Glasstone

CHAPTER 4 - Japanese noh, kabuki, and butoh: Entertaining samurai, merchants, and rebels

4.1 Overview

4.2 Noh theater: entertaining samurai

4.2 Exploration: excerpt from "Import/Export: Artistic Osmosis Between Japan, Europe, and the United States" by Patricia Leigh Beaman

4.3 From pleasure women’s kabuki to Grand Kabuki Theater

4.4 Butoh: Japan’s dance of darkness

4.4 Exploration: excerpt from "Selections from the Prose of Kazuo Ohno" by Noriko Maehata

CHAPTER 5 - Hawai'i, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea: Guardians of culture

5.1 Overview

5.2 Hula kahiko: from Hawaiian royal courts to the global stage

5.3 The Māori haka: a dance of defiance, a dance of welcome

5.3 Exploration: excerpt from "Ko Mitimiti Ahau, I am (of) the Place, Mitimiti" by Jack Gray

5.4 The gisalo: pathos and pain of the Bosavi-Kaluli of Papua New Guinea

5.4 Exploration: excerpt from The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers by Edward Schieffelin

CHAPTER 6 - Africa: Fertility festivals, death ceremonies, and ancestor worship

6.1 Overview

6.2 The Geerewol Festival of the Wodaabe: judging male charm and beauty

6.2 Exploration: excerpt from Nomads Who Cultivate Beauty by Mette Bovin

6.3 The Dogon dama ceremony: a collective funeral ritual

6.4 The Mossi: yaaba sooré--the path of the ancestors

6.4 Exploration: excerpt from Land of the Flying Masks by Christopher Roy

6.5 The Egungun of Yorubaland: the ancestors descend

CHAPTER 7 - North Africa, Turkey, and Spain: Healing, worship, and expression

7.1 Overview

7.2 The zār ritual: ridding women of troublesome jinn

7.2 Exploration: excerpt from Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zār Cult in Northern Sudan by Janice Boddy

7.3 The sema: mystical dance of the Sufi Mevlevi dervish

7.3 Exploration: excerpt from The City of the Sultan by Julia Pardoe

7.4 Flamenco: a manifestation of cultures and passions

CHAPTER 8 - Native America, the Caribbean, and South America: Resistance, spirituality, and spectacle

8.1 Overview

8.2 Political resistance: the Lakota Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee, 1890 and 1973

8.2 Exploration: excerpt from Killing Custer: The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians, by James Welch and Paul Stekler

8.3 Haitian vodou: an Afro-Caribbean spiritual pathway

8.3 Exploration: excerpt from "Afro-Caribbean Spirituality: A Haitian Case Study" by Karen McCarthy Brown

8.4 Tango: from Argentinian dens of iniquity, to Parisian dance halls, and back

Glossary

Index