Ethnochoreology.

The study of dance in contexts outside the western world.

1. The study of dance.

2. A structured movement system.

3. Studies and their histories.

4. Ethnochoreological approaches.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ADRIENNE L. KAEPPLER

Ethnochoreology

1. The study of dance.

Although Western dance and its music have made inroads into the performing arts of even the most remote corners of the world, the indigenous movement traditions of most nations continue to flourish, and indeed continue to influence dance in the West. Studies of dance in the non-Western areas of the world are not usually carried out by typical dance historians, who generally have specific ideas about what dance is and how it should be studied; rather, they are usually carried out by ethnochoreologists who have backgrounds to appreciate and understand movement in the larger scheme of cultural forms, and by indigenous researchers who work on the movement systems of their own cultures as well as other dance traditions, including ballet and modern dance. The differences in approach are similar to differences in approach of musicologists and ethnomusicologists. Although some researchers in both sound and movement claim there are no differences in approach, musicologists and dance historians are apt to look at the subject from the point of view of their own cultural history, focussing on sound and movement themselves rather than as integral parts of a total way of life. Ethnochoreologists, on the other hand, feel that sound and movement are not transparent and do not yield their secrets to the uninitiated. These differences in approach derive in part from the Western idea that most dances and musics are part of entertainment, whereas in the non-Western world that is not usually the case.

Recent trends in the study of dance suggest that the terms ‘Western dance’ and ‘non-Western dance’ perpetuate a false dichotomy; a focus on who studies the dances and their points of view might be more appropriate. This article will focus on ethnochoreological approaches and their histories. Some studies result from turning the anthropological eye upon ‘ourselves’ while some use insights from dance history to explore the ‘other’. Dance history work may be informed by anthropological theory (e.g. Foster, 1986) or anthropological study may be informed by dance history (e.g. Novak, 1990). Performance studies may be informed by both (as in Drewell's work on African dance and her study of the Rockettes). Similarly, Hopi dance and ballet have both been considered as ethnic dance (Keali’inohomoku 1969–70), and a ballet-dancer has written a general book on ethnochoreology (Royce, 1977).

Most ethnochoreologists agree that movement researchers must take into account that composers, dancers and audiences are made up of historically placed individuals with culturally specific backgrounds and that it is necessary to examine how these individuals learn to interpret how they move and what they see. They feel that the notion that dance is a universal language is still too common, and object to the idea that outsiders can understand body movement without knowing the cultural-movement language. In short, they believe that it is necessary to understand a culture in order to understand its movement traditions. On the other hand, many dancers and researchers in the non-Western world feel that ballet and modern dance are movement languages that can be (and have been) adopted universally.

Ethnochoreology

2. A structured movement system.

Cultural forms that result from the creative use of human bodies in time and space are often glossed as ‘dance’, but the word itself carries with it preconceptions that mask the importance and usefulness of analysing the movement dimensions of human action and interaction. Dance is a multi-faceted phenomenon that, in addition to what we see and hear, includes the ‘invisible’ underlying system, the processes that produce both the system and the product, and the socio-political context. In many societies there were traditionally no categories comparable to the Western concept, and the word ‘dance’ has been adopted in many languages. Movement analysis from an ethnochoreological point of view encompasses all structured movement systems, including those associated with religious and secular ritual, ceremony, entertainment, martial arts, sign languages, sports and games. What these systems share is that they result from creative processes that manipulate (i.e. handle with skill) human bodies in time and space. Some categories of structured movement may be further marked or elaborated, for example, by being integrally related to ‘music’ (a specially marked or elaborated category of structured sound) and text.

Analyses that would make it possible to separate movement systems conceptualized as dance and non-dance according to indigenous points of view (or even if there are such concepts) have not yet been carried out in many areas. Most researchers simply use the term ‘dance’ for any and all body movements associated with music, but it should be remembered that this is a Western term (as is ‘music’).

Structured movement systems are systems of knowledge – the products of action and interaction as well as processes through which action and interaction take place – and are usually part of a larger activity or activity system. These systems of knowledge are socially and culturally constructed – created by, known and agreed upon by a group of people and preserved primarily in memory. Though transient, movement systems have structured content. They can be visual manifestations of social relations and the subjects of elaborate aesthetic systems, and may assist in understanding cultural values and the deep structures of society. An ideal movement study of a society or social group analyses all activities and cultural forms in which human bodies are manipulated in time and space; social processes that produce them according to the aesthetic precepts of a specific group of people at a specific point in time; and the components that group or separate various movement dimensions and activities projected into kinesthetic and visual forms. Indigenous categories define most satisfactorily these movement systems. Discovering indigenous views on the structure and content of movement systems, as well as creative processes, movement theories and philosophies, is difficult but necessary for understanding culture and society.

In order to be understood as dance, movements must be grammatical: they must be intended and interpreted as dance. The grammar of a movement idiom, like the grammar of any language, involves structure, style and meaning. It is necessary to learn to recognize the movements that make up the system, how they can vary stylistically, and their syntax (rules about how they can be put together to form motifs, phrases, larger forms and whole pieces). Competence to understand specific pieces depends not only on movement itself but on knowledge of social and cultural context.

Specially marked or elaborated movement systems result from creative processes that manipulate human bodies in time and space so that movement is formalized and intensified in much the same manner as poetry intensifies and formalizes language. Often the process of performing is as important as the cultural form produced. These specially marked movement systems may be considered art, work, ritual, ceremony, entertainment or any combination of these depending on the society and context. A person may perform the same or a similar movement sequence (consisting of grammatically structured movement motifs) as a ritual supplicant, as a political act, as an entertainer or as an ethnic identity marker. Thus, the same movement sequence may be meant to be decoded differently if performed for the gods, for a human audience or as a participant for fun; and it may be decoded differently depending on an individual's background and understanding of a dance idiom itself, as well as the particular performance and the beholder's mental and emotional state at the time.

Grammatically structured human movement may convey meaning by mime, dramatic realism, storytelling, metaphor or with abstract conventions. The movements may constitute signs, symbols or signifiers, in any combination. Essentially, movements are cultural artefacts that convey the idea that these movements belong to a specific culture or subculture or that a specific type of movement is being activated for a particular purpose. Movement sequences may be audience-orientated to be admired as art or work, they may be participatory to be enjoyed as entertainment or as markers of identity, they may make political or social statements, bring religious ecstasy or trance, or be performed as a social duty. Movements given by the gods and ancestors may be perpetuated as cultural artefacts and aesthetic performances even if their meanings have been changed or forgotten as reference points for ethnic or cultural identities. Although dances tell stories, especially on a superficial level, there are texts and subtexts, narratives and nuances, artistry and aesthetics, in every movement tradition.

Ethnochoreology

3. Studies and their histories.

There are historical differences between European, American and other indigenous traditions in regard to ethnochoreological studies of dance: the European tradition derived from comparative musicology and folklore studies, the American tradition primarily from the anthropological perspectives of Franz Boas, and traditions in other parts of the world from historical written accounts, oral traditions and colonial encounters. In recent years, however, owing to meetings of the ethnochoreological study group of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), more understanding of the variety of perspectives has developed together with a sharing and adoption of each other's views. European contributions to dance study have been detailed from the later 19th century and its post-Romantic interest in rural people and peasants (Lange, 1979–80). Folk-dances were often described and recorded with the aid of questionnaires focussing on the choreological products and the migration of these products into urban settings. The aims of European studies were classification, definition of local and regional styles, historical layers and intercultural influences – similar to the aims of musical folklorists – and Lange notes that ‘the comparative method was primarily used’ (1979–80, p.20). The European focus on dance structure goes back to studies of Hungarian dance by Martin and Pesovar (1970) and was elaborated and systematized by a group of scholars under the aegis of the International Folk Music Council (now ICTM) which published their syllabus in 1975. Work on structural analysis is still undertaken by the ICTM Ethnochoreology Study Group (Torp, 1990; Nahachewsky, 1993; Giurchescu and Bloland, 1995). British perspectives include derivations from folk music and folklore (Buckland, 1991) and social anthropological perspectives (Spencer, 1985), including those elaborated by John Blacking and Andrée Grau on the nature of dance cross-culturally based on the ‘thinking moving body’ (Grau, 1993, p.24).

In America, those engaged in ethnochoreological studies – usually termed ‘dance ethnology’ or the ‘anthropology of human movement’ – debate issues similar to those of ethnomusicology: that is, what constitutes ethnochoreology or ethnomusicology and whether these disciplines should be primarily about movement and musical products or should incorporate anthropological theories on processes, events, ethnoaesthetics and cultural constructions in relation to structured sound and movement. As American ethnochoreologists have traditionally worked with movement traditions not their own, their research tends to be more diffuse and less detailed in movement content. Their aim is to understand a whole society and to illuminate how human movement, as part of activities and events, assists in understanding all societal dimensions.

An early proponent of ethnochoreology was Gertrude Kurath who noted that the ethnographic study of dance was ‘an approach toward, and a method of, eliciting the place of dance in human life – in a word, as a branch of anthropology’ (1960, p.250). Kurath, a dancer and art historian, was drawn into the study of Amerindian dance by William Fenton and Frank Speck to examine choreology in areas where they had already carried out ethnographic research. Recognizing that movement or ‘dance’ was an important part of ritual activity in Amerindian life, they looked for someone who would be able to describe, analyse and make sense of the movements. They had already collected data on the ‘context’, and Kurath's task was to assist them in gathering empirical data about choreographic groundplans, body movements and cultural symbolism as reflected in choreographic patterns.

A pioneer of empirical, product-orientated studies in America, Kurath's colleagues in Europe included Curt Sachs, (whom she called ‘the amiable wizard’) as well as folklorists and musicologists working within their own cultural traditions and focussing primarily on systemization, classification and diffusion. Kurath used European sources, many of which were tied to theoretical notions about evolutionary cultural stages and German Kulturkreis diffusion theory. She was also interested in comparisons and often drew them from European folk-dance traditions, such as studies by Danica and Ljubica Jankovic of South Slav populations. Kurath echoed her European colleagues in her interest in choreology as the science of movement patterns which involved the breaking down of ‘an observed pattern in order to perceive the structure’ and the ‘synthetic process of choreosocial relationships’ which could be used for ‘attacks on space and time’ involving ‘area study, intrusion and diffusion and problems of change’ (1956, pp.177–9). Most of Kurath's publications, however, are descriptions of specific dance occasions, with detailed information on costumes, musical instruments, ground plans, postures, gestures and steps, with some analysis, comparisons and context.

One of the founders of anthropology in the USA was Franz Boas who, although he came from a German scientific tradition, rejected many of the ideas of his homeland, focussing instead on cultural variability. He rejected universal languages of art or dance and provided the foundation for the examination of dance and responses to it within individual cultures. Intellectual descendants of this tradition can be traced from Boas, through Herskovits and Merriam (an important anthropological voice in American ethnomusicology) to Keali’inohomoku and Royce. The Boasian and Herskovitsian emphasis on cultural relativism was widespread in America and was elaborated by proponents of ethnoscience in the 1960s. Boas's view that ‘if we choose to apply our [Western] classification to alien cultures we may combine forms that do not belong together…. If it is our serious purpose to understand the thoughts of a people, the whole analysis of experience must be based on their concepts, not ours’ (1943, p.314) was combined with Malinowski's concept that our goal should be ‘to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world’ (1922, p.25). Added to this was Kenneth Pike's dictum that we should ‘attempt to discover and to describe the pattern of that particular language or culture in reference to the way in which the various elements of that culture are related to each other in the functioning of the particular pattern’ (1954, p.8). From Pike came the ‘etic/emic’ distinction; ‘emic criteria savor more of relativity, with the sameness of activity determined in reference to a particular system of activity’ (1954, p.11). It is these theoretical bases that still inform the work of most ethnochoreologists.

These Boasian empirical traditions, combined with acknowledgement of the importance of insiders' views, and theories of competence and performance taken from concepts of Saussure and Chomsky, resulted in studies based on linguistic analogies. Using etic/emic distinctions derived by ‘contrastive analysis’, concepts were elaborated as ethnotheories and ethnoscientific structuralism. Movements and choreographies were analysed to find the underlying system. Systems, of course, cannot be observed, but must be derived from the social and cultural construction of specific movement worlds. These systems exist in memory and are recalled as movement motifs, imagery and as system, and are used to create compositions that produce social and cultural meanings in performance. Such analyses involve deconstructing the movements into culturally recognized pieces and learning the rules for constructing compositions according to the system.

This type of analysis has been used primarily by anthropologists – Kaeppler on Tongan dance (1967, 1972); Rena Loutzaki on dance style among Greek refugees from northern Thrace (Bulgaria) now resident in Greece (1989); and Frank Hall, in a study of improvisation in American clog dance (1985). Concepts were adapted from Chomsky, Saussure, semiotics and ‘semasiology’ by Drid Williams, studying with British anthropologists, into a methodology concerned with the semantics of body languages in which the focus is on meaning. Like semiotics, which deals with communication and the doctrine of signs, semasiology is a theory and methodology based on ‘action signs’ that deal with the semantic content of human languages. According to Williams (1981, p.221), it is ‘based on an application of Saussurian ideas to human movement and the result is a theory of human actions that is linguistically tied, mathematically structured and empirically based – but not “behaviourally-based”. Semasiology is a form of semantic anthropology’. The methods of semasiology have been used by Brenda Farnell (1994) in her study of Plains Indian ‘sign language’ and by Rajika Puri (1983) to investigate the place of haste mudra in Indian dance as an expression of Indian society.

The psychobiological basis of dance and the ways in which human dance differs from the so-called ‘dances’ of other animals has been studied by Hanna (1979, 1988), working on gender communication and emotion. The representation of emotion in dance has been investigated by Loken-Kim (1990); examining sentiment terms used by Koreans to evaluate women's salp'uri dance and sentiment words used in first-person accounts of Korean women's lives, she explored the social construction of female gender.

In the Middle East, Al Farugi delineated aesthetic principles and examined how they were manifested in various cultural forms and how they might be applied to human movement (1978). She noted that, although dance is not considered an art form in this area, human movements express the same aesthetic evaluative concepts as other Islamic visual arts, such as architecture. Beginning with the overall aesthetic principles of abstract quality and modular form, she elaborated five aesthetic concepts appropriate for an examination of human movement – non-programmatic, improvisation, emphasis on small intricate movements, serial structure and mini-climaxes.

What makes movement studies anthropological is the focus on system, the importance of intention, meaning and cultural evaluation. Anthropologists are interested in socially constructed movement systems, the activities that generate them, how and by whom they are judged, and how they can assist in understanding society. While some anthropologists, such as Cowan (1990) and Schieffelin (1976), choose not to get involved in movement detail but focus primarily on context and meaning, others, such as Farnell and Kaeppler, combine detailed attention to the movement itself with the historical, social and cultural systems in which the movement is embedded. Farnell's work on Plains Indian sign language focusses on the movements of the signing tradition, the stories told and the culture they express (1994). The ritual non-Christian basis of a modern Hawaiian dance genre with the underlying theme of how tradition is negotiated to make it appropriate for its time is the focus of Kaeppler's monograph on Hawaiian hula pahu (1993). Other anthropological concerns include Cartesian mind/body dualism (Varela, 1992), martial arts (Lewis, 1992), iconography (Seebass, 1991), tourism (Sweet, 1985), and urban multiculturalism (Ness, 1992). In short, the aim of anthropological works is not simply to understand dance in its cultural context, but rather to understand society through analysing movement systems.

In contrast to anthropological studies of dance, the focus of dance ethnology is often on dance content; the study of the cultural context aims to help illuminate the dance. For example, research on the court context of the Javanese Bedhaya is brought to bear on understanding the dance (rather than research on the Bedhaya in order to understand the Javanese court). Events within which dances occur and the syncretism of Christian and pre-Christian movements from which they are composed are dealt with in Allegra Fuller Snyder's work on Yaqui Easter ceremonies; in addition, her cross-cultural emphasis and work on dance symbolism (1974) are important ethnological concerns which deal with cultural identity (1989). Elsie Dunin's extensive work on Balkan dance carried out in the Balkans, California and Chile focusses on movements and choreography, showing how these persist or change over time in their area of origin and when they are transplanted, as well as the events in which they occur (1987, 1988, 1989). Although grounded in the work of Ivancan and the Jankovic sisters, Dunin's studies are part of an overall concern with ethnicity and ethnic identity. This concern has also been addressed by Judy van Zile who studied the transplantation of Bon dance traditions from Japan to Hawaii (1982). Van Zile has also carried out research on historical aspects of Korean dance movement and has done extensive work on Labanotation and its application to non-Western movement systems. In his work on Newfoundland traditions and North American step-dancing Colin Quigley (1985) raises the important issue of expressive identity in diverse dance cultures within the pluralism of American society, investigating how and why distinctive traditions are perpetuated and/or changed through contact with other cultural worlds. Concerns with ethnic identity, minority status and gender, as well as concepts of body, self and personhood are topics receiving attention within dance ethnology. In these studies, the social relationships of the people dancing are placed in the background while the dance itself and its changes over time are brought into the foreground. Beyond Europe and America, dance researchers from the rest of the world have undertaken numerous studies of their own traditional dances and those of others. For instance, dance has been an academic subject at the University of Ghana since 1962 and several these have been written by African scholars. At the School of Performing Arts at Hong Kong the three–part curriculum includes ballet, modern and Chinese dance. The Japanese scholar Kimiko Ohtani has researched dance in Japan, Okinawa and India. Korean scholars have researched their own dances, with their basis in Shamanism and Buddism as well as ballet and modern dance. Kapila Vatsayan has published extensively on Indian dance and culture, while Nina de Shane, a Mohawk Indian, has worked on the political importance of dance to ethnic identity. Arzu Öztürkman has worked on dance and nationalism in her native Turkey. Indonesian scholars including I Made Bandem, Soedarsono, Sal Murgiyanto and I Yayan Dibia have done extensive research on dance traditions of their own culture as well as elsewhere in Indonesia and beyond. The research of Mohd Anis Md Nor in his native Malaysia, Amy Ku’uleialoha Stillman on Hawaiian dance, Kauraka Kauraka and Jon Jonassen on Cook Island dance, Maria Susana Azzi on Argentine tango, and many others suggests that the importance of dance to political and national values, as art, and as markers of ethnic and cultural identities has only begun to be realized.

Ethnochoreology

4. Ethnochoreological approaches.

Ethnochoreological approaches that have been used to comprehend the multi-faceted phenomenon of dance include analyses of the following:

Structured movement systems. Analysis of movement dimensions of larger activities to discover how a society conceptualizes movement and concepts about the body through which movement takes place.

Social. Analysis of social contexts in which activities take place, who performs them, and their roles in ethnic and cultural identity.

Deep and surface structures. Analysis of structured movement systems to understand the underlying cultural philosophy and how it is manifested in other cultural forms.

Events. Analysis of an event to find the place that dance and other structured movement systems play within it, also taking into account circumstances leading up to it and decision-making about dances.

Structure. Analysis of the structure of a movement system using linguistic analogies to derive kinemes and morphokines (or similarly termed pieces of movement) comparable to phonology and syntax/grammar in spoken language analysis.

Motifs. Identification of important motifs within a movement system is probably the most important step in the analysis of dance structure. Motifs are grammatical sequences of movement that combine smaller movements in characteristic ways and are verbalized and recognized as motifs by dancers, composers and audience members.

Choreography. Ordering of motifs simultaneously and chronologically is the process of choreography; a dance can be analytically broken down or built up from its component parts.

Local genre categories. Analysis of the ‘folk taxonomy’ of culturally recognized dances within a specific culture to discover how categories differ from each other and non-dance systems of movement.

Energy. Analysis of how much and what kind of energy is expended and if the product is intended to look energetic or energyless.

Aesthetics. Like other cultural forms, movement is evaluated by participants and audiences, and the researcher should attempt to discover indigenous way of thinking about and evaluating movement in general and dance in particular.

Music and text. Music (structured sound) and spoken/written texts accompany texts that should be examined and analysed.

Ethnohistory. Analysis of ethnography in historic perspective using sources such as illustrations, historical writings and oral histories to understand the history of movement forms and possibly reconstruct them.

Continuity and change. Analysis of how movement systems have changed over time and the development of frameworks for the analysis of change.

Theory and ethnotheory. Important in the study of human movement systems is the study of movement theory and philosophy of movement from the point of view of the society in which the movement takes place. The use of Western dance theory for analysis of non-Western dance is inappropriate, and a researcher must attempt to discover indigenous theories about movement. How did the structured movement systems originate? Are they codified into genres? How and by whom can dances be composed? How can (and cannot) movements and postures be combined? Is there a vocabulary of motifs and a grammar for their use? Are there notions about energy and how it should be visually displayed? On the basis of movement, can dance be separated from ritual? And more basic still, does a culture or society have such concepts?

Relationship of movement to emotion, ritual and art. Analysis of movement as a form of affective culture and how it can generate changes in attitude or feeling. Related questions concern whether dance or other movements are considered ‘art’ by the society under study, and if ritual movements are the same or different from dance movements.

Style. Analysis of the core characteristics of a movement tradition and ways of performing should lead to the definition of style. Or conversely, a stylistic analysis should lead to the definition of core characteristics and ways of performing movement motifs and putting them together.

Composition/choreography and improvisation. Choreography is generated according to rules and it is necessary to explain what these rules are. Improvisation is a kind of instantaneous choreography and consists of the spontaneous ordering of culturally acceptable or grammatical movement-units or motifs (rather than the generation of new movement units). Who does the choreography and what is the social status of such individuals?

Teaching methods and learning. Teaching and learning vary greatly from culture to culture. In some areas children learn primarily by copying adults, while in other areas a student's body may be physically manipulated by the teacher.

Performing spaces, clothing and properties. Analysis of where dances are performed and how clothing and properties influence movement reveals cultural constructs.

Outsider's point of view. Although ethnochoreologists usually focus on insiders’ points of view, an analysis of the views of outsiders may serve to identify patterns of movement that are taken for granted by an insider. Such patterns are useful for analysing dance and its associations with other cultural manifestations, noting similarities and differences between choreographers and drawing attention to movement patterns of neighbouring and more distant social groups.

Movement and meaning. Perhaps most difficult is the analysis of meaning of specific movements and meanings of a movement system as a whole. Meaning is usually associated with communication. Concepts that can be usefully employed in this approach are those derived from Chomsky, based on competence and performance, and Saussure, based on langue and parole. ‘Competence’ or knowledge about a specific dance tradition is acquired in much the same way as competence in a spoken language is acquired. Competence relates to the cognitive learning of the rules of a specific dance tradition as langue is acquired in a Saussurian mode. Competence enables the viewer to understand a grammatical movement sequence that he or she has never seen before. ‘Performance’ refers to an actual rendering of a movement sequence, parole of Saussure, which assumes that the performer has a certain level of competence and the skill to carry it out. A viewer must have communicative competence in order to understand movement messages.

Through these approaches and types of analysis ethnochoreologists derive their basic data. What they do with these data and how they are presented in publication varies widely. From such wide-ranging research and analyses, ethnochoreologists focus attention on movement content as well as social, cultural and political concerns such as gender, the body, ethnic, cultural and national identities, the negotiation of tradition, and turning the ethnochoreological eye on any society. It is often more productive to deal with only one, or a few, of these considerations at a time, and publications usually focus on specific aspects of human movement systems. In order to find the larger view as advocated here, it is necessary to read widely in the works of a dance scholar to see how various aspects of movement come into focus as part of a total cultural system.

Ethnochoreology

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GEWM, i (‘Dance in Communal Life’, P.A. Kwakwa)

general theory and methodology

M. Mauss: Les techniques de corps’, Sociologie et anthropologie (Paris, 1950, 8/1983; Eng. trans., 1979), 365–86

K. Pike: Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structures of Human Behavior (Glendale, CA, 1954)

G.P. Kurath: Choreology and Anthropology’, American Anthropologist, lviii (1956), 177–9

G.P. Kurath: Panorama of Dance Ethnology’, Current Anthropology, i/3 (1960) 233–54

G. Martin: Magyar tánctìpusok és táncdialektusok [Hungarian dance types and dance dialects] (Budapest, 1970)

A.L. Kaeppler: Method and Theory in Analysing Dance Structure with an Analysis of Tongan Dance’, EthM, xvi (1972), 173–217

A.F. Snyder: The Dance Symbol’, New Dimensions in Dance Research: Tucson, AZ, 1972, ed. T. Comstock, 213–24 [Dance Research Annual, vi (1974)]

S. Youngerman: Method and Theory in Dance Research: an Anthropological Approach’, YIFMC, vii (1975), 116–33

J.W. Keali’inohomoku: Theories and Methods for an Anthropological Study of Dance (diss., Indiana U., 1976)

A.P. Royce: The Anthropology of Dance (Bloomington, IN, 1977)

A.L. Kaeppler: Dance in Anthropological Perspective’, Annual Review of Anthropology, vii (1978), 31–49

J.L. Hanna: To Dance is Human: a Theory of Nonverbal Communication (Austin, 1979)

R. Lange: The Development of Anthropological Dance Research’, Dance Studies, vi (1979–80), 1–36

P. Spencer, ed.: Society and the Dance: the Social Anthropology of Process and Performance (Cambridge, 1985)

A.L. Kaeppler: Cultural Analysis, Linguistic Analogies, and the Study of Dance in Anthropological Perspective’, Exploration in Ethnomusicology: Essays in Honor of David P. McAllester, ed. C.J. Frisbie (Detroit, 1986), 25–33

J.L. Hanna: Dance, Sex and Gender (Chicago, 1988)

R. Mayer: Collecte et traitement du matériel gestuel’, Revue gabonaise des sciences de l'homme (1988)

W.C. Reynolds: Dance in the ICTM’, ICTM Dance Newsletter, i/1 (1988), 3

E.I. Dunin: Dance Events as a Means to Social Interchange’, The Dance Event: a Complex Cultural Phenomenon, ed. L. Torp (Copenhagen, 1989), 30–33

A.L. Kaeppler: American Approaches to the Study of Dance’, YTM, xxiii (1991), 1–21

K. Ohtani: Japanese Approaches to the Study of Dance’, YTM, xxiii (1991), 23–32

D. Williams: Ten Lectures on Theories of the Dance (Metuchen, NJ, 1991)

C. Varela: Cartesianism Revisited: the Ghost in the Moving Machine or the Lived Body: an Ethogenic Critique’, Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, vii/1 (1992), 5–64

A. Grau: John Blacking and the Development of Dance Anthropology in the United Kingdom’, Dance Research Journal, xxv/2 (1993), 21–31

A. Nahachewsky: International Council for Traditional Music Study Group on Ethnochoreology: Sub-Study Group on Structural Analysis Meeting’, ibid., 72–4

A.L. Kaeppler: Dance and Dress as Sociopolitical Discourse’, Dance and its Socio-Political Aspects: Nauplion 1992 (1994), 45–52

B. Farnell, ed.: Human Action Signs in Cultural Context: the Visible and the Invisible in Movement and Dance (Metuchen, NJ, 1995)

A.L. Kaeppler: The Look of Music, the Sound of Dance: Music as a Visual Art’, Visual Anthropology, viii (1996), 133–53

theory and ethnography

B. Malinowski: Argonauts of the Western Pacific (New York, 1922/R)

F. Boas: Dance and Music in the Life of the Northwest Coast Indians of North America’, The Function of Dance in Human Society (New York, 1944, 2/1972), 7–18

A.L. Kaeppler: The Structure of Tongan Dance (diss., U. of Hawaii, 1967)

J.W. Keali’inohomoku: An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance’, Impulse (1969–70), 24–33

A.L. Kaeppler: Aesthetics of Tongan Dance’, EthM, xii (1971), 175–85

A.P. Royce: Dance as an Indicator of Social Class and Identity in Juchitan, Oaxaca’, New Dimensions in Dance Research: Tucson, AZ, 1972, ed. T. Comstock, 285–97 [Dance Research Annual, vi (1974)]

P.A. Kwakwa: Dance and Drama of the Gods (thesis, Institute of African Studies, Legon, 1974)

J.W. Keali’inohomoku: A Comparative Study of Dance as a Constellation of Motor Behaviors among African and United States Negroes’, Reflections and Perspectives on Two Anthropological Studies of Dance (New York, 1976), 1–179 [Dance Research Annual, vi (1976)]

E.L. Schieffelin: The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers (New York, 1976)

A.L. Kaeppler: Melody, Drone and Decoration: Underlying Structures and Surface Manifestations in Tongan Art and Society’, Art in Society: Studies in Style, Culture and Aesthetics, ed. M. Greenhalgh and V. Megaw (London, 1978), 261–74

M.A.M. Nor: Randai Dance of Minangkabau Sumatra with Labanotation Scores (Kuala Lumpur, 1986)

D. Williams: Introduction to Special Issue on Semasiology’, Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, i/4 (1981), 207–25

J. Van Zile: The Japanese Bon Dance in Hawaii (Honolulu, 1982)

R. Puri: A Structural Analysis of Meaning in Movement: the Hand Gestures of Indian Classical Dance (thesis, New York U., 1983)

F. Hall: Improvisation and Fixed Composition in Clogging’, Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, iii/4 (New York, 1985), 200–17

A.L. Kaeppler: Structured Movement Systems in Tonga’, Society and the Dance: the Social Anthropology of Performance and Process, ed. P. Spencer (New York, 1985), 92–118

C. Quigley: Close to the Floor: Folkdance in Newfoundland (St John's, NF, 1985)

J.D. Sweet: Dances of the Tewa Pueblo Indians: Expressions of New Life (Santa Fe, 1985)

S.L. Foster: Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance (Berkeley, 1986)

D. Williams: (Non)Anthropologists, the Dance and Human Movement’, Theatrical Movement: a Bibliographical Anthology, ed. B. Fleshman (1986), 158–219

E.I. Dunin: Lindo in the Context of Village Life in the Dubrovnik Area of Yugoslavia’, A Spectrum of World Dance: 1982 and 1983, ed. L.A. Wallen and J. Acocella, 1–4 [Dance Research Annual, xvi (1987)]

E.I. Dunin: Salonsko Kolo as Cultural Identity in a Chilean Yugoslav Community (1917–86)’, Narodna Umjetnost, ii (1988), 109–22

E.I. Dunin: Migrations and Cultural Identity Expressed through Dance: a Study of Dance among South Slavs in California’, Migrations in Balkan History, ed. N. Tasic and D. Stosic (Belgrade, 1989), 161–70

C. Loken-Kim: Release from Bitterness: Korean Dancer as Korean Woman (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1989)

T. Loutzaki: Dance as a Cultural Message: a Study of Dance Style among the Greek Refugees from Northern Thrace (diss., Queen's U. of Belfast, 1989)

A.F. Snyder: Levels of Event Patterns: a Theoretical Model Applied to the Yaqui Easter Ceremonies’, The Dance Event: a Complex Cultural Phenomenon, ed. L. Torp (Copenhagen, 1989), 1–20

J.K. Cowan: Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece (Princeton, NJ, 1990)

C. Novak: Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture (Madison, WI, 1990)

L. Torp: Chain and Round Dance Patterns: a Method for Structural Analysis and its Application to European Material (Copenhagen, 1990)

M.S. Azzi: Antropologia del tango: los protagonistas (Buenos Aires, 1991)

T. Buckland: Institutions and Ideology in the Dissemination of Morris Dances in the Northwest of England’, YTM, xxiii (1991), 53–67

A. Jablonko: Patterns of Daily Life in the Dance of the Maring of New Guinea’, Visual Anthropology, iv (1991), 367–77

J. Lowell Lewis: Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira (Chicago, 1992)

S.A. Ness: Body, Movement, and Culture: Kinesthetic and Visual Symbolism in a Philippine Community (Philadelphia, 1992)

A. Kaeppler: Hula Pahu Hawaiian Drum Dances, i: Ha'a and Hula Pahu: Sacred Movements (Honolulu, 1993)

A. Kaeppler: Poetry in Motion: Studies in Tongan Dance (Nuku'alofa, 1993)

B.M. Farnell: Plains Indian Sign-Talk and the Embodiment of Action (Austin, 1994)

A. Giurchescu and S. Bloland: Romanian Traditional Dance: a Contextual and Structural Approach (California, 1995)