The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity

by Anthony Shay (Editor), Barbara Sellers-Young (Editor)

Overview

Dance intersects with ethnicity in a powerful variety of ways and at a broad set of venues. Dance practices and attitudes about ethnicity have sometimes been the source of outright discord, as when African Americans were - and sometimes still are - told that their bodies are 'not right' for ballet, when Anglo Americans painted their faces black to perform in minstrel shows, when 19th century Christian missionaries banned the performance of particular native dance traditions throughout much of Polynesia, and when the Spanish conquistadors and church officials banned sacred Aztec dance rituals. More recently, dance performances became a locus of ethnic disunity in the former Yugoslavia as the Serbs of Bosnia attended dance concerts but only applauded for the Serbian dances, presaging the violent disintegration of that failed state. The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity brings together scholars from across the globe in an investigation of what it means to define oneself in an ethnic category and how this category is performed and represented by dance as an ethnicity. Newly-commissioned for the volume, the chapters of the book place a reflective lens on dance and its context to examine the role of dance as performed embodiment of the historical moments and associated lived identities. In bringing modern dance and ballet into the conversation alongside forms more often considered ethnic, the chapters ask the reader to contemplate previous categories of folk, ethnic, classical, and modern. From this standpoint, the book considers how dance maintains, challenges, resists or in some cases evolves new forms of identity based on prior categories. Ultimately, the goal of the book is to acknowledge the depth of research that has been undertaken and to promote continued research and conceptualization of dance and its role in the creation of ethnicity. Dance and ethnicity is an increasingly active area of scholarly inquiry in dance studies and ethnomusicology alike and the need is great for serious scholarship to shape the contours of these debates. The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity provides an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research from leading experts which will set the tone for future scholarly conversation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190493936
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/20/2016
Series:	Oxford Handbooks
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	31 MB
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About the Author

Anthony Shay is Assistant Professor of Dance and Cultural Studies at Pomona College. He is the author of Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Ensembles, Representation and Power (2002), amongst other single-authored books, and co-editor (with Jennifer Fisher) of When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders (2009). Barbara Sellers-Young is a Professor in the Dance Department at York University. Her books include two single-authored books: Teaching Personality with Gracefulness (1993) and Breathing, Movement, Exploration (2001) and three edited volumes including Embodied Consciousness: Technologies of Performance (2013).

Table of Contents

Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young. Dance and Ethnicity: An Introduction Choreographing Ethnicity: Dance in the Construction of Ethnic Identity. 1. Christopher Wells. "And I Make My Own": Class Performance, Black Urban Identity, and Depression-Era Harlem's Physical Culture." 2. Aoife McGrath. "The Traditional Irish Dancing Body at Play: The Dance of 'Unfixed Thoughts' in the Work of Jean Butler and Colin Dunne." 3. Rebecca Rossen. "Dancing Jews and Jewesses: Jewishness, Ethnicity, and Exoticism in American Dance." 4. Darren Blaney. "Queering Ethnicity and Shattering the Disco: Is There an Enduring Gay Ethnic Dance?" 5. Petri Hoppu. "Dancing Multiple Identities: Preserving and Revitalizing Dances of the Skolt S?mi." Dance as a Vehicle of Ethnic Values 6. Leonard Pronko and Jonathan M. Hall. "The Ethnicity of Japanese Dance." 7. Carol Silverman. "Diasporic Ethnicity, Gender, and Dance: Muslim Macedonian Roma in New York." Choreographing the Nation: Dance as a Display of Ethnicity and Nationalism 8. Paul Scolieri. "'An Interesting Experiment in Eugenics': Ted Shawn, American Dance, and the Discourses of Sex, Race, and Ethnicity." 9. Ida Meftahi. "From Zanpush to Angel and Persian Princess: the Invention of a Female National Dancer in 20th-Century Iran." 10. Anthony Shay. "The Spectacularization of Soviet/Russian Folk Dance: Igor Moiseyev and the Invented Tradition of Staged Folk Dance." 11. Anthony Shay. "LADO, the State Ensemble of Croatian Folk Dances and Songs: Icon of Croatian Identity." 12. Jessica Ray Herzogenrath. "Authenticity and Ethnicity: Folk Dance, Americanization and the Immigrant Body in the Early Twentieth Century." 13. Andriy Nahachewsky. "A Folklorist's View of 'Folk' and 'Ethnic' Dance: Three Ukrainian Examples." 14. Gabriela Garcia-Mendoza. "The Jarabe Tapat?o: Imagining Race, Nation, Class, and Gender in 1920s Mexico." 15. Jennifer Fisher. "Perception, Connections, and Performed Identities in American Ghanaian Dance Encounters." Performing Ethnicity: Creating New Identities through the Dances of the 'Other.' 16. Andrea Deagon. "Orientalism and the American Belly Dancer: Multiplicity, Authenticity, Identity." 17. Kathy M. Milazzo. "Black Erased: The Tango de Negros in Spain's Romantic Age." 18. Allana Lindgren. "English-Canadian Ethnocentricity: The Case Study of Boris Volkoff at the 1936 Nazi Olympics." 19. Nancy Lee Ruyter "La Meri: Purveyor of the Dancing Other." 20. Rebekah Kowal "Choreographing Interculturalism: International Dance Performance at the Museum of Natural History, 1943-1952." 21. Juliet McMains. "'Hot' Latin Dance: Ethnic Identity and Stereotype." 22. Christey Carwile. "From Salsa to Salzonte: Rhythmic Identities and Inventive Dance Identities and Inventive Dance Traditions in Ghana." 23. Miriam Phillips. "Spectacle of Ethnicities: The San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival." Dance as a Form of Ethnic Resistance 24. Christos Papacostas. "Dancescapes: Dionysus's Culture and Olympic Representation." 25. Jennifer Fisher. "Ballet and Whiteness: Will Ballet Forever be the Kingdom of the Pale?" 26. Barbara Sellers-Young. "Men and the Happiness Dance." 27. Paula Conlon. "From Powwow to Stomp Dance: Parallel Dance Traditions in Oklahoma." 28. Christine Emi Chan. "Beyond Colonization, Commodification and Reclamation: Hula and Hawaiian Identity." 29. Diyah Larasati. "Crossing the Seas of Southeast Asia: Indigenous Diasporic Islam and Performances of Women's Igal." 30. Ana Patricia Farf?n. "San Miguel the Arc?ngel, Capitan of Many Troops: An Ethno-iconographic Study of Danza de Migueles." 31. Thomas DeFrantz. "Black Dance After Race."

Editorial Reviews

"With a rich collection from thirty international contributors who present wide and diverse dance traditions and conceptual and theoretical approaches, The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity fills a gap in dance knowledge. The bountiful essays come from the fields of African and African American studies, anthropology, classical studies, creative arts, critical and cultural studies, dance, folklore, history, linguistics, media studies, musicology, performance studies, physical education and sport, religion, and theater arts ... Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young achieve their stated goal in the Handbook-namely, to acknowledge the depth and breadth of research conducted on what it means to define oneself in an ethnic category broadly conceptualized, and to explore how the dance can embody such ethnic identification within specific historical and lived contexts."—Dance Chronicle

From the Publisher