Table of Contents
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
