Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian: Contested Representation in the Global Era - Hardcover

Krystal, Matthew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1607320967 ISBN 13: 9781607320968

Verlag: Univ of Chicago behalf of UP Colorado, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

Focusing on the enactment of identity in dance, "Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian" is a cross-cultural, cross-ethnic, and cross-national comparison of indigenous dance practices.

Considering four genres of dance in which indigenous people are represented--K'iche Maya traditional dance, powwow, folkloric dance, and dancing sports mascots--the book addresses both the ideational and behavioral dimensions of identity. Each dance is examined as a unique cultural expression in individual chapters, and then all are compared in the conclusion, where striking parallels and important divergences are revealed. Ultimately, Krystal describes how dancers and audiences work to construct and consume satisfying and meaningful identities through dance by either challenging social inequality or reinforcing the present social order.

Detailed ethnographic work, thorough case studies, and an insightful narrative voice make "Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian" a substantial addition to scholarly literature on dance in the Americas. It will be of interest to scholars of Native American studies, social sciences, and performing arts.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Matthew Krystal is an assistant professor of anthropology at North Central College in Naperville, Illinios.

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Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian

Contested Representation in the Global Era

By Matthew Krystal

University Press of Colorado

Copyright © 2012 University Press of Colorado
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-60732-096-8

Contents

List of Figures, 
Preface: Ethnography and Ethnographer, 
Acknowledgments, 
Part One: Introduction, 
Chapter 1: Dance, Culture, and Identity, 
Chapter 2: Representational Dance and the Problem of Authenticity, 
Part Two: K'iche' Maya Traditional Dance, 
Chapter 3: Conquest, Colonialism, and Continuity, 
Chapter 4: The Dance of the Conquest and Contested National Identity, 
Part Three: Native American Powwow, 
Chapter 5: Origin, Change, and Continuity in Powwow, 
Chapter 6: Characteristics, Functions, and Meanings in Contemporary Powwow, 
Chapter 7: Powwow, Self-Representation, and Multiplicity of Identity, 
Part Four: Folkloric Dance, 
Chapter 8: Folkloric Dance, Modernity, and Appropriation, 
Chapter 9: Appropriation, Round 2: Immigrant Folkloric Dance, 
Chapter 10: Back to the Field: Indigenous Folkloric Dance, 
Part Five: Chiefs, Kings, Mascots, and Martyrs, 
Chapter 11: Dancing Indian in Sports: Origins and Development, 
Chapter 12: Chief Illiniwek Enacted in Ritual and Myth, 
Chapter 13: Chief Illiniwek Contested, 
Part Six: Conclusion, 
Chapter 14: Dance in Comparison, 
Chapter 15: Confusions and Conclusions, 
Works Cited, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Dance, Culture, and Identity

Peeking above the trees of Grant Park, the tops of some of Chicago's most famous buildings scrape a perfect clear blue July sky. The lakefront park is taken over by the Taste of Chicago, a mega-festival featuring cuisine from scores of the city's numerous and diverse restaurants. In addition to food, "The Taste" offers entertainment. The city provides a number of performance venues, and reflecting a strategy that embraces (and channels) ethnic diversity, it has invited the Mexican Dance Ensemble of Chicago to perform on the "Fun Time Stage." The stage anchors an open meadow lined by booths and tents oriented to children and parents and even a merry-go-round (but no beer vendors). The space and presentation construct not only ethnic diversity, but appropriate family fun as well.

As it is Sunday morning, the festival is lightly attended and the audience is small. The performance, however, is enthusiastic. Dress and props are carefully controlled, uniform. In one presentation, all the men wear identical pants, boots, and bandanas, although their belts vary slightly. The backs of their identical jackets are adorned with identical appliqués featuring the iconic Mexican image of eagle, snake in beak, perched on a cactus. In another performance, women's costumes are identical in form down to matching earrings, although their flowing layered skirts vary in color. This visual, near-complete sublimation of individual to group (and culture) extends to movement and sound. The dancing is crisp; bodies are coordinated tightly to one another and to the music. The effect is particularly dramatic in pieces that feature stamping. The perfect simultaneity of several dancers stamping in unison with the beat of the music overtly communicates precision of performance. Beneath the surface are more subtle messages about unity in the expression of tradition.

Viewing the performance reminds me of other forms I have been observing. Traditional K'iche' dance, partly because it is fundamentally narrative, features vestments, masks, and steps that vary by character but adhere to convention for each figure. Powwow dancers construct regalia and perform dances that afford a greater degree of personal expression within general aesthetic guidelines. All, however, to a varying extent, articulate individual dancer to dance convention.

I approach dance not as a choreographer or as a dancer, but as a social scientist interested in how people form, contest, and communicate culture (and particularly the culture of identity). However, dance is linked in the popular imagination to anthropology more than it is actually investigated by anthropologists. This is unfortunate as dance is instructive of cultural knowledge and social practice to insiders and outsiders alike. It communicates overt information about the current state of social affairs but also tacit information about the conduct of social affairs and even the nature of human experience. However, before getting into dance as a cultural and social act, some attention to defining it specifically is warranted.

Dance is diverse and difficult to define, and the focus here necessarily favors depth of field over sharp clarity. At root, dance involves formal, intentional movement. This intentional movement, even in its "free" forms, involves some degree of bodily conformity to socially shared conventions. Music is common but not necessary to dance. Continuing the notion that individuals express connection to group and convention through dance, rhythm, an essential component of music, provides an auditory framework to organize particular (or particle-like) dancers into coordinated movement. As such, dance enacts the coordination of individuals to group through convention. It may help to employ a common metaphor articulated by early thinkers in social science. If we take human society as an organism, dance provides a code for forming cells into organs and organs into organism. It is more complex, however, than individuals simply articulating themselves bodily to convention.

The commonality of dance across a wide variety of societies reflects a basic challenge of human social organization. Regardless of scale and complexity, societies must articulate individuals with self-awareness and self-oriented drives to group purposes. The degree to which human beings share knowledge and cooperate socially marks us as a species and is at the root of our adaptive fitness. Alone we are slow and weak, but together, sharing accumulated knowledge through symbolic systems of communication, we become the world's dominant species. In social groups, from families to communities to polities, the human potential is realized. Although it is clear that individual human beings survive and thrive in social groups, we do not generally follow the guidelines expressed in our cultures blindly or perfectly. Cooperating with the group necessarily entails sublimation of some individual desires, and we do not always go along happily or willingly. The challenge for any society, then, is creating schemes of social organization that compel conformity but accommodate individual needs and capacities. Varying by culture, history, economy, environment, and so forth, societies have developed a dizzying array of solutions to this fundamental human problem. This is not the place for an ethnology of individual and society, but a clear and logical pattern exists. Rigid structures that rely heavily on coercion foment social tension. Loose and fluid social organizations — the type typically found among foraging bands — afford a great deal of individual autonomy and defuse social tension. Most societies exist somewhere in between, requiring more persistent organized social structure than foraging bands but relying on a combination of avenues for human expression within group conformity. This balance is never perfect, and to get people to go along sometimes requires more direct articulation of ideology and use of force.

I draw a deliberate parallel between this diversity of articulation...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Univ of Chicago behalf of UP Colorado
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1607320967
• ISBN 13: 9781607320968
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 315
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland