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Articles 1 - 25 of 25
Full-Text Articles in Dance
A Rainbow Of Iranian Masculinities: Raqqas, A Type Of Iranian Male Image, Anthony Shay
A Rainbow Of Iranian Masculinities: Raqqas, A Type Of Iranian Male Image, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
In this essay, I will explore the male dancer in the Iranian world, and how he came to occupy this abject position (dance, according to Zainab Stellar, being regarded by many conservative elements in Iranian society today as "the worst possible behavior of an undisciplined body in public, and symbol of all vice" (2011, 235)). Lotfollah “Lotfi” Mansouri, the renowned opera director and producer, recounted at a dinner that I attended (January 27, 2002 Peyvand Organization, San Jose), how one day as a student at UCLA, he entered Schonberg Music Hall and heard opera for the first time. He was …
Wrapped In Greek Robes Of Spirituality: The Historic Context For Isadora Duncan's Dance Performances, Anthony Shay
Wrapped In Greek Robes Of Spirituality: The Historic Context For Isadora Duncan's Dance Performances, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
In this paper I want to address Craig and Duncan’s shared interest in ancient Greek art, which is the context within which Isadora Duncan developed her art, the various influences that inspired her choreography, and the historical time period that influenced the decisions that she made. I want to make several preliminary comments before proceeding to the main claim that I am making, which is that Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and other “barefoot” dancers were not the mothers or grandmothers or inventors of modern dance, as is repeated as if it were a religious tenet of faith in dance …
Encountering Greek American Soundscapes, Anthony Shay
Encountering Greek American Soundscapes, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
For this chapter I will look at Greek American music making through the eyes of a non-Greek, my younger self, who enjoyed and sought out this musical tradition for over fifty years, primarily as a folk dance enthusiast. For the international recreational dancer of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Greek music has rich melodic lines and many different rhythmic patterns (5/8; 7/8; 9/8, etc.) that attracted many individuals of Anglo American background like me to learn these dances, especially in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s when recreational and performance folk dance constituted a major leisure-time activity for hundreds of thousands …
Fandangos And Bailes: Dancing And Dance Events In Early California, Anthony Shay
Fandangos And Bailes: Dancing And Dance Events In Early California, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
No abstract provided.
Sam Gill, Dancing Culture Religion, Anthony Shay
Sam Gill, Dancing Culture Religion, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
No abstract provided.
Reviving The Reluctant Art Of Iranian Dance In Iran And In The American Diaspora, Anthony Shay
Reviving The Reluctant Art Of Iranian Dance In Iran And In The American Diaspora, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
In this chapter, I look at the various ways in which different individuals--Iranians, Iranian immigrants in the West, Americans, and other non-Iranians--participated in several revival Iranian dance movements, beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the twenty-first century. The new interest in dance that began in this period coincided with a period of incipient modernity and its need to find ways in which to construct a modern national identity. As increasing numbers of Iranians made their way to the West, first as students and ultimately as immigrants and refugees, they discovered that dance as a representational field dovetailed with their …
Choreographing The Other: The Serbian State Folk Dance Ensemble, Gypsies, Muslims And Albanians, Anthony Shay
Choreographing The Other: The Serbian State Folk Dance Ensemble, Gypsies, Muslims And Albanians, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
I argue that the power to represent is not only power in a theoretical Foucauldian sense, but the power of representation, especially of those powerless to resist the field of representation provided by state-supported national dance ensembles, is a very real power. Dance scholars have begun to look at issues of representation and dance and human rights within fascist and communist contexts of the past, as well as questioning the stances toward dance taken by theocratic regimes like that of the Islamic Republic and Iran and the former Taliban regime of Afghanistan. I also suggest that the actual content of …
Dance And Human Rights In The Middle East, North Africa, And Central Asia, Anthony Shay
Dance And Human Rights In The Middle East, North Africa, And Central Asia, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
In this essay, Islam itself is first examined in order to determine how individual Muslims justify to themselves and to others the banning of dancing in various contexts. Following a brief discussion of Islam as it relates to dance, some of the myriad dance genres and contexts found in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia are discussed. Finally, I consider the many ways in which many Muslims perceive dance, and then describe and analyze the local reactions to dancing in its complexity. This approach elucidates multiple meanings that create a pattern of behavior within specific cultural contexts.
The Male Dancer In The Middle East And Central Asia, Anthony Shay
The Male Dancer In The Middle East And Central Asia, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
"That night ‘Abdi Jan’s troupe had been called so that the harem occupants could watch the show. Of course, you remember ‘Abdi well. Let me, nonetheless, give you a description of his looks. He was a lad of about twelve or thirteen, with large black eyes, languid and incredibly beautiful and attractive. His face was tanned and good-looking, his lips crimson, and his hair black and thick. Renowned throughout the town, the boy had a thousand adoring lovers. Being a dancer, however, he was unworthy of being anyone’s beloved." (Taj Al-Sultana 1993, 163) Within this quotation the reader may find …
Reviews: “Performance And Evolution In The Age Of Darwinism,” “Dancing At The Dawn Of Agriculture,” “Dance In Anthropology (2nd Edition),” “Dances Of The Tewa Pueblo Indians (2nd Edition)", Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
In order to create a contextual basis for a discussion of these four titles, I connect them through the authors’ uses of anthropological and archaeological methods and theories, and discuss how these have changed through time.
Belly Dance: Orientalism―Exoticism―Self-Exoticism, Anthony Shay, Barbara Sellers-Young
Belly Dance: Orientalism―Exoticism―Self-Exoticism, Anthony Shay, Barbara Sellers-Young
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
This essay will address several issues that are raised by the phenomenon of belly dancing and its transformation, globalization, and acculturation in the West; it is designed to develop a newly emerging area of performance/cultural research, drawing from the fields of dance and transnational studies. Using the solo Middle Eastern form as the site of production of the rapidly expanding genre of performance labeled "intercultural performance," we hope to interrogate that genre and its definitions as a way of investigating the changing relationships between "ethnic" and "hybrid" and the related national and cultural boundaries associated with them. For some time, …
Daughter Of Egypt: Farida Fahmy And The Reda Troupe, Anthony Shay
Daughter Of Egypt: Farida Fahmy And The Reda Troupe, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Serious, scholarly studies on dance in the Middle East are rare, and Middle Eastern dance traditions constitute one of the least analyzed and investigated aspects of dance scholarship. Perhaps no area of dance ethnography has been so routinely subject to romanticized, exoticized, and orientalist analysis and writing as Middle Eastern dance by admiring Western belly dance hobbyists. So sparsr are well-researched, analytical works in this field that frequently the standards imposed on its authors are dramatically less demanding that in other areas of current dance scholarship.
Dance In Iran, Anthony Shay
Dance In Iran, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Two basic types of dance are performed in this Iranian cultural sphere, and in the Middle East generally. The first is regional folk dancing, most often (but not exclusively) performed in groups. The second is solo improvised dance (sometimes referred to as majilesi 'social' or 'party'). This second form often evokes a strongly negative reaction, reflected, now as in the past, in attempts to ban public performances of solo improvised dance and to marginalize professional performers. People in this area of the world sometimes seem to have what I call a "choreophobic" mentality; yet the same people who might condemn …
Spreading The Net, Anthony Shay
Spreading The Net, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
The ballet and modern dance establishment has a stranglehold on dance programs throughout North America. Dance ethnology, with one or two exceptions, takes a back seat to the study of Western theater dance forms and its major figures. Individuals highly trained in dance ethnology have a difficult time accumulating sufficient "cultural capital," in Bourdieu's terms, to secure meaningful positions. As a consequence, we must "spread our nets" in order that our research and writings become more relevant outside the dance field. Dance ethnologists are uniquely poised to respond to the strong emphasis on popular culture that currently characterizes the social …
Dancing Boys, Anthony Shay
Dancing Boys, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
The informal, and occasionally formal, institution of the dancing boy--the term used by most Western writers in their descriptions of the Islamic world--has been attested for centuries by European observers throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, as well as the Indian subcontinent and throughout the Islamic areas of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia and the southern Philippines. These individuals have been called by a variety of names: bachchec [batcha], literally "child" in Persian and some Turkish languages, luti (itinerant performer), raqqas (dancer) in many regions, kocek (little) and tavsan (rabbit) in Ottoman Turkey, khawal in …
Parallel Traditions: State Folk Dance Ensembles And Folk Dance In "The Field", Anthony Shay
Parallel Traditions: State Folk Dance Ensembles And Folk Dance In "The Field", Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
In this introductory essay I put forth several concepts and elements that can be profitably examined before any meaningful analysis of these ensembles and their choreographic output can be properly addressed. These include issues of authenticity and representation, as well as the variety of social and technical restrictions and limitations—political, financial, artistic—faced by the artistic directors of these companies. Thus, the main intent of this essay is to establish a theoretical and methodological model for the study of professional and semi-professional state folk dance ensembles as well as the numerous amateur performing and exhibition groups that emulate the state dance …
Iran, Anthony Shay
Iran, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
As the locale for one of the oldest continuing cultural, linguistic, and ethnic entities, Iran provides archaeological evidence for dance portrayed on Mesopotamean pottery dated to 5000 BCE (Zoka', 1978). Evidence for continuing choreographic activity is documented in the historical writings of foreigners, from biblical times to ancient Greece to the Persian and Ottoman empires. Iconographic artworks showing dance also exist, such as silver objects from the Sasanian period (224-650 CE) and Persian miniatures from the twelfth century. Iran is, and most likely has always been, a place of immense ethnic and linguistic diversity, a continental crossroad open to influences …
Afghanistan, Anthony Shay
Afghanistan, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
A very conservative Islamic country, Afghanistan lies on the eastern edge of the Middle East, to the west of Pakistan and India. Afghanistan is at the confluence of Iranian, Central Asian, and Indian cultural currents, and most groups within Afghanistan have ethnic ties across the borders. Indian elements are the least felt, but the rhythmic footwork of some solo dancing is highly reminiscent of classical Indian traditions. A variety of ethnic and linguistic groups, each with its own choreographic tradition, reflects Afghanistan's enormous cultural diversity. Its dance traditions, however, are scarcely documented. As in most Islamic countries, dancers are paid …
Danse Du Ventre, Anthony Shay
Danse Du Ventre, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Danse du ventre (also called belly dance or danse orientale) most probably derived its name from one or both of two sources: (1) a corruption of the Arabic raqs al-baladi, meaning "dance from the countryside," and (2) a reference to the highly developed movement articulations of the torso and abdomen, which are the most characteristic movement practices of this widespread dance genre. Arabs outside Egypt often call it raqs al-sharq ("Oriental dance") or raqs al-misri ("Egyptian dance"), underscoring the widespread notion that this dance tradition originated in ancient Egypt. No historical documentation exists for the origins of …
Arabian Peninsula, Anthony Shay
Arabian Peninsula, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
The regional dances of the vast but sparsely populated peninsula that includes Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and emirates, and Yemen are--due to political, religious, economic, and other reasons of access--among the least studied. Historically, the gulf region is one of the most ancient marketplaces, with traders from India, Mesopotamia, Africa, and the Arabian hinterland meeting here for centuries. Influences from all these groups may be discerned in the dancing.
Kurdish Dance, Anthony Shay
Kurdish Dance, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
The Kurds are a nomadic people whose homeland (Kurdistan) and population (of some 10 million) are now divided among mountainous rural regions of Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia; small numbers live in Israel and the Republic of Georgia, (and a separatist movement is headquartered in Paris, France). They speak an Iranian (a Persian) language, and some believe them to be the descendants of the ancient Medes. Without a state of their own, the Kurds place great importance on such cultural forms and identity markers as dancing.
Lebanon, Anthony Shay
Lebanon, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
In many respects, Lebanon is unique among the Arab states of the Middle East, and this uniqueness is reflected in its dance traditions, particularly in the number of professional performances given. Lebanon is a country more urban than rural, although most residents of Beirut, its capital, have some village relations or associations. Because the nation is small, no village is more than a few miles from Beirut or from such urban centers as Sidon or Tripoli. Lebanon's population is highly educated, and nomads (bedouins) account for only a miniscule percentage. The country's many religious groups and sects--mainly Christian and Islamic--seem …
Bazi-Ha-Ye Nameyeshi: Iranian Women's Theatrical Plays, Anthony Shay
Bazi-Ha-Ye Nameyeshi: Iranian Women's Theatrical Plays, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Iranian women's comic improvised traditional theatre is a rich and important, but little-known, source of performative and textual material that has been rarely documented or discussed by serious students of folklore and dance, either in Iran or in the West. I argue that this amateur theatrical form performed and created by women for other women is the single most important source representing the multivocality of traditional Iranian women of all classes. Both in content and performance, these theatrical plays or games are a unique form of expression that needs several analytic approaches to elucidate its meaning and place in women's …
Fandangos And Bailes: Dancing And Dance Events In Early California, Anthony Shay
Fandangos And Bailes: Dancing And Dance Events In Early California, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
"A Californian would hardly pause in a dance for an earthquake, and would renew it before the vibrations ceased." It would be simplistic merely to say that the Californios loved to dance and play, because it is a truism. Dancing fulfilled a number of very real needs of a society which was politically and economically peripheral, and which was characterized by rigorous social customs and segregation of sexes. Almost every description of early California attests to the fanatical love for dancing, the numerous occasions when the Californians danced, and the importance and prestige accorded to an outstanding dancer. For an …
Danse Du Ventre: A Fresh Appraisal, Leona Wood, Anthony Shay
Danse Du Ventre: A Fresh Appraisal, Leona Wood, Anthony Shay
Pomona Faculty Publications and Research
Every few years there is a resurgence of interest in what has come to be known as danse du ventre¹ or, less elegantly, belly dancing. By whatever name it may be called, however, this dance has inevitably elicited an exaggerated response from those not accustomed to the social background to which it belongs. In the past a climate of disapproval has hampered any attempt at serious evaluation of this dance form; at the present time the situation has reversed to a point where the enthusiasm of its protagonists has become the chief hindrance to an objective assessment. A dance …