Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
cement
an ap-
ot just
ii, and
iltural t is good anthropology to think of ballet as a form of and other sources are listed in the endnotes, I name
n very I ethnic dance. Currently, that idea is unacceptable to
most Western dance scholars. This lack of agreement
these scholars here to focus my frame of reference.'
e than The experience of this intense rereading as an an-
shows clearly that something is amiss in the communi- thropologist rather than as a dancer, was both instruc-
cation of ideas between the scholars of dance and those tive and disturbing. The readings are rife with unsub-
of anthropology, and this paper is an attempt to bridge stantiated deductive reasoning, poorly documented
that communication gap. "proofs," a plethora of half-truths, many out-and-out
)olcs at The faults and errors of anthropologists in their ap- errors, and a pervasive ethnocentric bias. Where the
proach to dance are many, but they are largely due to writers championed non-Western dance they were ei-
Work their hesitation to deal with something which seems ther apologists or patronistic. Most discouraging of all,
velop- esoteric and out of their field of competence. However, these authors saw fit to change only the pictures and
a handful of dance anthropologists are trying to rectify not the text when they reissued their books after as
this by publishing in the social science journals and by many as seventeen years later; they only updated the
participating in formal and informal meetings with Euro-American dance scene.
other anthropologists. This survey of the literature reveals an amazing di-
By ethnic dance, anthropologists mean to convey vergence of opinions. We are able to read that the ori-
the idea that all forms of dance reflect the cultural tra- gin of dance was in play and that it was not in play,
ditions within which they developed. Dancers and that it was for magical and religious purposes, and that
dance scholars, as this paper will show, use this term, it was not for those things; that it was for courtship
and the related terms ethnologic, primitive, and folk and that it was not for courtship; that it was the first
dance, differently and, in fact, in a way which reveals form of communication and that communication did
their limited knowledge of non-Western dance forms. not enter into dance until it became an "art." In addi-
In preparing to formulate this paper, I reread in an in- tion we can read that it was serious and purposeful and
tense period pertinent writings by DeMille, Haskell, that at the same time it was an outgrowth of exuber-
Holt, the Kinneys, Kirstein, La Meri, Martin, Sachs, ance, was totally spontaneous, and originated in the
Sorell, and Terry. In addition I carefully reread the defi- spirit of fun. Moreover, we can read that it was only a
nitions pertaining to dance in W ebster's New Interna- group activity for tribal solidarity and that it was
tional Dictionary, the second edition definitions which strictly for the pleasure and self-expression of the one
were written by Humphrey, and the third edition defi- dancing. We can learn also, that animals danced before
nitions which were written by Kurath. Although these man did, and yet that dance is a human activity!
33
It has been a long time since anthropologists con- saying that men and women dance together after the
cerned themselves with unknowable origins, and I will dance degenerates into an orgy! Sorell also asserts that
not add another origin theory for dance, because I primitives cannot distinguish between the concrete
don't know anyone who was there. Our dance writers, and the symbolic, that they dance for every occasion,
however, suggest evidence for origins from archeologi- and that they stamp around a lot! Further, Sorell asserts
cal finds, and from models exemplified by contempo- that dance in primitive societies is a special prerogative
rary primitive groups. For the first, one must remem- of males, especially chieftains, shamans, and witch doc-
ber that man had been on this earth for a long time tors.' Kirstein also characterizes the dances of "natural,
before he made cave paintings and statuary, so that unfettered societies" (whatever that means). Although
archeological finds can hardly tell us about the begin- the whole body participates according to Kirstein, he
nings of dance. For the second set of evidence, that of claims that the emphasis of movement is with the
using models from contemporary primitives, one must lower half of the torso. He concludes that primitive
not confuse the word "primitive" with "primeval," even dance is repetitious, limited, unconscious, and with
though one author actually does equate these two "retardative and closed expression"! Still, though it may
terms. 2 About the dance of primeval man we really be unconscious, Kirstein tells his readers that dance is
know nothing. About primitive dance, on the other useful to the tribe and that it is based on the seasons.
hand, we know a great deal. The first thing that we Primitive dance, or as he phrases it, "earlier manifesta-
know is that there is no such thing as a primitive tions of human activity," is everywhere found to be "al-
dance. There are dances performed by primitives, and most identically formulated." He never really tells us
they are too varied to fit any stereotype. what these formulations are except that they have little
It is a gross error to think of groups of peoples or to offer in methodology or structure, and that they are
their dances as being monolithic wholes. "The African examples of "instinctive exuberance. "4
dance" never existed; there are, however, Dahomean Terry describes the functions of primitive dance,
dances, Hausa dances, Masai dances, and so forth. and he uses American Indians as his model. In his
"The American Indian" is a fiction and so is a proto- book The Dance in A merica he writes sympathetically
type of "Indian dance." There are, however, Iroquois, towards American Indians and "his primitive broth-
Kwakiutl, and Hopis, to name a few, and they have ers." However, his paternalistic feelings on the one
dances. hand, and his sense of ethnocentricity on the other,
Despite all anthropological evidence to the con- prompt him to set aside any thought that people with
trary, however, Western dance scholars set themselves whom he identifies could share contemporarily those
up as authorities on the characteristics of primitive same dance characteristics, because he states "the white
dance. Sorell combines most of these so-called charac- man's dance heritage, except for the most ancient of
teristics of the primitive stereotype. He tells us that days, was wholly different."'
primitive dancers have no technique, and no artistry, With the rejection of the so-called primitive charac-
but that they are "unfailing masters of their bodies"! teristics for the white man, it is common to ascribe
He states that their dances are disorganized and fren- these characteristics to groups existing among African
zied, but that they are able to translate all their feelings tribes, Indians of North and South America, and
and emotions into movement! He claims the dances Pacific peoples. These are the same peoples who are la-
are spontaneous but also purposeful! Primitive dances, beled by these authors as "ethnic." No wonder that
he tells us, are serious but social! He claims that they balletomanes reject the idea that ballet is a form of eth-
have "complete freedom" but that men and women nic dance! But Africans, North and South Amerin-
can't dance together. He qualifies that last statement by dians, and Pacific peoples would be just as horrified to
Notes
References not cited in other notes include Doris 12. Sorell, The Dance through the A ges, 15.
Humphrey, "Dance," and related entries, W ebster's New In- 13.DeMille, The Book of the Dance, 34, 67.
ternational Dictionary, 2d ed., unabridged (Springfield, 14. Arnold Haskell, The W onderful W orld of Dance (New
Mass.: Merriam, 19 5o); Troy and Margaret West Kinney, York: Garden City Books, 19 6o), 9.
The Dance, New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1924); Gertrude 15. Sir James Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York:
Prokosch Kurath, "Dance" and related entries, Webster's Macmillan, 1947); Curt Sachs, W orld History of the Dance,
New International Dictionary, 3d ed., unabridged (Spring- trans. Bessie Schonberg (New York: Bonanza Books, 1937).
field, Mass.: Merriam, 19 66); La Meri, "Ethnic Dance," in 16. Joann Wheeler Kealiinohomoku, "A Comparative
The Dance Encyclopedia, comp. and ed. Anatole Chujoy Study of Dance as a Constellation of Motor Behaviors
(New York: A. S. Barnes, 1949), 177-178; John Martin (John among African and United States Negroes" (master's thesis,
Martin's Book of) The Dance (New York: Tudor Publishing, Northwestern University, 1965), 6 (revised 1970).
1963); Walter Terry, "Dance, History of," in The Dance En- 17. Lincoln Kirstein, Dance (New York: Putnam's Sons,
cyclopedia, comp. and ed. Anatole Chujoy and P. W. Man- 1935), 1.
chester (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967), 2 55-2 59 ; Wal- 18.John Martin, The Dance (New York: Tudor Publish-
ter Terry, "History of Dance," in The Dance Encyclopedia, ing, 1946), 12.
comp. and ed. Anatole Chujoy (New York: A. S. Barnes, 19. Ibid, 17.
1949), 238-243. 20. Martin, Introduction to the Dance, 92-93, ,o8.
2. Walter Sorell, The Dance through the A ges (New York: 21. Sorell, The Dance through the A ges, 75-76, 275,
Grosset & Dunlap, 1967), 14. 282, 283.
3. Ibid., to-n. 22. See Martin, Introduction to the Dance, 97.
4. Lincoln Kirstein, The Book of Dance (Garden City, 23. DeMille, The Book of the Dance, 48.
N.Y.: Garden City Publishing, 1942), 3-5. 24. Ibid., 74.
5. Walter Terry, The Dance in A merica (New York: 25. Sorell, The Dance through the A ges, 73.
Harper, 1956), 3-4,195-198. 26. Sachs, W orld History of the Dance, 216; Robert Red-
6. Sorell, The Dance through the A ges, 76. field, The Little Community and Peasant Society and Culture
7. Claire Holt, "Two Dance Worlds," in A nthology of (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 23,40-41.
Impulse, ed. Marian Van Tuyl (New York: Dance Horizons, 27. DeMille, The Book of the Dance, 23.
1969), 116-131. 28. Terry, The Dance in A merica, 187.
8. Agnes DeMille, The Book of the Dance (New York: 29. DeMille, The Book of the Dance, 74.
Golden Press, 1963), 48. 3o. La Meri, "Ethnic Dance," in The Dance Encyclo-
9. John Martin, Introduction to the Dance (New York: pedia, ed. Anatole Chujoy and P. W. Manchester (New
Norton, 1 939), 15. York: Simon & Schuster, 1967), 339.
to. DeMille, The Book of the Dance, 33,35. 31.Martin, Introduction to the Dance, 173.
It. Ibid., 35. 32. Sorell, The Dance through the A ges, 72; Terry, The
Sons,
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