Description:

Artistic genres such as performance art or contemporary and other forms of dance have been described as ephemeral forms of art. A number of factors have contributed historically in establishing this perception: a. an emphasis on the experiential dimension of the act of performance - be it from the perspective of the performer or the spectator, b. a lack of or challenges in documentation of performance, and, c. a predominant Cartesian dualistic bias of significance placed on mind over body in analytic frames such as critical and cultural theory. Amongst other, these factors have set the ground for a significant interpretive omission in scholarly work as well as in our collective understanding of what constitutes ‘our’ culture or cultural heritage. This module will introduce to recent and current contributions of cultural anthropology, with particular reference to dance anthropology, as lenses through which to consider the body in performance from an anthropological perspective and the cultural significance of the performative.

Recommended reading list:

• Anderson, B. (1991) Imagine Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso Books
• Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
• Browning, B. (1995) Samba: Resistance in Motion. Bloomington. IN: Indiana
• Buckland, T. (ed.) (1999) Dance in the Field; Theory, Methods and Issues in Dance Ethnography. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd
• Csordas, T.J. (2011) ‘Cultural Anthropology: Embodiment: Agency, Sexual Difference, and Illness’. in A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment. ed. by Mascia-Lees, F. West-Sussex: Blackwell Publishing
• Davida, D. (ed.) (2011) Fields in Motion: Ethnography in the Worlds of Dance. Canada: Wilfrid Lauriel University Press
• Ness, S.A. (2004) ‘Being a Body in a Cultural Way: Understanding the Cultural in the Embodiment of Dance’. in Cultural bodies: Ethnography and Theory. ed by Thomas H. and Jamilah A. Oxford: Blackwell, 123-144