Dance Appreciation Tuesday and Thursday

Sunshine Lee

Dance appreciation Tuesday and Thursday

Assignment #2

1. Dance as a political power/ national dance honoring tradition and power

Cambodia is a perfect example for embodying the essence of their country’s national identity through the classical court dance that has been passed down for a thousand years. According to Gerald Jonas, “The classical dances of Cambodia are marked by a slow, almost hypnotic pace and smooth, wavelike, synchronized movements…” (Jonas, 13) The structure portrays myths and folk tales of their people. Thousands of court dancers who have played an important role in fertility rites and ancestor worship has been supported by the royal treasury of Cambodia. (Jonas, 13)

1. Dance as a means of strategic war initiative for the militia

The plains Indians used dance as an initiative for the militia. As the “white men” attacked them, it is believed by the Sioux warriors that anyone who wore “ghost shirts” could not be harmed by bullets. The government authorities saw the shirts as a threat of armed resistance though the Wovoka preached against war. To make sure that the resistance of the Plain Indians were not rekindled, the government banned the ceremonial dances. (Jonas, 28)

1. Dance as hierarchy- defining order and placement within society

The earliest ballets were participatory spectacles in which kings and queens and courtiers danced and listened to noble masqueraders declaiming poetry that praised the court in high-flown metaphor borrowed from Greek and Roman myths. (Jonas, 22) During balls, the social status was revealed of each gentlemen and lady by the order in which they danced. The highest ranks of nobility would dance first. (Jonas, 22) For European Ballet, the largely upper-class audience going to the ballet was a social event of great importance. (Jonas, 23)

1. Dance as an expression of culture- including sexuality and gender roles

Wedding dances are seen as an expression of culture. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the weddings are demonstrating that weddings do not just unite two people but two families. (Jonas, 17) For Tahiti, the dances were a little more vulgar which included chanting men beating on a drum, with bare breasted women wrapped in bark clothed skirts moving their arms and hands in an elegant gesture and shaking their hips. Some dances portrayed sexual intercourse and in 1797 the dances were suppressed by the newly formed London Missionary Society and within a few years, there was no trace left of the society. (Jonas, 19)