(Linda E. Dankworth, Ann R. David (Eds.) ) Dance Et

Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives
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Dance Ethnography
and Global Perspectives
Identity, Embodiment and Culture
Edited by
Linda E. Dankworth
Independent Researcher
and
Ann R. David
University of Roehampton, UK
Introduction, selection and editorial matter © Linda E. Dankworth and
Ann R. David 2014
Individual chapters © Contributors 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-00943-2
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii

Acknowledgements viii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction: Global Perspectives in Ethnographic Fieldwork,

Theory, and the Representation of Traditional Dance 1
Linda E. Dankworth and Ann R. David
Part I Issues of Tradition, Modernity and Authenticity
1 Embodied Traditions: Gujarati (Dance) Practices of Garba
and Raas in the UK context 13
Ann R. David
2 How Black Is Black?: The Indigenous Atis Compete
at the Ati-atihan Festival 37
Patrick Alcedo
3 Performative Participation: Embodiment of Identities
and Relationships in Sabar Dance Events 58
Elina Seye
Part II Issues of Cultural Identity Through the Influences of
Social Dance Events and Tourism
4 Uncovering the Invisible Female Dancers of Moreska:
An Ethnochoreological Analysis 77
Iva Niemčić
5 Embodying Cultural Identities and Creating Social
Pathways through Mallorquin Dance 95
Linda E. Dankworth
6 Kecak Behind the Scenes – Investigating the Kecak Network 116
Kendra Stepputat
Part III Dance in Psychosocial Work, Gender and Textual
Representation
7 Forced Displacement, Identity, Embodiment and Change 135
Allison J. Singer
v
vi Contents
8 Sounding Contestation, Silent Suppression: Cosmopolitics

and Gender in Japanese Flamenco 154
Yolanda van Ede
9 Embodiment of Cultural Knowledge: An Ethnographic
Analysis of Okinawan Dance 172
Chi-fang Chao
Index 191
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 Women playing garba at Navratri, London, October 2001

(credit: A. R. David) 15
1.2 Garabi – the central shrine at Navratri (credit: A. R. David) 28
2.1 Puro Ati at the Kalibo town plaza after the competition
on 17 January 2009 (credit: N. Buxani) 53
5.1 Bolero – nine bar vocal melody (transcribed by
A. Dankworth) 101
5.2 Ballada at Porreres with Al Mayurka, 15 February 2004
(credit: L. E. Dankworth) 103
6.1 The kecak network with its five main actors
(credit: K. Stepputat, W. Kienreich) 123
Tables
5.1 The castanyoles percussive rhythm of the bolero

(L. E. Dankworth, Fieldnotes, January 2003) 106
vii
Acknowledgements
All the contributors to this book are deeply indebted to the partici-
pants in the field who provided the inspiration, the conversations and
debates, the dancing and the fieldwork presence, and without whom
this ethnographic work would not have taken place. We extend our
thanks to you all across the global networks. A debt of gratitude is due
to the following organizations that supported, through generous fund-
ing, the extensive fieldwork undertaken: The University of Tampere,
Finland; the Nilo Helander Foundation, Finland and The Academy of
Finland; The University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Institute
for Social Science Research, Holland; De Montfort University, Leicester,
UK; and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK. We, as editors,
would also like to thank all the contributors to this volume as well as
the staff at Palgrave Macmillan for their advice during the process of
writing this joint edited book.
viii
Notes on Contributors
Patrick Alcedo is Associate Professor in the Department of Dance at York

University, Toronto. He undertook a residency in 2007 as a Rockefeller
Humanities Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
He currently holds Canada’s Social Science Humanities Research Council
creation grant for his work on performance, immigrant identities, and
emotional labour among Filipino caregivers in Toronto. The key output of
this grant is his forthcoming documentary film entitled A Piece of Paradise.
Chi-Fang Chao is Associate Professor in the Department of Dance,

Taipei National University of the Arts. Her recent publications include
a Chinese monograph entitled Dancing in the Culture: The Ethnography
of Taketomi, Okinawa (2010) as well as articles in the Taiwan Journal of
Anthropology and Art Review. She served as the curator for the first Festival
of World Indigenous Peoples’ Music and Dance in Taiwan in July 2011.
Linda E. Dankworth is an Independent Researcher and was awarded

a PhD in Dance Ethnography in 2010 at De Montfort University,
Leicester. Publications include articles in CORD, ICTM Proceedings, and
Journal of Tourism Consumption and Practice. She was a Co-Director of the
workshops of the World Folk Dance Festival (WFDF) in Palma Mallorca
(2005–11), and an Assessor for London Arts Dance Unit (2001–02).
She worked for many years as a Performance Studies Lecturer and
Community Dance Teacher for Camden and Westminster Colleges, AE
and FE Institutes in London. Her training has included ballet, contem-
porary dance, folk, jazz, and tap dance.
Ann R. David is Head of Dance and Reader in Dance Studies at the

University of Roehampton, London, where she specializes in dance
anthropology and South Asian classical and popular dance. She gained
her PhD in Dance Ethnography at De Montfort University, Leicester,
and her research work has focused on the movement practices, includ-
ing dance and ritual, of Hindu groups in the United Kingdom. She is
now co-investigator for a new AHRC-funded project titled, ‘The Southall
Story’, which examines the cultural life and history of the Southall
area of west London. David has given Research Seminars at Oxford
University, Cardiff, Southampton, and Surrey Universities and has pub-
lished widely in dance and other interdisciplinary journals. Her dance
ix
x Notes on Contributors
training is in Bharatanatyam and Kathak, as well as ballet, contempo-

rary, and folk styles.
Yolanda van Ede is Assistant Professor in the Sociology and Anthropology

department at the University of Amsterdam. She received her PhD in
1999 at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR)
on an ethnohistorical investigation of a Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in
Nepal. She has published on gender, ritual and religion, ethnographic
methods, the anthropology of the senses, and writing culture. In 2006
she returned to her initial passion, dance.
Iva Niemčić is a Research Associate and Assistant Director of the Institute

of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb, Croatia. In 2007, she
received a PhD in the field of ethnology at the Faculty of Philosophy,
University of Zagreb. Niemčić is the author of a book on traditional dance,
titled Lastovski poklad. Plesno-etnološka studija/Lastovo Carnival (2011).
Elina Seye is a doctoral candidate in Ethnomusicology at the School of

Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Tampere, Finland.
Her doctoral thesis, due to be completed in 2014, is an ethnographic
study of Senegalese sabar dance events, with a focus on how the sabar
tradition, as well as identities and interpersonal relationships become
embodied through dance and music during these events.
Allison J. Singer is an Independent Researcher. She is a dance anthro-

pologist and a drama and dance movement psychotherapist, and holds
a PhD in Dance Ethnography and an MMus in Ethnomusicology. Her
clinical experience includes work with refugee and internally displaced
people, children, elderly people, and people with profound and com-
plex learning difficulties. Singer was the Programme Leader for the MA
Drama Therapy Programme at the University of Derby 2005–7.
Kendra Stepputat is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Ethnomusicology

at the University of Music and Performing Arts (KUG), Graz. She
studied Ethnomusicology and Communication Science at the Free
University Berlin, as well as Southeast Asian Studies at the Humboldt
University Berlin. She received her PhD in Ethnomusicology in 2010
at the KUG, and completed a scholarship year at the faculty of dance
at the Highschool of Indonesian Arts (ISI) Denpasar, Bali. Stepputat has
published on Balinese Performing Arts and the Tango Argentino, her
current research focus.
Introduction: Global Perspectives
in Ethnographic Fieldwork,
Theory, and the Representation
of Traditional Dance
Linda E. Dankworth and Ann R. David
The editors of this volume propose a selection of dance ethnographies

that represent individual approaches to fieldwork through the medium
of traditional dance from around the globe. The focus on identity,
embodiment, and culture is designed to consider the intellectual issues
that have been prominent in recent discourses on ethnographic research
and embodied reflexive practice in dance. We use the concept of reflex-
ive practice to situate the importance of participatory approaches in
fieldwork that require a position of self-examination, or ‘a process of
self-reference’ (Davies, 1999, p. 4) on the part of the ethnographer.
This is distinct from (although similar to) reflective practice, a term
commonly used in professional practice for assisting learning through
self-evaluation. The term ‘dance ethnography’ embraces a number of
theoretical positions but its specific methodological focus is on the study
of dance through field research. Dance ethnography as an approach
allows its scholars to venture across diverse populations and cultures,
where a reflexive process takes place in the analysis and writing of the
social and cultural practices of the people encountered during fieldwork.
Reflexive ethnography arguably developed from feminist theorizing,
through scholars such as anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod (1990) who
first identified a ‘crisis of difference’ in the way that women’s voices
were presented in ethnographies. It is not the authors’ intention here,
though, to cover the origins and history of writing dance ethnographies
as these have been already documented: see, for example, Adrienne
Kaeppler (1991), Selma Jean Cohen (1998), Theresa J. Buckland (2006),
and Dena Davida (2011).
This book is a joint collaboration, arising from discussions whilst work-
ing as part of a support study group during PhD research at De Montfort
University, Leicester. Similarly, all of the contributors in this book are
1
2 Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives
members of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM)

sub-study group on Ethnochoreology, and are academic researchers and
dance practitioners working in the field of dance. Most of the authors
worked in a different cultural environment from their native cultures
while undertaking fieldwork. They had either spent short intervals over a
number of years conducting fieldwork travelling back and forth to their
respective field sites, which is typical of dance ethnology; others, how-
ever, have spent a long immersion in fieldwork of a one-year duration,
more usual in anthropological fieldwork.
Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives presents the work of dance
scholars whose professional fieldwork spans several continents and
includes studies of the dance and movement systems of varied global
communities. Ann R. David’s focus is on the movement practices of
garba and raas in Hindu Gujarati groups in the United Kingdom; Yolanda
van Ede gives a sensory analysis of Japanese dancers learning flamenco
in Japan; and Linda Dankworth investigates the Mallorquin improvised
dance practices performed at the ballada on the island of Mallorca.
Additionally, Elina Seye engages with the West African dance of
sabar, and Kendra Stepputat discusses tourist performances of the kecak
dance in Bali. Patrick Alcedo’s work in the Philippines is on the indig-
enous Negritos called Atis, and issues arising from the dance festival
held in Kalibo, Aklan in the Philippines. Chi-fang Chao discusses the
embodiment of dancing in Taketomi, an island in southern Okinawa
in Japan, and the intertextuality that occurred in recording dances
in different languages influenced by neighbouring countries. Finally,
Allison Singer’s approach depicts dance and artistic practices used in
psychosocial work with war-affected children in Serbia, whilst Iva
Niemčić discusses a marginal dance group called Bulas, told exclu-
sively from the female point of view, on the island of Korčula in
Croatia.
This volume follows on from dance academic Theresa J. Buckland’s
two international edited collections of ethnographic approaches to
the study of dance and movement – Dance in the Field: Theory, Methods
and Issues in Dance Ethnography (1999); and Dancing from Past to
Present: Nation, Culture, Identities (2006). As in Buckland’s volumes, the
theoretical perspectives in our text reflect the extensive field research
of its authors, who draw on anthropology, folklore, cultural studies,
religious studies, ethnology, sociology, tourism, and choreology. The
authors are in some cases former students (and their students) of
the original contributors presented in Buckland’s edited collections.
Introduction 3
Knowledge and methodological techniques are passed on from

teacher/supervisor to the student through an inherited tradition situ-
ated in anthropological and ethnographic fieldwork in both European
(folk studies) and American (anthropology) within institutional
practices.
Other books in the field that draw on ethnographic practices in dance
include Dena Davida’s work, Fields in Motion: Ethnography in the Worlds of
Dance (2011). Dance scholar Davida argues for ‘the notion of art world
dance ethnography’ (p. 10) in her edited volume that includes writings
by choreographers, teachers, dancers, and spectators. Her reasoning for
this concept is to challenge the ‘persistent hierarchy of social values’
(Davida, 2011, p. 10) in Western classical ballet. The auto-ethnographic
chapters are drawn from either very short data collections of fieldwork,
which is not typical of traditional anthropology, or research conducted
over a number of years.
Additionally, Susan Leigh Foster’s edited book, Worlding Dance (2009),
challenges the foundations upon which the terms ‘ethnic arts’ (an
earlier nomenclature and framework of colonial legacy in folklore and
anthropology) and ‘world’ dance were created. Foster’s volume is a
collective reckoning of international scholars’ insights into the diversi-
fying world of dance studies that formerly made a distinction between
‘ethnic’ dances envisioned as local and traditional, and ‘world’ dances as
a neutral comparative field wherein all dances are of equal importance
and diverse (Foster, 2009, p. 2). It not only gives a voice to traditional
dance practitioners, but also to contemporary choreographers in con-
structing new forms of narration in the written texts. Similarly, each
chapter in our volume, Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives is
distinct, presenting each author’s individual approach to fieldwork and
gives an insight into the theoretical frameworks used in the analysis and
textual representations of traditional dance. Finally, two further books
that examine dance within the global context of human rights are the
edited collections of dance scholar, Naomi Jackson in Right to Dance:
Dancing for Rights (2004), and cultural anthropologist, Toni Shapiro-
Phim with Jackson in Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Dignity in
Motion (2008). Jackson’s anthology takes an embodied focus on cultural
policies, and dance and human rights in Canada, showing how ‘Canada
has served as a positive role model for change on an international level’
(2004, p. 16). Neither book uses ethnography as a methodology, but
gives detailed accounts and analyses of dance being used as a form of
control, social regulation, and political repression.
Theoretical perspectives
The volume is divided into three parts that represent different theoreti-
cal approaches to the study of dance and identity through the methodol-
ogy of ethnography. With backgrounds in a wide range of disciplines as
mentioned above, such as religious studies, social and cultural anthro-
pology, ethnomusicology, psychological work, and tourism, the authors
include various media of film and photographs to enrich their method-
ologies. Standard ethnographic techniques of participant/observation,
field notes, questionnaires, and oral and visual recordings are used. The
writing in each chapter is enlivened by the detailed ethnography and
presence in the field demonstrated by the authors.
Part I is concerned with issues of tradition, modernity, and authen-
ticity in the transformation of cultural practices. David’s analysis in
Chapter 1 of the British Hindu Gujarati population and the construc-
tion of a Gujarati ethnic and religious identity, presents the deeply
layered notions of selfhood through dance practices at religious festivals
in settled migrant communities in Britain. She argues how the annual
religious Hindu Navratri festival can be the locus for the transmission
of Gujarati religious and socio-cultural practices and also a powerful
confirmation of caste belonging. In this example, ‘playing’ the dance
folk forms at Navratri constructs not only a Hindu identity, but also a
specific Gujarati Hindu one. Additionally, David examines the chang-
ing practices of the folk forms of garba and raas in competitions and in
Bollywood films, noting the influence of both these dance trajectories
on diasporic groups.
Alcedo argues that his ethnographic experience in helping organize the
festival participation of Filipino Atis, offers insights into the issue of indig-
enous modernity, which the public performance of the Atis as ‘authentic’
Filipinos brought to the fore. He reflects on the insider/outsider relations
of the complex positionalities of ethnographic fieldwork, and poses ques-
tions related to the interrelations between performer, festival organiza-
tion, and audience at the Ati-atihan festival held in Kalibo, Aklan, in the
Philippines. Chapter 2 narrates the first participation of a group of indig-
enous Negritos, known locally as the Atis, as official competitors in the
2009 street-dancing contest of the Ati-atihan festival. Within this context,
Alcedo struggles to come to terms with the local organizers’ attitude to
indigenous representation of the Atis on issues of ‘authenticity’ and racial
colour. The performance of ‘authentic’ bodies during the Ati-atihan festival,
Alcedo argues, is a form of ‘strategic essentializing’, following Gayatri
Spivak’s (1998) argument on the politics of marginalized communities.
Introduction 5
Seye investigates sabar dance events (a ‘tradition’ of social dancing

and drumming of the Wolof people in West Africa) as performances. In
Chapter 3, she explores the social interaction between participants at
this event, following Richard Schechner’s (2006, p. 52) idea of ‘ritualized
behaviour’ permeated by play. Her main focus is on the sabar drummers
who provide the solo women dancers with the rhythmic framework for
improvised dancing. Improvisation in sabar music and dance, however,
represents the skill of combining traditional rhythmic movement pat-
terns in a meaningful way. As the guardians of oral tradition, all sabar
drummers are usually born into the géwël caste, giving them an inferior
social status to others in Senegal.
Part II of the volume focuses on issues of cultural identity through the
influences of social dance events and tourism. Although the paradigm
of dance ethnography in the 1990s moved away from an emphasis on
observation to foreground participation, not all ethnographers follow
this trend as shown in Chapter 4 in Niemčić’s account of the Bulas.
In contrast to recent dance ethnographies and their methodologies,
Niemčić approaches the fieldwork primarily from an observational role.
Her version deviates from the publicly known attitude of Moreskanti
men, and gives solely the emic interpretations of female participants in
Korčula’s Moreska. She argues that the Moreskanti demanded changes in
her text, because it differed from the previous published ones by reveal-
ing the problems of the female Bulas’ marginalization. The difficulties
of interpretation of texts within the politics of ethnographic represen-
tation, and the potential for the researched community to criticize the
finished writing, is indicated too in Caroline B. Brettell’s edited volume
When They Read What We Write: The Politics of Ethnography (1993).
Moving to another part of the Mediterranean, on the island of
Mallorca, in Chapter 5 Dankworth explores the cultural transmission
of dance and music at the ballada, a social dance event. The influences
of mass tourism in Mallorca in the 1960s, when only choreographed
dances were performed, has ultimately affected the dissemination and
practice of participatory dance in the revival in the 1980s. From this
time, Mallorcan people started to perform dances for themselves at
the ballada, away from the tourists’ gaze. Dankworth takes Grossberg’s
(1996, p. 88) notion of ‘a singular becoming of a community’ to exam-
ine the way that the ballada has become a site for collective agency and
for the intervention of political and social changes. The dual cultural
ethnolinguistic context of Castilian and Catalan, the official cultures of
Mallorca since 1983, created a complex reflection of the community’s
sense of their identities. In this study of Mallorquin improvised dances,
the dancers’ and musicians’ cultural identity has a nationalist orienta-

tion, which has meant that the Mallorcan community is split between
defining their affiliations either to their Castilian or Catalan/Mallorqui
culture.
Further afield, in Stepputat’s study of the performances of the
Balinese dramatic dance kecak for tourists, she draws on gatekeeping
theory (Barzilai-Nahon, 2009) to explain flows of information within
this social network. In Chapter 6, Stepputat describes how the agen-
cies involved in the dance’s presentation are of specific interest in
the structural and social organization behind kecak performances. She
demonstrates how such power relations between the performers, agents,
and audience have led to the standardized kecak performance as it is
mostly presented today. Questions are raised concerning the artistic and
‘authentic’ value of performances in both touristic and non-touristic
contexts, and show the differences between the kecak presented to tour-
ists and performances solely for the Balinese communities.
Part III of Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives places the spot-
light on dance in psychosocial work, gender issues, and textual rep-
resentation. It first analyses the use of employing psychosocial work
and ethnography as a tool for the re-framing of individual, social, and
cultural identity. Here, Singer’s work is based upon the context of the
forced displacement and resettlement of people following the war in
Serbia, and in Chapter 7 she illustrates how embodiment is used as part
of a process to facilitate change. Singer integrated dance ethnographic
theory with Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) as a methodology
to facilitate changes in individual, social, and cultural relationships in
the context of resettlement following war. Through the use of mythol-
ogy in storytelling and different arts media during workshops provided
for the refugees, ‘the participants engaged in a process of “narrativiza-
tion of the self”’ (Hall, 2003, p. 4). In this way, the use of individual and
collective stories and of embodying memories and emotions helped to
further create understanding for developmental change.
In Chapter 8, van Ede discusses Japanese women studying flamenco
in Tokyo. Young women find that flamenco offers them ‘a stage for
resisting local Japanese norms concerning proper female behaviour’
(p. 154) where they can be loud and visible, rather than silent and
unseen. Yet, these same young women are ‘silenced’ by the owners of
the studios when they perform on stage. Van Ede adopts Tomie Hahn’s
(2007) sensory model as an analytical tool that reveals how the sound
of the dancers’ shoes and footwork in performance plays a dominant
Introduction 7
part in the hierarchy of dance studios. All this is argued in the context
of gender and embodiment.
Textual representations of dance and their translations are an impor-
tant part of resources in dance ethnography. What happens, though,
when we encounter ancient texts, such as in Chao’s discussion of
Okinawan dance in Chapter 9? Chao states that the present writing
on Okinawan dance is mostly recorded in different languages and inter-
textualized through ‘words and movements’, which cannot be easily
separated from its past and from ancient Chinese historical documents.
She investigates the embodiment of dancing in Taketomi, an island in
southern Okinawa in Japan, and reveals that the songs of Omoro Sōshi
later become the archaic vernacular for Kumu Udui (the dance suite).
Carrying clear Japanese influences, Kumu Udui is considered as distinc-
tively Okinawan from the language point of view.
Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives therefore, through its
engagement with embodied practices in the field and theoretical disci-
plines, covers extensive ground that questions the concepts of tradition
and modernity, gender, tourism, and textual representation in dance.
Ethnographic fieldwork and embodied practice/

bodily knowledge
Embodied ethnography as part of the fieldwork process in dance focuses

on the centrality of bodily experience as a key tool for understanding
dance practice and dance knowledge. By concentrating on the very act
of ethnographic fieldwork, we can explore some of the advantages and
difficulties of embodying and experiencing that fieldwork as research-
ers. This raises questions about the varying degrees of participation
and of what understanding might be gained in this way (David, 2013).
Taking their lead from embodied fieldwork studies in anthropology
and sociology, other disciplines such as performance studies have fully
embraced the notion of the centrality and presence of bodily knowl-
edge (Daboo, 2010). The subject of the ethnographic self as a resource,
for example, is the main focus of social anthropologist Peter Collins’s
recent book (Collins, 2010). In Collins’s book, anthropologist Jonathan
Skinner, in his chapter on dancing Tango, argues that the self is one of
the key resources in ethnography, and ‘nowhere more so than in the
anthropology of dance where it is vital that the writer dances and shares
the experience of the dance, joins in with the dancers and embodies
the dance’ (2010, p. 111). Skinner sees movement as a site of cognition,
describing in detail how both thinking and learning take place through
embodied movement.
Writing up: historical and textual representation

Moving from an experiential frame of fieldwork into a conceptual focus
on textual and embodied representations of dance is part of the course
of dance ethnography (Dankworth, 2010, p. 88). The representation of
fieldwork is crucial to how the ethnographer’s written accounts are cre-
ated in the final text. In sum, writing culturally focused descriptions of
dance stems from an embodied practice methodology. Anthropologist
Sally Ann Ness (2004, p. 125), however, notes that discrepancies can
appear when comparing authors’ ethnographic accounts of movement
descriptions and of textual representations of embodied accounts
(writing a culturally focused description of movement) with disem-
bodied (phenomenological – lived experience) accounts of dance. The
phenomenological approaches, she considers, tend to reflect the lived
experience as a way of gaining knowledge, stripped of external influ-
ences (Ness, 2004, p. 125). Culturally focused descriptions of dance,
Ness argues, appear more focused on non-present and non-actual,
temporal characters and seem to be moving away from a phenom-
enological approach (p. 139). Yet even the very nomenclature ‘dance’
can be problematic, as David (this volume, pp. 14–15) points out.
The diversity of the authors’ research in Dance Ethnography and Global
Perspectives is a product of both of these approaches and adds to the
richness of their individual accounts of dance and movement prac-
tices from both participatory and observer points of views reflected in
their writing.
Historical and textual representations of traditional dance are some-
times produced from texts written in an archaic vernacular that makes
their initial meanings unclear. When we encounter ancient texts in
different languages, such as Chinese, there is a good reason for Chao’s
argument in Chapter 9 that the analysis of dance involves more than
grounded experiences of the moving body. Similarly, the problems
of translation that Dankworth encountered initially in her study of
Mallorquin dance were inherent to the early Mallorcan authors who
wrote in a ‘parochial’ style of prose, when the words did not always
transpose in a meaningful manner. Translating others’ cultures is to
some extent embedded in their past histories. It is, however, in the
course of translating history and literary texts that it becomes part of
the author’s subjective view of its relation to the present, and ultimately
revealed through the analysis of the ethnographic data.
Introduction 9
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for Ethnographic Research’, in P. Harrop and D. Njaradi (eds), Performance and
Ethnography: Dance, Drama, Music. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing: 45–66.
Davida, D. (2011) Fields in Motion: Ethnography in the Worlds of Dance. Waterloo,
ON, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Davies, C. A. (1999) Reflexive Ethnography: A Guide to Researching Selves and Others.
London and New York: Routledge.
Foster, S. L. (2009) ‘Worlding Dance – An Introduction’, in S. L. Foster (ed.),
Worlding Dance, Studies in International Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan: 1–13.
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S. Hall and P. Du Gay (eds), Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage: 87–107.
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Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
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Gay (eds), Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage: 1–17.
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Centre Press.
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Dignity in Motion. Lanham,MD: Scarecrow Press.
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Traditional Music 23: 11–21.
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the Embodiment of Dance’, in H. Thomas and J. Ahmed (eds), Cultural Bodies:
Ethnography and Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing: 123–44.
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London: Routledge.
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(eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan
Education: 271–313.
Part I
Issues of Tradition, Modernity
and Authenticity
1
Embodied Traditions: Gujarati
(Dance) Practices of Garba and
Raas in the UK context
Ann R. David
Nine o’clock in the evening in a hot, crowded, hired

sports hall.
On entering the space, one’s senses are assaulted by
the blaze of colour and sound and the extraordinary
vision that meets the eyes. About three hundred women
are filling the large arena, moving almost as one, to the
beat of the music. They progress in concentric circles,
anti-clockwise around a central shrine with rhythmi-
cal steps, hands moving naturally to clap on the three
dominant beats of the pulse, as if they have moved
forever in this way. Their traditional Gujarati outfits are
a blaze of differing colours: full skirts to the ground and
long shawls flowing as they move, and glinting jewel-
lery as the bodies pass by. Young and old join in this
joyous celebration to the Hindu goddess, Devi.
(David, 2001: Fieldnotes,
25 October, London)
Setting the scene
This brief description of one of the nine nights of the autumn Hindu
religious festival Navratri, a pan-Indian festival in praise of the feminine
power of the divine, raises certain questions about the codified move-
ment systems of a society within the context of religious practice. The
group selected here, celebrating the festival in Britain with folk dance
and music, are part of the large Gujarati UK community.1 The majority
of this group forcibly migrated to the United Kingdom from East Africa
13
14 Issues of Tradition, Modernity and Authenticity
in the 1970s after Idi Amin’s mass expulsion of non-African people

from Uganda, but their origins lie in the state of Gujarat in north-west
India. Questions provoked by this festival time of Navratri relate to
the use of movement/dance in the expression of migrant identity, to the
adherence to a religious faith, and to the transmission of cultural beliefs
and values. These enquiries form the main focus of this ethnographic
research and subsequent writing. The chapter maps the rather particu-
lar nature of British Gujarati practice, showing not only the dominant
performance of these folk dances at religious festivals, but also noting
their place in social events such as parties and weddings, as well as in
competitive staged displays and more commercially, in the world of
Bollywood films. Thus it examines the layered and complex concepts
of migrant identity and enculturation through an analysis of different
types of Gujarati garba and raas performance, as well as discussing the
history and settlement patterns of the UK Gujarati groups. Additionally,
I consider the way, at religious festivals, sacred space is constructed
through such folk dance movements.
The chapter firstly analyses these Gujarati folk dance practices at
UK Hindu religious festival events, particularly focusing on the town
of Leicester, in the East Midlands, that supports a large community of
Gujarati groups. It raises the prevailing issues about tensions between
tradition and modernity seen at such cultural events, as well as discussing
the contrast between classical dance and folk dance forms and their mean-
ing to the community. Despite the fact that the British Hindu Gujarati
population has been well documented in sociological, migrant, and reli-
gious studies (see, for example, Dwyer, 1994; Jackson, 1981; Knott, 2000;
Marett, 1989; and Wood, 2008), very little has been written to date about
the community’s cultural displays through movement and dance. In this
analysis, I highlight the folk ‘dances’ of garba and raas that are an integral
part of religious festivals, particularly the autumnal Navratri celebrations,
as well as social and community events such as wedding parties. Are these
social and cultural forms of garba and raas expressing an essential ingredi-
ent in being Gujarati, whether in India or in the diaspora (as I note else-
where in David, 2010b). Due to constraints of space, I briefly note without
going into full detail the significance of garba and raas in competitive
events for the younger generations. Finally, I examine the display of these
Gujarati folk forms in Bollywood film dance and their potential influence
on the construction of a diasporic ethnicity amongst the young.
I use, with some hesitation, the Western term ‘dance’ to describe the
movement forms examined in the research. Anthropologist Adrienne
Kaeppler notes the problematic nature of the concept of ‘dance’ to
Embodied Traditions: Gujarati Dance 15
describe the movement practices of other cultures. She warns that ‘cat-
egorizing the movement dimensions of a religious ritual as “dance” can
easily lead to misunderstanding across, and even within, cultures’ (1999,
p. 14). Dance scholar Mohd Anis Md Nor stresses the same point, noting
how, in the past, Malay structured movement systems ‘had numerous
terms of reference […] that are local and reflect specific forms or styles
[…] peculiar to a region, dialect group or community’ (2001, p. 238). It
was only with colonial rule that the Malay term tari as an equivalent
to the English word ‘dance’ was introduced. These cautions apply here
equally to the UK Gujarati groups and the garba and raas forms displayed
at religious festivals such as Navratri. Such movement practices are never
termed ‘dance’ by Gujaratis, as the word does not relate to movement
practices embedded within a religious tradition. The word ‘dance’ in
Gujarati (nruitya) refers to other dance forms or dance as part of a staged
performance, and is considered an inappropriate movement term for
a religious occasion, my Gujarati acquaintances told me (David, 2002:
Fieldnotes, 19 October). Experience from observation and participation
in the Hindu Navratri festival has shown me not to use such a term for
the folk movements practised. One ‘plays’ the steps of garba (circular folk
dance steps, see Figure 1.1) and raas (stick movements), and in Gujarati
the expression is garba ramavo or simply garba (playing garba). ‘Are you
playing garba tonight?’ is the question asked.
Figure 1.1 Women playing garba at Navratri, London, October 2001 (credit:
A. R. David)
In researching and mapping the cultural practices of Gujarati Hindu

communities, movement systems that are commonly invisible to the
general public have been brought into focus and made visible, yet as
sociologist Andrew Ward points out (1997, p. 6), it is a paradoxical situ-
ation as, in writing, the movement is divorced from the written product.
Yet to use a rational means to examine a non-verbal activity is essential
if we are to enquire into the dance and movement systems of human
society and to ‘argue for the inherent meaningfulness of dance and for
the place of dance as an essential human practice’ (Ward, 1997, p. 7).
Hence an ethnographical methodology,2 despite its complexities, remains
a direct and effective tool for engagement with people and their embod-
ied praxis, as also for its inscription of both narrative and theory in a
‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973, p. 6). The participatory approach under-
taken is invaluable in gaining experience and reflective insights from a
movement perspective; for example, in the garba folk dances where the
repetitive, circular movements created a focused, inward, quiet attention,
not necessarily so obvious from an onlooker’s position. My embodied
participation has fed into the ethnographic description and led to greater
insights in the cultural understanding of human movement (Ness, 2004).
I argue here for engaged, emplaced ethnography that might allow us, in
differing ways, to watch, feel, experience, and to listen to the body and
understand through the body, whatever movement practice is under con-
sideration. Embodied participation furthers, too, the paradigmatic shift
in cultural approaches to dance witnessed in the last decade.
Urban cultural life
Leicester, a city approximately two hours north of London, exhibits

characteristics of a small metropolis that need to be considered in an
examination of urban dance and movement practices in a contempo-
rary setting. Features such as the fragmented, dislocated features of an
inner city area; the struggle to maintain coherence of the community;
the pressures of time, work, and survival; and the creation of unfamiliar
living conditions impact on the lives of any community and are, to
some degree, revealed in their dance practices. Added to this are the spe-
cific considerations of a migrant community, despite its settlement over
a 40-year period. Dance writer and critic Sanjoy Roy, in his analysis of
‘otherness’ in contemporary Indian dance in the Western city, describes
the city as ‘a place where a profusion of peoples, goods, histories and
languages circulate, intermingle and interfere. A multiplicity of nation-
alities and ethnicities inhabit and traverse it’ (1997, p. 69). The city of
Leicester, as a field site for ethnographic work in South Asian dance

provides rich resources and multiple levels of understanding.
Leicester is the largest city in the East Midlands and the tenth larg-
est in England, whose South Asian population of Hindus, Muslims,
and Sikhs comprises nearly 50 per cent of its inhabitants. The differing
origins (that is, direct early migrants from India; East African refugees;
Pakistanis and Bangladeshis), the contrasting religious faiths, language,
caste, and customs create a multi-dynamic ‘community’, and one that
cannot be examined or considered simply as a single, homogenous unit.
It is also one of the most thriving Asian communities in Britain, which
receives committed support from its City Council. New civic initiatives
that have been developed in Leicester include a £14.4 million commu-
nity centre, the Belgrave Baheno Peepul Centre (opened in 2005 but threat-
ened with closure in 2008)3 and a new multi-million pound performing
arts centre, the Curve, completed in 2008 and opened by the Queen. The
Curve centre is part of a new ‘cultural quarter’ that brought regeneration
to a dilapidated area of the city with a film and media centre (Phoenix
Square), a contemporary visual arts centre, and studio spaces for artists
and crafts people (Leicester Creative Business Depot). Discussions were
also underway (in 2004) to establish a production base in Leicester for
Indian films made in Europe, backed by the City Council.4 These ini-
tiatives indicate a positive, vibrant, and visionary move to counteract
the fragmentation and dislocation inherent in city and in immigrant
lives. Leicester is ‘today internationally recognized as a model of civic
multiculturalism, and […] is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in
the European Union’ (Martin and Singh, 2002, p. 7). Over the period
of the last 40 years, a strong and confident relationship has developed
between the Asian peoples and the City Council, both economically
and socially, resulting in over 1500 successful Asian businesses in the
city and the election of two Asian Lord Mayors, one MP, and numerous
councillors. The majority of the Hindus in Leicester are originally from
Gujarat in north-west India and many are twice-migrants, having arrived
in the United Kingdom after being expelled from their homes in East
Africa over 40 years ago (as noted above). Prior to this, their families had
initially migrated from India during the nineteenth century to work for
the British on the construction of new railways in East Africa. Factors of
immigration and resettlement are therefore a dominant aspect of com-
munity life in Leicester, and make a significant impact on areas such as
the transmission of dance and culture.
Evidence from my research in Leicester has revealed some dance and
music events connected with the Hindu temples on a regular basis, but
during Hindu religious or cultural festivals, dance (mainly folk or film)

is dominant. At some Gujarati Hindu events, dance is positioned as a
spectator activity, where the audience will watch items of Indian clas-
sical dance such as Kathak and Bharatanatyam, or folk and film dance
performed on stages; at other occasions such as the very prominent
Navratri celebrations I discuss, and at community weddings, the dance
form is wholly participatory. There is significant evidence now that the
dominant dance form is changing, with less emphasis on the classical
forms of Kathak and Bharatanatyam and a strong, burgeoning interest
of the young people in Bollywood5 film dance (David, 2010a), which
I shall examine later in the chapter.
Leicester’s Gujaratis
The fact that the majority of Leicester’s large Hindu population is of

Gujarati origin lends a very particular flavour to the dominant aspects
of social and religious life, cultural transmission, and business prac-
tices in Leicester. Figures quoted by sociologist John Mattausch (1998)
estimate that the East African Gujarati community accounts for three-
fifths of the British Gujarati population, the total number being over
half a million people. Earlier numbers in 1983 (Vertovec, 1994) show
that 90 per cent of all the Hindus in Leicester were Gujarati-speaking.6
Not only did the arrival of the mainly Gujarati East African settlers in
Leicester influence the financial and business practices of the existing
smaller Asian community, but their presence greatly affected the
spatial and demographic character of the city, as well as the social and
religious practices undertaken. The wealth that many of the Kenyan
immigrants brought with them and their arrival in many cases as com-
plete families, sometimes comprising three generations, enabled them
to move quickly from rented to privately owned property. This group
was not forced to buy into the cheaper, more dilapidated housing of
the inner city, as other Asian refugees were. As geographer Deborah
Phillips notes:
The East African refugees differed greatly from the immigrants who
had hitherto settled in the city. Predominately from Gujarati trading
communities, many came to Leicester equipped with entrepreneurial
skills, a good education and some knowledge of English.. Their ini-
tial demands for housing were therefore substantially different from
predecessors.
(Phillips, 1981, p. 108)
The East African Asians brought with them (in 1969 from Kenya, and
1972 from Uganda) a considerable background of experience in business
and commerce, and soon ‘began to make an important contribution to
the Leicester economy as entrepreneurs, helping to create a distinct
ethnic business sector’ (Nash and Reeder, 1993, p. 85). In keeping with
the tradition and origins of the Gujaratis, the focus of this commerce
has been in general retailing and the wholesale distribution of items
such as food and clothing. Gujarati businesses have continued to pro-
vide for the particular needs of the Asian community, and in the retail
area have diversified into jewellery and the travel industry, plus other
service facilities including property, financial and legal work, banks,
and car sales. The ‘Golden Mile’ of Leicester’s Belgrave Road is known
throughout the Midlands as a focus for good and competitively priced
Asian merchandise and services, attracting Asian families from other
cities all over Britain, and advertised as a tourist attraction on Leicester
City Council’s website.
But an earlier survey conducted by social scientist Andrew Sills and
colleagues (1983) also provides evidence at that time (late 1970s and
early 1980s) that dispels myths of the alleged wealth and prosperity
of Leicester’s Asian community. It revealed that there were then high
levels of unemployment, low wages, and a significant dependence
on social security compared to the white community. Many highly
educated and well-experienced Asians had to take up employment
on a scale far below their qualifications. But, as often is the case, the
picture is a complex one. Information from surveys and census details
can be misleading in representing the whole of the Asian community
in Leicester, as this ‘population includes some of the least and most
successful minority groups’ (Vertovec, 1994, p. 262). The Gujaratis,
for example, who had migrated directly from India had come mainly
from rural backgrounds and did not arrive, for the most part, with any
degree of competence in English, unlike their Gujarati East African
counterparts with their more sophisticated survival skills. Historian
Valerie Marett (1989, p. 170) points out that, despite the successes of
the latter group, the elite of the East African professionals had migrated
to Canada (as part of the Commonwealth), having been selected care-
fully by Canadian immigration teams sent to Kampala in advance of
the exodus. She also comments that ‘the multi-millionaires of Uganda
settled in London’ (Marett, 1989, p. 170), leaving the middle and
lower-middle workers to come to Leicester. This factor has clearly influ-
enced dance practices, in terms of what is selected for transmission
and why.
Religious affiliations
The East Africa Gujaratis had established very resilient practices of mainly
Vaishnavite7 temple worship in East Africa through their caste organiza-
tions, and were therefore confident and organized in establishing the
same in the United Kingdom. As families settled, the pressing need was
to stabilize family life and expose the children to Gujarati Hindu socio-
cultural practices and religious traditions. Ritual activity took place both
within the domestic setting and in rented halls for the larger festivals,
before any specific temples were established. The first public Hindu
place of worship was created in Leicester in 1969 in a private house in
Cromford Street, and remains today a thriving temple.8 A survey carried
out in 2004 by the Leicester Council of Faiths indicated there were 22
Hindu temples or centres where public Hindu worship takes place in the
city.9 These include two Swaminarayan10 centres and an ISKCON temple.
Most Hindu temples/centres follow the Vaishnava tradition, although
some describe their temples being of Sanatan11 faith. The trend has been
to convert from other buildings, although the main Swaminarayan group
now has its own purpose-built temple, opened in 2011, and the Shree
Jalaram Prarthna Mandal built one in 1995. One south Indian temple of
the Saivite tradition exists in the city, the Leicester Sri Murugan Temple,
and there are seven Sikh gurdwaras, and around twenty-one Muslim
mosques, of which four are Shia and the remainder of Sunni faith
(Stokes, 2004). The considerable size of the Hindu population in Leicester
has enabled the different caste communities to establish their own tem-
ples, rather than merging financial and community resources with other
groups to purchase and support a temple that embraces disparate groups,
as has happened in other cities, such as Coventry (Jackson, 1981) and
Leeds (Knott, 2000). Scholar of Indian film and culture Rachel Dwyer, in
her study of Gujarati life, describes the important dimension of religious
practice and of their impressive organization of their temples worldwide:
No longer content with converting disused Christian churches into

their places of worship, most of the huge diversity of sects and caste-
based communities into which the Gujaratis are divided have raised
the money needed to construct purpose-built temples – some on
a spectacular scale. While their spires and flags have brought new
forms of architecture to many British cities, the rituals and festivities
performed there now reproduce almost the entire range of Hindu
belief and practice.
(Dwyer, 1994, p. 165)
The conversion of old buildings into Hindu temples raises problems

regarding the use of space, as ancient architectural rules that codify the
building of temples stipulate the correct use of space, the appropriate
height of the building, and most importantly, the exact direction for the
deities to face. In many older buildings used as temples, these codes have
had to be ignored or compromised. With the building of new temples
in India, the United States, and now in the United Kingdom, other fac-
tors are influencing the designs, such as the inclusion of more light and
space for the developing form of congregational worship. Community
halls (for meditation, weddings, cultural, and language classes), dining
areas and large kitchens, and auditoriums are being incorporated, too,
into the designs of the diaspora temples. The first Vaishnava Hindu
temple to be built in the United Kingdom according to traditional prac-
tices was the Swaminarayan Temple in Neasden, north London that
took three years to build and opened in 1995. It now plays host to over
50,000 devotees at special festival times (Hardy, 1995).12
Navratri festival
The diverse nature of Hinduism is reflected in the huge variety of festival

celebrations – some pan-Indian and others confined to particular locali-
ties. In the United Kingdom, most major Hindu festivals, such as Divali
and Navratri, are celebrated by all Hindu groups (as well as increasing
numbers of non-Hindus, especially for the popular festivities of Divali).
Apart from the conspicuous enjoyment of festival time, there are signifi-
cant reasons for the celebration of such events by an immigrant commu-
nity. Festival participation in a country where Asians remain a strong but
minority community is an obvious factor in strengthening group iden-
tity, but it also confirms identity with a particular jati or sampradaya.13
Social anthropologist Penny Logan’s work on British Hindu children’s
religious experience suggests that Hindu children learn about their reli-
gion ‘through observing and participating in ritual’ (1988, p. 161) of
particular festival activities, and that the children’s involvement allows
for an easy and natural process of socialization into Hinduism. Similarly,
religious educationalists Robert Jackson and Eleanor Nesbitt comment
that the festivals for Hindus are ‘annual opportunities for cultural affir-
mation […] It is clearly apparent that in the adaptations to festivals made
by Britain’s Hindus, a major concern for parents is the cultural identity of
their children’ (1993, p. 89). My interviewees talked of the significance
of the religious aspects of Navratri and endorsed the fact that the dances
were seen as part of their Gujarati religious heritage. The Navratri festival
is the locus for the transmission of Gujarati religious and socio-cultural

practices and a powerful confirmation of caste identity. Playing the folk
forms at Navratri constructs not only a Hindu identity, but a specific
Gujarati Hindu identity, as developed below.
Gujarati children at Rushey Mead School in Leicester, who I inter-
viewed, spoke of Navratri with great excitement and affection. Of the
eight teenagers responding (girls and boys), one had attended all ten
nights of the festival (Navratri plus Dashera), another for eight, and the
rest between five and seven nights. Most varied their places of attend-
ance at Navratri, apart from one 14-year-old girl who participated solely
at her samaj (caste association) celebrations for five nights. One of the
boys was Punjabi-speaking, but the rest of the group spoke Gujarati
and all attended a temple regularly with their families. They had vis-
ited Navratri events with their families and their friends, and five of
the group had travelled out of Leicester on other occasions to celebrate
the festival in London, Preston, and Nottingham. Each teenager inter-
viewed attended the festival celebrations every year, and they all stated
that the most enjoyable aspect was playing raas (the stick folk dance), as
well as meeting their friends. All five girls confirmed that playing garba
was one of the best features of the evening, and two agreed that the reli-
gious aspect was most important. The whole group knew the spiritual
significance of the event and spoke of enjoying the arati (devotional
worship that entails moving lighted camphor oil lamps in front of the
deity in a circular motion) in the middle of the evening. The five girls
also said they practised dance at home, as did one of the boys, and half
of the group indicated that the music at Navratri was one of the best
features of the event. They described that the playing of garba ‘relaxes
you and concentrates you for the arati’, but added that the social aspect
of the evening seemed more important nowadays. Their enjoyment and
enthusiasm for the festival was marked.
The pleasure and delight of the Navratri evenings in the company of
families and friends, the beat of the music, and the happy, convivial
atmosphere is also noted in Jackson and Nesbitt’s research. It is a time
for dressing up in new outfits (sometimes a different one each night), to
exhibit dancing skills, and to be out late each evening. One girl in their
research summed up her experience, ‘Navratri means enjoying yourself,
meeting friends, getting hot, staying up late and it’s just fun’ (Jackson
and Nesbitt, 1993, p. 88). Logan quotes a nine-year-old speaking in
a similar way, ‘We dance, we sing songs, we do really fast garabas and
give prasada14 and do arati. It’s really good fun. We do it in a hall. It’s at
night’ (1988, p. 166).
Sociologist Avtar Brah’s examination of identity in diaspora notes

how cultural expression is ‘crucial in affirming or contesting’ identity,
and describes the Navratri dance practices as
an arena for the play of gender and caste-inflected Hindu-Gujarati

identities. Caste inequalities may be reinforced, since Navratri con-
gregations meet under the aegis of various caste-based organizations,
but these same organizations could well be used by the lower castes
as a ground from which to contest these very hierarchies.
(Brah, 1996, p. 47)
These same elements were highlighted in the Tamasha Theatre

Company’s production, Strictly Dandia, showcased in August 2003 at
the Edinburgh International Festival. The show’s light-hearted explo-
ration of the transition from tradition to post-modernity in contem-
porary Asian life utilized the setting of the Navratri festival to show
young Gujaratis competing in an inter-caste dance competition, under
the watchful and controlling eyes of their parents and older family
members. The play reveals that all is not as it seems on the surface:
the young women dancing in a ‘rotating display of Hindu femininity’
are being exhibited for marriage; the open welcome to all newcomers
hides ‘a steely resolve to keep things controlled and absolute; security
at the door […] makes sure not too many “slims” – Muslims – get in to
eye the girls’ (Khan, 2004, n.p.). Finally, the male of the winning dance
couple, who has fallen in love with his Hindu dance partner, is exposed
as a Muslim. One of the elders then comments: ‘Yes. Integration is all
very well but it has its place. This sort of dilution leads to pollution’
(Bhuchar and Landon-Smith, 2004, p. 52). The Navratri dance forms,
both literally and metaphorically, are used to indicate the tensions of
power, tradition, caste control, acceptance, challenge of the status quo,
and the struggles of an immigrant community to succeed.
Two of my many visits to the Navratri festival in Leicester (between
2000 and 2005), events organized by the Leicester Hindu Festival
Council,15 were at enormous gatherings held in two of the largest halls
in Leicester – one at De Montfort Hall, a prominent arts venue with a
seating capacity of 2200 (for these occasions 1800 is the maximum),
and the second in the Ramgarhia Community Centre, a community
hall rented for this occasion from the Sikhs (also with a capacity of
1800).16 Both events are ticketed (at around £4–5 per ticket), and
at weekends are quickly sold out. The nine Navratri evenings at De
Montfort Hall attract very large numbers of teenagers and young
people, and although families also attend, many of the youth are
there on their own. The girls vie with each other in sporting the lat-
est Indian fashions, wearing choli blouses and various salwar tops that
have either elegant, thin straps or are strapless. Their make-up and hair
are immaculate, and the place is buzzing with energy. Some Gujaratis
I interviewed commented rather disparagingly about the Navratri
evenings at De Montfort Hall, saying that it was well-known as ‘a
pick-up joint’, with one 22-year-old girl adding that she would not go
there as ‘they’re all so snooty, looking at what everyone is wearing and
making comments’ (David, 2002: Fieldnotes 10 October). The young
Asian men attending are mainly in Western clothes, with a few wearing
Indian kurtas, and with stylishly gelled hair. There was a tight security
presence on the door and tickets were carefully checked due to fears of
potential gang trouble.
Raas and garba
At De Monfort Hall, on our arrival at about 8.30pm, groups of teenagers

were walking around outside the main auditorium, the boys with their
dandiyas (sticks), teasing and joking with groups of girls. Inside, the hall
space was packed with hundreds of women, girls and some men, all play-
ing garba. It was an impressive sight. The live music, played by musicians
brought over from Gujarat especially for Navratri, and loudly amplified,
filled the hall with the fast beat, devotional songs. We were able to join
the raas stick folk dance (often simply called dandiya, or dandiya raas)
after the prayers at about 9.20pm, and did so quickly as the dance floor
was rapidly filling with groups. The format is simple: with a partner one
joins a double line of people, usually about 20–30 in a group (it must
be an even number), facing each other. The lines move clockwise, and
each one steps forward to hit sticks with their partner, then moves on
two people. Arriving at the end of the line, each person turns and joins
the line opposite, so the movement is continuous. The music starts very
slowly, taking up to an hour to work up to a faster beat, but the basic
steps remain the same, and simply repeat. An eight-beat time cycle called
Kaherva is played, emphasized by beating your own sticks together on
the first beat, followed by right sticks with your partner, then left sticks
(or the same stick if using only one). Each person then turns away to the
left to hit their own sticks together before turning back to their partner to
hit right sticks again, and before moving on two places to a new partner.
The repetitive form and the space in the rhythm allow opportu-
nity for creative interpretation and on this occasion there were many
imaginative variants. People turned on the spot before hitting sticks,

or jumped in and out with both feet together rather than stepping in
and out; others were changing places mid-step, and some were even
hitting their sticks in a rhythm on the ground, in a manner akin to
English Morris dances (for example, ‘Bean Setting, or the ‘Upton on
Severn Stick Dance’). It was all executed with ease and in perfect timing
on the pulse of the music. As the pace of the beat increased, some
groups of men created fast and extremely lively movements with the
basic rhythm using high jumps and wild turns. Their choreography
was spontaneous, expressive and full of energy, yet at one with the
group and the rhythm. They hit the sticks with increasing force, as
if in a display of masculine virility. The continuous music gathered
momentum whilst new people joined and others made their departure.
Apart from the very elderly, there was a wide age range of participants,
including large numbers of men, and the dance floor was now hot and
crowded. The three Gujarati musicians, who had been hired especially
for the occasion, played keyboards and drums and were joined by three
singers. The song lyrics relate to the deity Krishna, as the raas folk
dance is said to be associated with stories of the Krishna and the gopis
(shepherdesses), and depicts the circles of girls dancing around Krishna
as told in the mythology.
The next night we met at 8.30pm at the Ramgarhia Hall, joining one
of the well-known Leicester dance teachers and her group of dancers.
Already the hall was full, and both men and women were playing garba.
It began with the traditional three-clap step, performed in a eight-beat
time cycle (Kaherva, as for the raas steps) and travelling anti-clockwise
in huge concentric circles around the temporary central shrine. Again,
like the raas, the music began slowly at the outset and the movements
were walked, but as the tempo increased, the dancers’ steps moved in a
more flowing manner and gradually increased in speed. The sequence
of the simple three-clap garba is: one step to the right on the right foot
(but with the body turning to the left), then the left foot steps behind
the right, followed by one more step on the right and another on the
left foot, and the whole sequence travels to the right. Hand claps are
executed on the first three beats; clapping towards the left and down for
the first two, and then to the right and higher for the third. Gradually
more variants creep in and as the speed increases, the basic pattern
changes to a step-ball-change on each foot, travelling and turning in
rhythmic and patterned formations, with two claps in the sequence.
Some groups moved exactly together, first several feet to the right, then
back to the left, before turning again to continue anti-clockwise in a
slow progression around the hall. The three-clap and two-clap forms
of garba are called in Gujarati, Be talin no garbo ane trana no garbo, (lit.
2-clap garba and 3-clap garba) and the style of clapping and performing
half and full-turns is called heench. Often, at the end of the evening a
fast movement called ranjaniyu is played, where three or four partici-
pants may hold hands and move together in a spontaneous response to
the climax of the music, perhaps performing very fast turns, or dance
solo. This is a free-style dance form using different formations and com-
binations of movements, and can be quite wild.
As we continued, the dance teacher led the group and soon we
moved at great speed, finding spaces in the already congested dance
floor and following her creative choreography. Although extremely
warm and with little space to move, everyone enjoyed themselves.
We danced the dodhiu, a garba variation without claps where the arm
swings in opposition to the leading leg, and the feet create fast-moving
floor patterns. The stylish clothes, the laughter and joking, coupled
with the high energy of the event created a party-like atmosphere.
Again, there were some men joining in, although traditionally this is
a women’s dance.
For the ethnographer, the effect of these repetitive movements on
the body and their emotions is further revealed by participating in the
movement. One begins to understand how the recurring, circular steps
create an inward focus over a period of time. By taking part with the
women, who seem to have the movements deeply embedded in their
bodies, a more concentrated, and more meaningful level of engage-
ment takes place. This condition is heightened by the music that has,
as I noted earlier, increased in speed and tempo. As a trained dancer, it
is straightforward to copy the physical steps, and to perform the impro-
vised and more elaborated forms as they emerge, but the interior qual-
ity is of a different order. Experiencing and embodying the movement
brings an inner understanding through multi-layered perceptions: of
the touch of the claps; the balance of the body; the pressure of the feet
at each step; the energy needed at different points of the movement;
the way the weight is transferred from each foot; the rhythm of the
whole sequences, as well as the shape of the effort and the direction
of the body. These are factors inaccessible through simple observation.
Ethnomusicologist John Blacking (1974) famously acknowledged how
movements that are rhythmic and repetitive have an effect on our cog-
nition, something that was especially evident in the embodied practice
of garba and raas. Additionally, working and dancing with people not
only brings a deep involvement and personal engagement, but has the
power to transcend issues of representation, class distinction, hetero-

normative boundaries and post-colonial differences that abound in the
ethnographic fieldwork setting.
Apart from the large events at the hired halls, Navratri celebrations
take place in most of the Hindu temples in Leicester, and in smaller hired
venues by local samaj groups. Each night for the nine evenings there
will be raas and garba with prayers and arati during the evening. The
events at the temples attract the older people, and although crowded,
are quieter and more devout because of the setting. At the Shree Hindu
Mandir in Leicester, many of the older men participated both in the
garba and the raas. The musicians, rather than being brought in from
India (as in the larger events) were local people, some even devotees of
that temple. One or two temples (mandirs) have enough space to utilize
the actual temple for the garba; in others, the adjoining community
hall will be used. Afternoon temple garba occasions are also organized
so the elder women can play garba without concerns of overcrowding,
or of being out late at night or in the dark. No musicians are booked as
these elders sing for themselves whilst moving as they would once have
done in their village homes.
After the Garba, arati follows, the religious prayers and the climax
of the evening. Everyone gathers around the central shrine, called a
garabi, mounted on a table and polygonal in shape (see Figure 1.2). It
is brightly coloured, and has small ‘fairy’ lights decorating it. There are
different visual images of the goddess on each side, and a sculptural
image on the top. At most events I visited it was about four feet high,
but they can vary in size and in decoration.
Arati is the key part of puja, and may stand for the whole, as it does
here, and is so often the case with Hindu ritual. It involves the
circling of a light, or lights, around or before the representation of
the deities. This is accompanied by singing in the Gujarati tradition.
People then place their hands over the light’s flame, touch their eyes
and/or the top of their head and put some money on the special arati
plate. People may bring their own arati plates to garabas, putting
them under the shrine with the other offerings to the Goddess.
(Logan, 1988, p. 163)
One of the younger women of the dance teacher’s group at the

Ramgarhia Hall told me that the religious aspect of the event is the most
important for her, despite her love of the garba and raas. Another mar-
ried woman of the group explained that she fasted for religious reasons
Figure 1.2 Garabi – the central shrine at Navratri (credit: A. R. David)

during all nine days of the festival by eating only one meal a day.
Many of the people attending will also be worshipping Navratri at their
domestic shrines, although practices will vary. One Gujarati woman
from Nairobi who had lived in Nottingham for 25 years, interviewed
on BBC Radio 3 about her attendance at Navratri, noted the changing
patterns of attendance in the UK context:
I come only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights as we cannot do the

late nights with the children, and we have to go to work also. We do
have a shrine at home and we worship there for the nine days as well.
(Ashid Acharya, in Duran, 2001, n.p.)
When I talked with my Gujarati informants, asking them if playing

garba and raas confirmed their Gujarati identity, they all agreed that it
did, stating that although Navratri is celebrated as a pan-Indian festival,
the dances of garba and raas are known to be particular to the Gujaratis,
and recognized to be part of their religious and cultural heritage by
other Indians. Participating in Navratri constructs a Hindu identity, but
this distinct way of celebrating confirms a Gujarati Hindu identity.
Influences of garba competitions and of Bollywood film
Dance competitions perform a similar function in constructing and

confirming the notion of a Gujarati identity, especially for the young
people. Run by the main Gujarati caste associations since the late 1970s
in Leicester, garba competitions have always included community
dance teams, as well as groups of young people from temples and from
schools. But the practice of competitive folk dance is now being taken
over by Gujarati diasporic youth university teams, both in the United
Kingdom and particularly recently in the United States, where, as
geographer Elizabeth Chacko and scholar of English Ravi Menon com-
ment, ‘these performances are coded with numerous interpretations
of diasporic existence (2013, p. 98). Their study of these college teams
in the United States revealed that ‘performance becomes prioritized
as a means of expressing Indian identity among this group’ (Chacko
and Menon, 2013, p. 101). They also noted that ‘“traditionality” is
one of the most significant formal judging criteria’ (p. 105). As with
other Indian folk dance forms such as bhangra (a folk dance originally
from the Punjab), the display and competitive performances by Indian
students in college competitions has become a type of idealization
of culture, where a notion of traditional performance is created and
reified. Similarly as in the United Kingdom, US Gujarati associations

have held youth folk dance competitions since the 1980s, but it is only
recently (2000) that raas/garba dance contests have taken place on col-
lege campuses. The reifying of tradition is often predicated on a view
of tradition as unchanging and fixed, and of something that has to be
preserved in the face of other diluting or opposing influences due to
migration and the transnational movement of peoples. Yet as is well
known, especially within cultural practices such as dance and music,
customs are constantly changing and developing. The diasporic longing
for ‘authenticity’ often positions both the homeland and the host com-
munity as abandoning the original features of cultural practices, seeing
themselves as the upholders of that which is under threat, or about
to be lost. There is a certain irony in this situation, as the dances in
their staged, choreographed, and competitive exhibitions are entirely
changed from their original village appearance.
Another very specific influence on Asian young people growing up in
the United Kingdom (and elsewhere in the diaspora) is the Bollywood
film industry, and the inclusion of folk dance within these films is
a long-standing element. As far back as the 1940s, the films’ hybrid
dance styles have absorbed a melange of folk movements and music
from all parts of India (including the lively bhangra dance and music),
and components from the classical dance styles of Bharatanatyam and
Kathak, plus what was then called ‘cabaret dancing’ (David, 2007).
Garba and raas folk styles from Gujarat can be found in Bollywood films
from that time right up to the present day. For example, in the iconic
black and white film Nastik (The Atheist, 1954), the dance sequence to
the song ‘Kanhe bajaay bansari’ (‘Radha wants more’) features women
performing garba, with additional choreographies of maypole danc-
ing, clapping steps, and gopi movements with pots on heads. The set-
ting is of Krishna’s love for the gopi girls and in particular his consort
Radha, featuring the sound of his flute. Another black and white film
of 1968, Saraswatichandra, based on a famous Gujarati novel, shows an
all-women garba sequence in the song ‘Ho Main to bhool chali babul
ka desh’ (‘I love my husband’s house so much I don’t remember my
father’s place’). Both these films depict what is considered the more
traditional styles of Gujarati garba dance, performed by women in the
embroidered, full-length skirts known as ghagra or lehenga and short
blouses (choli), plus a long, flowing scarf used to cover the head and
upper body, called an odhani or dupatta.
By the 1970s in Bollywood films, men also appear in the folk dance
sequences and the choreography includes raas dandiya stick movements
along with the garba. In the film Suhaag (Husband, 1979), the song
‘Naam re sabse bada tera naam’ (‘O Mother Durga, your name is the
name. Please solve all my problems’),17 these performances are situ-
ated in a Vaishnavite temple, reminding audiences of the religious sig-
nificance of the folk dance styles. As we track through the decades, the
more ‘traditional’ forms give way to disco dandiya dances in Tezaab
(Acid, 1988) and Love, Love, Love (1989), for example. By the 1990s, two
more films feature examples of dandiya and garba – the main title song
of Sapne Saajan Ke (Dreaming of My Lover, 1992) and in the 1999 film
of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (I Have Already Given my Heart, Darling)
where we see a fast, clapping dance performed by men and women. It
uses ‘duho’, a song that describes the atmosphere of the garba and is a
common way of starting the raas dance. Here it describes the beauty of
the girl. As we move into the millennium with the highly successful
film Lagaan (Land Tax, 2001), we again find a rather more traditional
depiction of garba in the romantic song ‘Radha Kaise Na Jale’ (‘How
can Radha not be jealous?’) set with a Krishna/Radha theme, and which
features the male lead sporting a peacock feather in his headscarf as
Krishna, playing the flute and singing of his love for Radha. It is a neatly
choreographed item, filmed at times on overhead cameras to mark the
circular nature of the dance and the floor patterning, with additional
classical dance moves added to the theme. Set as if in rural India in
1893, with a rather pristine earth dance floor, and clean, costumed vil-
lagers, it is certainly a romanticized homage to the past. The way these
dances of garba and raas are portrayed in Bollywood films is a powerful
additional factor in the way Gujarati youth identify with their own
particular ethnicity, especially in a diasporic environment.
Concluding remarks
The ascriptions of religious and cultural identity maintained through the

medium of dance are common to many, although not to all diasporic
groups worldwide (Cunningham, 1998; O’Shea, 2007). Notions of cul-
ture are revealed that sustain a sense of shared customs, values, and
beliefs handed down from generation to generation. Here culture is
perhaps seen as more fixed and bounded, despite current theorization
as being non-static, dynamic, and an evolving ‘dimension of phenom-
ena’ (Appadurai, 1996, p. 13). ‘It is part of my culture’, say the girls
interviewed; adults when questioned speak of the importance of their
children in the United Kingdom learning Hindu culture. These articula-
tions of cultural identity tend to maintain boundaries and a sense of
difference, by stressing culture as a property of individuals or groups.

They speak too of an embodied habitus18 (the learned system of societal
behaviours that becomes part of an individual’s unconscious repertoire)
that may potentially create a socially and culturally informed body. It
is one that is imbued with an embodied sense of the past and carried
in the gestures and movements of the garba and raas, learnt by every
Gujarati girl as she copies the movements of her mother, grandmother,
aunts, and cousins around the floor at Navratri times. As one of Chacko
and Menon’s Gujarati interviewees stated, ‘If you are a Gujarati and
you’re doing Garba, you see it as a natural extension of yourself… you
know it as part of your culture and all that… for Gujaratis, you’ve grown
up doing it and have been always exposed to it’ (2013, p. 108).
Yet we are seeing now more fluid approaches to tradition, to culture and
to religious practices by the younger generations as they embrace popular
culture in the form of Bollywood film and dance and take their places as
citizens in a global world. This reveals an eroding of ethnic boundaries
and of a greater influence of globalization in areas such as music, fashion,
religion, and politics. Second-generation Hindus in Tariq Modood’s study
(1994) acknowledged religion to be important, but felt it was a matter
of personal spiritual fulfilment that each should find in his own way,
perhaps more in line with the dominant beliefs of the UK population.
Regular, formal worship and attendance at the temple were no longer seen
as a necessary structure in their lives, unlike the first-generation groups.
The fact that Gujarati Hindu festival occasions are both sponsored and
filmed by global TV networks, such as Sony TV Asia and Zee TV-Europe,
and broadcast to the worldwide Gujarati diaspora as well as to audiences
in Gujarat, again indicates how global and local forces can not only coex-
ist, but can intersect to produce new syntheses of cultural productions
and identities. Here, both tradition and innovation are valued. New garba
movements and the latest Asian fashion accessories sit side by side with
the signification of the traditional Gujarati female role of being the bearers
of culture and religion, the latter role highly valued and emphasized by
diaspora groups through fear of erosion of cultural and religious practices
where implicit Hindu values are not the norm. Both coexist in the multi-
layered arena of the religious Navratri festival.
Notes
1. I am aware of the problematic nature of the term ‘community’ and do not
seek here to imply that the UK Gujarati population is a homogenous group,
but simply use the term for ease of communication.
2. Including, of course, participant observation, interviews, questionnaires,

film and aural recordings.
3. This centre ran into financial difficulties and in 2008 was saved from closure
by the Bede Island Group-based asra Housing Group. At the end of 2012, the
Ethnic Minority Foundation (EMF), an independently run charity agreed to
take over the financial responsibility for the running of the centre.
4. See The Times (07/02/2004, p. 3) and the Leicester Mercury (09/02/2004, p. 3).
The East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) funded the ‘Leicester:
European Capital for Indian Cinema’ project to explore partnerships that
organizations in Leicester and the East Midlands region could forge with
India’s film and creative industries. At the time of writing (2013), no formal
arrangements have been established, but Leicester has been the site of film-
ing for several Bollywood films, such as Is Pyarko Kya Naan Doon (What Name
Shall I Call our Love, 2001), Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 (Mad, Madder, Maddest,
2012), and the British-made Indian film Jadoo the Movie (2012).
5. Bollywood: This has come to mean a particular type of dance that is an
integral part of the genre of Indian films that have a reputation for escapist
fantasy. It is an expressive form of dance, drawn from folk dances, classical
dance styles of Bharatanatyam and Kathak, and contemporary dance forms
such as jazz dance and hip-hop, with the movements closely related to the
words of the song.
6. At the time of writing, only a small amount of data from the 2011 census
has been released. This shows that Leicester’s Hindu and Sikh population
is around 93,000 (29 per cent of the city’s total), and is distinguished from
the increasing Muslim numbers. (See http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-
method/census/2011/index.html; accessed 27/12/2012).
7. Vaishnavite – devotees of the deity Vishnu, and the largest, numerically, part
of mainstream Hinduism, which is divided up into several sects. ‘Vaishnavism
is characterised by upasana (ritual worship)…Vaishnavas subscribe to ahimsa
(non-violence), vegetarianism, selfless and active altruism. Vaishnavism has
brought forth an extremely rich literature both in Sanskrit and Indian ver-
naculars as well as artistic productions (music, dance, sculpture, architecture)’
(Klostermaier 1998, p. 196).
8. This temple, now called the Shree Shakti Mandir, was originally named the
Shyama Temple after the woman guru who started it, Shyama Devi. She
had visited Zambia and so it held an attraction for refugees from there.
It is believed to be the first Hindu temple in Britain, as well as the first in
Leicester.
9. This was a survey carried out initially in 2002, documenting all the places of
worship in Leicester, and was updated in 2004 (Stokes, 2004). It remains dif-
ficult to ascertain the exact number of Hindu temples, as several community
centres where worship takes place are included.
10. Swaminarayan – literally means ‘Lord God’. The name is the title of a reli-
gious movement founded in Gujarat by Sahajanand Swami who lived in the
late eighteenth century (1781–1830). The term is also used as a title for the
founder. The present leader is Pramukh Swami Maharaj.
11. Sanatan – eternal, unchanging. The term is now used more generally by
modern Hindus to describe their religion.
12. Large Swaminarayan temples are being built all over the world. In December
2004 I visited the site of the new Swaminarayan temple complex in Delhi
(opened late 2005). At that time, there were over 5000 Rajasthani workers
on the 60-acre site, carving statues, mixing concrete, carrying bricks, sanding
stones, polishing marble, and other heavy work. The plans were for one large
and one smaller temple, an Imax cinema (for showing devotional films), a
library, a mansion residence for Pramukh Swami Maharaj for his visits, a
housing complex for devotees, a restaurant, and gardens with fountains and
resting places. The whole complex is designed to accommodate up to 8000
visitors every day and people enter with a paid ticket giving them access to
all, or just part of the site.
13. Jati (Hindi) – sub-caste, an endogamous group with a hereditary occupation.
Sampradaya – a ‘handing on’; a guru-led movement such as Swaminarayan or
ISKCON.
14. Prasada is ritually blessed food, or other blessed items that are given to
devotees after being offered to the deities.
15. The Leicester Hindu Festival Council was formed in 1990 and emerged out
of the Gujarat Hindu Association with a specific brief to organize the large
Hindu festivals in conjunction with the City Council. Its main aims and
objectives are: ‘to celebrate Hindu festivals; to promote goodwill, unanim-
ity and harmonious relationships amongst the various sectors of Leicester’s
Community by organizing programmes of social, cultural, recreational
and leisure activities; to enhance the profile of the Hindu community in
Leicestershire; to speak as one voice on Hindu issues, and to encourage our
younger generation to digest the rich traditional values of our culture and
religion’ (Champaneria, 2003, p. 31).
16. Funding to support these events was offered by Leicester City Council. They
paid for the hire of the Ramgarhia Hall – a cost of £20,000 in 2003. The
council also covers the costs of the city’s autumn Hindu Divali festivities
at around £30–40,000 at that time (http://www.leicester.gov.uk; accessed
06/03/2004).
17. The film song was copied from a traditional Gujarati song ‘Hey Ranglo,
Jamyo kalindi’ (‘Krishna is playing raas with the Gopis and Radha near the
Kalindi river’).
18. Contemporary usage of this term was introduced by French sociologist
Marcel Mauss in the 1930s and later reformulated by Pierre Bourdieu in the
late 1970s.
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2
How Black Is Black?:
The Indigenous Atis Compete
at the Ati-atihan Festival
Patrick Alcedo
Without fail, the Ati-atihan festival is celebrated in the town of Kalibo in

the province of Aklan, in the Philippines every January. ‘Rain or shine’,
local residents would say in English, Ati-atihan must go on. Popularly
considered as the Philippines’ equivalent to the famed Mardi Gras of
New Orleans and the Carnival of Rio de Janeiro, Ati-atihan brings par-
ticipants and visiting tourists to this central town on the northern tip
of Panay Island to dance in the streets for days. For some of them their
dance is not simply for fun, but is an offering to Santo Niño, the Holy
Child Jesus, whose image was first brought by the Portuguese explorer
Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, when he landed on the neighbouring
island of Cebu to spread Roman Catholicism and to begin the project
of Spanish colonialism in this part of the world.
For others their dance is also in remembrance of the indigenous
Negritos, who are called Atis in the Aklanon language, the vernacular
in this central region of the country.1 After all, the word ‘Ati-atihan’, a
construction in the national language Tagalog2 means ‘to look like the
Atis’. Many claim that they are the Filipinos’ putative ancestors, a group
that embodies the country’s pre-colonial past – a lifeworld of purity
that is inhabited in festivals that honour them. They believe that the
Atis are untainted by the foreignness brought by the Europeans during
the Spanish colonial period from the middle of the sixteenth century
to the end of the nineteenth century; followed by the Americans who
colonized the country until the middle of the twentieth century; and
by the Chinese, Indians, Malays, and other foreigners who also landed
on the archipelago’s soil at different points in time for political and
economic gains. Yet in spite of the central role the Atis play in the
formation of Filipino identity, they are to this day disadvantaged, beset
with social ills, and have even become a reminder of the Philippine
37
government’s failure in solving the marginal plight of the indigenous

peoples.3
Festival-goers, upon seeing Atis watching on the side, invite them to
dance. Although the Atis have at times been at the front and centre in
the three-day Ati-atihan festival because of this spur-of-the-moment
invitation, they have not officially participated in the street-dancing
competition. Against the beatings of bass, snare, and tom-tom drums
and other percussive instruments, played in 4/4 time signature of da,
da, da, ta, the Atis activate their dancing in the space suddenly vacated
by the people who brought them in. Tunes like those from the US Great
Depression, Happy Days Are Here Again, and the theme song of the hit
television series in the 1970s, Hawaii 5-O, created from the striking of
xylophones additionally accompany the dancing of the Atis.
Always on a Saturday, between the Ati-atihan’s official start on a
Friday and its culmination that traditionally falls on the third Sunday of
the month, the competition is one of the highlights of the festival. The
competition has four categories, three of which carry English names.
The first is ‘Individual’, which has traditionally and largely been partici-
pated in by gay men or men of the ‘third sex’,4 who cross-dress mostly
as Folies Bergère chorus girls. The second is ‘Modern’, where participants
are required to don knee-length, muumuu-like dresses that hang from
the shoulders. Instead of printing Hawaiian or Polynesian floral motifs
on them, and in order to turn them genderless, they are painted with
abstract designs using acrylic colours and are made extravagant by sew-
ing extra tassels and laces on them. The next is ‘Tribal’, where dancers
wear costumes reminiscent of those worn by the Mardi Gras Indians
of New Orleans: heavy headdresses partner their suits that are either
beaded, feathered, or glued with mirror shards and attractive elements
such as Capiz seashells and dyed abaca fibres. These categories were
adopted in the 1970s when Kalibo’s Mayor’s Office decided to restruc-
ture an existing small festival for tourism purposes. Having English titles
helped assure that the festival was not only going to attract Filipino but
also foreign tourists.
Starting in the 1980s, in order to compete with Cebu’s Sinulog, Iloilo’s
Dinagyang, and Bacolod’s Mascara festivals in neighbouring areas which
were fast gaining national and international prominence, the Kalibo’s
Mayor’s Office came up with a fourth category that they named in
Aklanon as Balik Ati (‘A Return to the Atis’). During this period, the
festival organizers felt that the true spirit of Ati-atihan, as an event that
honoured the Aklanon ancestry through remembering the indigenous
Atis was slowly being eroded by too much modernization and constant
How Black Is Black? 39
gesturing to the West. An Aklanon title with the word ‘Ati’ and ‘return’
in it was meant to redress such development which, for the organizers,
was an unproductive overdevelopment. Balik Ati stipulates that all the
materials worn by participants, including musical instruments should
be made of indigenous materials. Dried bamboos, banana leaves, and
coconut husks are examples of such materials because they are locally
grown and not imported from somewhere else. These materials are to be
constructed as either percussive instruments or dresses that the groups
imagine Atis used in times long past.
While there are marked differences in the costuming and instrumen-
tation of these four competition categories, the improvisational dancing
ties them together. This type of dance, which is only performed dur-
ing the Ati-atihan festival, is called sadsad, an Aklanon word meaning
‘to drag one’s feet’. Enveloped by overwhelming sounds coming from
musical bands marching around the streets, dancers in sadsad submit
their everyday bodies a little bit more to the ground to bounce to the
never-ending rhythm and tunes. As if slightly jogging, almost in place,
they loosely organize their sadsad around three initial heavy steps and
a terminating light-foot brush. Given that Ati-atihan is known not only
for welcoming people to come with differing motivations, but also for
its sadsad that stimulates improvisation or even individual interpreta-
tion of what sadsad is, it has consistently attracted a huge number of
visitors. Unlike other Philippine festivals, such as the ones previously
mentioned, where the street dancing is highly choreographed and cor-
doned off from visitors, the openness of sadsad allows people on the
sidelines to jump in to dance, and, in reverse, encourages competitors
to momentarily bring their audience to the competition fold.
Regardless of whichever category individuals and groups compete
under, everybody is expected to apply soot on parts of their body.
However, for those in the ‘Tribal’ and ‘Balik Ati’ categories, they are to
cover their entire bodies with soot, most especially their faces. Sooting
themselves black, using liquefied or ground charcoal, exaggeratedly
approximates the dark skin of the indigenous Atis. For the dominant
population, the lowland Aklanons, who are in charge of organizing the
Ati-atihan festival, the Atis they mimic and performatively imagine have
remained racially pure: untouched by intermarriage and contact with
the outsiders. Therefore, phenotypically their skin tone should have
remained pitch black. As Isar P. Godreau suggests in her fieldwork among
the black residents in San Antón in Ponce, Puerto Rico, it is usually the
state that maps racial groupings based on colour, particularly about their
experience when the state renovated their houses as part of a historic
black site (2006, pp. 172, 186). Rather than mitigating the harshness ensu-
ing from racial white and black divides, such physical and architectural
assignations actually deepen those very divides and distance the black to
an irretrievable romantic past and space. The case of the Atis participating
in the street-dancing competition of the 2009 Ati-atihan festival provides
a parallel critique of this highly unproductive racial delineation.
Wanting to represent themselves in this centuries-old festival that has
largely been participated in by the majority lowland Filipinos, the Atis
finally registered in the annual competition. They paraded in the streets
not only in the hopes of winning, but also to appear in public as official
members of the competition. As Imelda Chavez, one of the competing
participants, said in Aklanon, Ati-atihan ngani, hay para guid a sa kamun
nga mga Ati eon (That’s why it’s called Ati-atihan because it is for us the
Atis) (Chavez, 2008, video recording). Through their competing that
year, they became the first indigenous group to participate in the entire
history of the festival.
The funds that I raised from Aklanon immigrants in Toronto, Canada,
augmented the cash subsidy given by the Mayor’s Office to the Atis as a
competing group that year. With these amounts of money, the Atis pur-
chased costumes, props, and musical instruments that they themselves
designed for the competition. And in combination with donations
from Aklanons and local entrepreneurs in Kalibo, the Atis were able to
prepare meals for their dancers and musicians before and during the
festival – an incentive that convinced their relatives from the adjacent
province of Iloilo to join them.
Here I further the argument I have made elsewhere that the perfor-
mance of ‘authentic’ bodies during the Ati-atihan is a form of ‘strategic
essentializing’, a device in line with philosopher and post-colonial
theorist Gayatri Spivak’s suggestion that marginalized communities
choose to essentialize themselves in moments when they need to set
themselves apart from others in order to unite for political reasons (see
Spivak, 1988, pp. 271–313). I find Spivak’s term productive in under-
standing the transient identities the Atis embodied and the particular
kind of agency they exhibited during the Ati-atihan festival in order to
respond to forces of regional hegemony, nationalism, and modernity.
Following Spivak’s line of theorization, the type of essentialism the
Atis deployed during performance gained consolidation and power,
precisely because it was hinged on the temporary public space and time
that the Ati-atihan festival creates.
In recounting my experience in helping organize the festival participa-
tion of the Atis, I offer insights into the issue of indigenous modernity,5
which the public performance of the Atis as ‘authentic’ Filipinos brought

to the fore. I suggest as well that my narrating this experience from the
points of view of both an indigenous ethnographer, who was born in the
adjacent Roxas City and raised in Kalibo, and of a scholar and dance prac-
titioner working and residing in the multicultural city of Toronto, I con-
tinue to question the insider/outsider debate.6 As an Aklanon, I question
if there is a distant ‘there’ in a place I still consider home, and if I could
search ‘uncanny’ encounters in a familiar and familial terrain, a search
that has predominantly been the grist to the ethnographic mill. It is
from this interstitial space that I continue to straddle the zones between
the researcher and the researched and, following Kirin Narayan’s earlier
formulation (1993), from my ‘multiplex identity’ that continually oscil-
lates between the ‘I’ to the ‘Other’ where I write about my ethnographic
experience with the Atis from my home province of Aklan.
Construction of authenticity
Philippine studies scholar Fernando Nakpil Zialcita acknowledges the

concepts of ‘modernity,’ the ‘West,’ and the ‘nation’ as embedded in
discussions around authenticity and the search for and staging of it
(2005, pp. 23–8). He suggests that in the Philippines, particularly with
regards to the contact of the indigenous population with Spanish
colonizers and other foreigners, a ‘new culture’ emerged that could be
described as a ‘collage’ of local and cultural elements from outside. The
cultural ‘newness’ Zialcita identifies serves as an exegesis optic through
which to understand the artificial and/or performative construction of
Ati-atihan’s authenticity.
Before Ati-atihan became a national and an international tourist
attraction in the 1970s, it was a smaller event, participated in almost
exclusively by Kalibo residents and visitors from other towns in the
province. Ati-atihan was then called Santo Niño, a modest festival with
dancing that happened around the town plaza after a Catholic Mass.
Similar to the present day Ati-atihan, the festival’s Mass was held on the
third Sunday of January, which the Roman Catholic Liturgical Calendar
assigns for the feast of the Santo Niño.
Cecile Motus states that when she was going to school in Cebu in
the early 1960s, she would always go home to Kalibo for the Santo Niño
fiesta, bringing along her college friends (Motus, 2010: recorded inter-
view). Together with her cousins, she would ask their aunt to sew cos-
tumes for them. She recalls, ‘One year we would be Mexicans, another
year in kaftans. The men would simply pull down curtains from our
living room to make whatever dresses they could design.’ Suddenly they
were señorita ladies in flowing dresses, with ruffled sleeves and appliquéd
skirts, or sultans from the Ottoman Empire in overflowing robes held
together with a sash around their waists. Carrying small images of the
Santo Niño, they would rush to the streets to teach their friends how to
sadsad. Dancing against percussive sounds, they slowly sadsad their way
around the plaza, their dragging dance creating slight waves around
Kalibo. Viva kay Señor Santo Niño, Viva! (‘Long Live the Holy Child, Long
Live!’), Cecile taught her classmates to shout the phrase that honours
the Santo Niño while doing the sadsad.7
In the 1960s the national government released a mandate asking
local governments to promote regional tourism through cultural
events, as a way of opening the Philippines more to the world. Around
this time period, the country’s Secretary of Education, Alejandro Roces,
would go to Kalibo to evaluate educational programmes in the area.
One of his visits coincided with the January season of the Santo Niño
fiesta. Federico Icamina, Kalibo’s Mayor at that time, seized this oppor-
tunity and invited Secretary Roces to the fiesta. Upon witnessing the
modest gathering, Secretary Roces suggested that in order to attract
tourists to go to Kalibo, the fiesta should be ‘modernized’ and trans-
formed into what Librada Palmani, Aklan’s former Music Supervisor
for the Department of Education, describes as a ‘carnivalistic’ event.
Magpa-contest ka mana, bahala ka, basta insertan mo it modern do festival
(‘Hold contests, it’s up to you, as long as you insert modern in the
festival’) was what Palmani remembered Secretary Roces telling Mayor
Icamina (2009).
Secretary Roces, a native speaker of the dominant language Tagalog,
provided the idea of changing the name of the festival from Santo Niño
to Ati-atihan, to make the festival not limited to Roman Catholicism
and instead encompass participants who were not of this faith. Roces
surmised that ‘Ati-atihan’ could increase festival attendance, as tracing
one’s origins to the Atis is a genealogical trope shared, too, by various
ethnolinguistic groups throughout the country. In response to the
changes Secretary Roces suggested, Mayor Icamina formed the Ati-atihan
Tourism Development Committee that went about setting up parade and
street-dancing contests. One requirement in this competition was for
participants to apply soot on their bodies. In addition, the Committee
staged a theatrical pageant on Kalibo’s town square, based on the origin
myth called the ‘Barter of Panay’, a mythic narrative about Atis giving
the lowlands in the early thirteenth century to the fair-skinned Borneans
in exchange for a golden salakot (brim hat).
In 1975 Mayor Icamina invited the former first lady of the Philippines,
the infamous Imelda Marcos and her husband, Ferdinand Marcos, to fly
to Kalibo to signal the start of the grand procession. Anticipating a large
crowd, the newly formed Ati-atihan Tourism Development Committee
together with the Parish of Kalibo moved the Holy Mass from the
Cathedral to the plaza. Imelda was particularly taken by the spectacle
and drama of the Ati-atihan of lowland Aklanons completely sooted
and in carnivalesque attires, so much so that she continued inviting
Ati-atihan ‘tribal’ groups to the country’s capital of Manila to showcase
embodiments of the authentic culture of Filipinos to national leaders
and foreign dignitaries. The ‘Imeldification’ of the Ati-atihan continues
until today.
Combining an origin myth with a competition that required
Aklanons to form contingents of sooted bodies in extravagant costumes
has ensured the influx to Kalibo of tourists who are in search of an
‘authentic’ experience elsewhere.8 The tracing of origins three centuries
before the landing of Magellan and the sudden abundance of darkened
bodies transport the Ati-atihan into a land of antiquity. Such tracing has
resulted in government officials dubbing, and most Aklanons claiming
with pride, Ati-atihan as the ‘Mother of All Philippine Festivals’. For
other regions in the country that have staged their own street festivals
as well, it has served to this day as a model of authenticity.
Meeting the Atis
After having participated in, and conducted research on, the Kalibo
Ati-atihan in 2000 and 2001, I went back to Kalibo in August 2005 to
continue my fieldwork. This time I decided to focus my research on
the Atis – moving beyond the majority lowland Aklanon population
who had occupied my previous research. Inspired by the ethnography
of Jeremy MacClancy who proposes in his edited book, Exotic No More:
Anthropology in the Front Lines, an ethnography that aims to ‘make a large
contribution towards the understanding of a wide range of practical
social issues’ (2002, p. 2), I aimed for my research to generate a positive
alternative modernity for the Atis, and to that regard, this is what I did.
The way in which the Atis have settled in the province and have ended
their nomadic existence is not unfamiliar to me. I have always known,
growing up in Aklan, that a group of Atis had settled in Bulwang, some
four kilometres away from Kalibo. Since I did not know an Ati person-
ally, I requested a high school classmate, Nancylene Grace-Gervacio to
accompany me to the Ati community in June 2005. I intended to do
research on their participation in the Ati-atihan festival. Nancy, whose

mother is an Aklanon and father an African American from Atlanta,
Georgia, grew up with the Atis as her neighbours in the nearby barrio
(neighbourhood) of Bulwang in the town of Numancia. Even though
she later moved to Kalibo, she has kept her friendship with them, espe-
cially with the Mateo family. Because of her dark skin, Nancy is com-
monly mistaken in Kalibo as an Ati, a term my high school classmates
used pejoratively on several occasions. However, the Atis, conversely,
perceive Nancy as a mestiza, someone with mixed ancestry, or even a
kana, an American.
I have always known that the Atis live close to the Aklan River, a
source of water that has been generous to their daily needs. Una man
lang sanda eun pirmi sa idaeom it tulay (‘You will for certain find them
under the bridge’), I would hear as a child whenever I would ask the
whereabouts of the Atis. Others would warn me not to go close to them,
for they were perceived to be uneducated and associating with them
could turn habits uncouth. Considered as traditional healers with inti-
mate knowledge of herbal medicine, some of them are believed to possess
a supernatural ability to usog (hurt) anyone. They could make you suffer
from an unexplained excruciating stomach-ache, which not even medical
doctors are able to treat. Only the Atis, after they dab saliva on the sick
person’s stomach, can remove this sudden pain from the person’s body.
The Atis are descended from Melanesians, not from the Malayans who
are the ancestors of lowland Filipinos. Due to their intermarriage with
the Bisaya, the Atis I have met in Aklan are not pygmy looking, like the
ones illustrated in the textbooks I used in grade school. But their dark
skin sets them apart from the majority Aklanons, who, for the Atis, are
the Bisaya, light-skinned individuals with straight hair and better access
to resources. This lone physical trait excluded them from being part of
the world, and the privilege that came with it, which I used to inhabit
at the other side of the bridge.
For the Atis their world is divided between sanda and kami, pronouns
in the Aklanon language that translate to ‘they’ and the exclusive ‘we’.
For them, I am a Bisaya, an inhabitant of sanda, which my research
assistant heard them say was made obvious by the colour of my pale
skin that turns slightly reddish when hit directly by sunlight; a skin that
could only be owned by someone who has lived in a cold place for a
long time. I, too, heard them say much later that even if I were as dark
as they are, the way I carry my body would still tell them I am not from
their place. The earth does not ground my movements. My body is a
bit lifted, a little off the ground when I walk and sit. I conduct myself
just like the other Bisaya, or even somebody from far away. For the Atis,
at least for those I have worked with in the context of their Ati-atihan
participation, racial identity is marked both by the skin’s colour grada-
tion and the quality of movements the body enacts.
From the Mayor’s Office, where Nancy works as a social worker for
children with special needs, we hired a motorized tricycle to bring us
to the Atis – across the Aklan Bridge that traverses the Aklan River and
onto a highway that connects Kalibo and the other towns northwest of
it. Nancy gently tapped the hand of the driver to indicate that the weld-
ing shop coming into view was where we needed to stop. We walked
towards a clearing 300 metres away from the highway, where six Ati
families have constructed their homes on what appeared to be one
hectare of land, spaced with an open field for grazing and lined with
banana trees, coconut trees, and other agricultural plants. In exchange
for either rental fees or, in the case of the Mateos, for keeping squatters
from the land of Iloreta Lachica, a rich Bisaya Aklanon, the Atis built a
cluster of houses made mostly of bamboo and thatch. Since Iloreta is a
US citizen, she has to divide her time between Southern California and
Aklan to keep her citizenship status. Her privileged transnational life
prevents her from guarding her own land, and therefore gave permis-
sion to the Mateos to live on it for free.
The Mateos are farmers who originally came from Negros, another
province directly south of Aklan. They were specifically from the town
of Marikudo, the same name of the Ati chieftain from the origin myth,
‘Barter of Panay’, who accepted the golden brim on behalf of his Ati
community. Meleton, the head of the Mateo family, narrated that in
1983, for nine straight months, not a single drop of rain fell on the
town of Marikudo. Yet Meleton did not lose hope after hearing from his
neighbours that food was in abundance on Mindoro, an island slightly
north-west of Panay island.
With six other Ati families, Meleton, with his wife and eight children,
travelled by foot: stip by stip (step-by-step) – as Imelda, his 37-year-old
daughter, described their migration in English.9 In November of 1983
they reached Aklan, which they thought at that time was going to be
their last stop before finally heading towards Mindoro island. They
chose to stay by the Aklan River, on a bank that separates the capital
town of Kalibo from the town of Numancia and some 800 metres
away from where they live now. While resting in Aklan, an American
Protestant missionary couple befriended them. Ginpalangga guid kami,
Meleton fondly recalled how the Americans (‘really cared for them’),
providing them with their basic needs, even hiring a beautician to cut
their hair. The couple eventually offered Meleton a job as a janitor in

Kalibo Faith Academy, a grade school they founded, and where his chil-
dren could go soon after as students. The support they received from the
Americans allowed them to stay and convinced Meleton not to pursue
his plan of taking his family to Mindoro.
Marina, one of Meleton’s daughters, welcomed us. I right away rec-
ognized her. I had seen her at times during interscholastic cultural and
sports events, for she too went to Kalibo for her high school education.
She informed us that when Atis participate in the Ati-atihan, they do
so informally. But she suggested that if I wanted to conduct serious
research, I should get in touch with her younger brother, Roy. He had
just graduated on a full government scholarship with a Bachelor of
Science in Physical Education from Siliman, a university that American
Protestant Christian missionaries founded at the turn of the twentieth
century in Dumaguete City.
I met Roy when I went to Bulwang again, this time on my own, on a
Sunday when he was not working as a hired hand on a nearby agricul-
tural farm. Roy explained that because of his training in the performing
arts, and the recent experience of his older brother as a choreographer
in the Dinagyang festival of Iloilo City, he had been inspired to gather
a group of Atis for the Ati-atihan street-dancing competition. With
his relatives around, he said in Aklanon, Dapat mag-inta kita ay do Ati-
atihan hay ginpangaean katon (‘We should be part of the contest, as the
Ati-atihan is in fact named after us’). Lack of sponsors and government
initiative prevented them from doing so in the past.
I had to go back to Southern California to continue my postdoctoral
work. I told Roy that because I am a dancer and choreographer myself
and was one of the founders of an Ati-atihan group when I was in
high school in Kalibo, I would join him to begin the planning on my
next visit. With that promise, I travelled back to Kalibo several times
to explore the possibility of them participating in the festival’s parade
competition.
Earnest Planning
Informed by the work being done at the National Museum of the

American Indian in Washington, DC, of actively involving Native
Americans in representing themselves, I went back to Bulwang in
November 2007 to see about the Atis’ original interest in participating
in the Ati-atihan festival. Even though it was a short one-month visit
that only allowed for a few meetings, Roy and I had firmed up the plan
of forming a group of Atis for the Ati-atihan. We both agreed that his
family was to take a leadership role.
As soon as I began my faculty position in Toronto, I started raising funds
for the Atis. My simultaneous appointment as the cultural advisor of the
United Association of Aklanon in Toronto provided me with immediate
access to Aklanon immigrants. The Association’s records indicate that in
2008 there were roughly 1000 Aklanons living in the Greater Toronto
Area, excluding the second generation and the ‘one point fives’, those
who were born in the Philippines but raised in Canada. The profit the
Association collects from entrance tickets during the Ati-atihan festival
they organize annually in Toronto is used for scholarship programmes of
indigent Aklanons, and as emergency funds for calamity victims in Aklan.
As the person in charge of the adjudication process behind their Ati-
atihan’s sadsad competition, I am invited to the Association’s meetings.
In one of my early meetings with the Association, I shared with the
officers the plan of a group of Atis to join the competition. ‘They too are
Aklanons’, I explained, ‘and we should also consider extending help to
them.’ The Aklanons during that meeting promised to pass the hat and
to come up with activities to raise funds for the Atis.
In May 2008 I went back to Kalibo for a three-month faculty research
break. That length of time allowed Roy and me to consult with their
elders and to travel to areas in the province, where the Atis have also
settled. On 21 June the devastating Typhoon Frank, internationally
coded as Fengshen, hit Panay – a typhoon so strong that it inundated
huge parts of the island, knocked out water and power supplies, and
claimed more than a thousand lives, making it one of the worst natural
calamities the island has ever encountered. The bodies of more than
40 people cannot be found up to the present. Frank wreaked permanent
havoc and pain, leaving thousands of people destitute and homeless,
including the Atis in Bulwang. Regardless of who you were: rich or poor,
black or fair-skinned, Frank’s pernicious hold reached everyone.
I took a tricycle in hope of finding grocers that were still open for
business. The driver, struggling to navigate felled electric posts blocking
the road and thick mud covering the streets, jokingly said, ‘Now I know
why the typhoon is named Frank.’ I asked why, and he replied, ‘Don’t
you see? He really did it his way’, referring to Frank Sinatra’s popular
song, My Way, which is a favourite choice at karaoke bars in Kalibo.
I could not help but join him in his laughter, an unexpected reminder
of the Filipinos’ penchant for American culture. His sense of humour
was a temporary lift in the wake of the typhoon that brought the entire
island to its knees.
A visit to Bulwang a few days later confirmed what I had feared the
most. Gone were the bamboo and thatch huts of the Atis, and so was
their small plantation that provided them with regular produce. In the
centre of the typhoon’s debris, Roy and his family scraped to build a
temporary shelter out of wood, GI sheets, and tarpaulin canvass they
had rescued from the flood. It was a far cry from their old house I used
to visit, which though made of light materials had partial cement walls
on the sides. Non-governmental organizations had paid them a visit
that day promising to provide them with food, clothing, and medicine.
Roy’s older sister, who works as a midwife on the famed Boracay island –
the country’s primary tourist destination north of the province that
brings in thousands of guests mostly from neighbouring countries like
South Korea, Taiwan, and China – promised to send them money for a
jetmatic pump. If dug deep enough into the ground, the pump would
give them a reliable supply of potable water.
Given their dismal situation and the amount of work they needed to
do to bring back a sense of normalcy in their lives, I estimated that it
would take a while for them to regain their footing. When I suggested
that we hold off the plan of participating, the Mateos declined. Frank’s
onslaught only strengthened their decision to take part in the competi-
tion. In its aftermath, and due to this newfound resolve, conversations
around recruitment, costumes, music, transportation, and food ensued.
Going home to compete
Having raised a couple of hundred dollars for the costumes and musi-
cal instruments the Atis needed, I went back to Aklan in the middle of
December 2008. Before reaching Bulwang, I requested the tricycle to
make a pit stop at the bakery by the Aklan Bridge to buy ensaymada
bread, which if I am lucky are newly baked, hot enough to make the
margarine and sugar ooze a little on the sides. I usually buy ensaymada by
the dozens for the Atis as snacks, after their day’s obligations, when the
sun had set a little and was poised for dusk. I excitedly walked past a row
of houses owned by Bisaya, neighbours of the Atis who again this time
asked that I linger a little for a chat. I promised that when the Ati-atihan
festival was over, I would pay them a visit.
After walking through the plot where the cows were let go to graze,
another field gave way to where the Mateos live. Haeon eon si Patrick!
(‘There is Patrick now!’) a group of Ati children shouted as they saw me
approach from the horizon. The house of the Mateos was newly built; it
was still of bamboo and thatch, but, this time, it is kept off the ground
by sturdy bamboo poles. Marina stopped sweeping dried leaves around

the house to greet me. She politely thanked me for the two plastic bags
of ensaymada I brought. Roy, off from work that day, came down from
the house upon hearing of my arrival. He ushered me to the lower
part of the house. He enthused that there were more than 30 Atis who
had already enlisted, enough to be considered an official entry for the
competition. Since it was a Sunday, most of the Atis were around that
day and, Roy informed me, we could gather them to form committees.
Some of them were now back from the nearby Philadelphia Community
Church, a Born Again Christian church. The rest were taking a break
from making charcoal and broomsticks, out of ibyuk palm fronds they
sell in Kalibo’s public market and shopping centre. It was a delight to
see one of their Ati neighbours pumping water for boiling rice from a
jetmatic pump, which must have come from Roy’s sister. Typhoon Frank
seemed distant that day.
As agreed before, we were to find a name for the group to be registered
by the Kalibo Ati-atihan Management Board, a body of public officials
and the incumbent Mayor, temporarily appointed to oversee activities
pertaining to Ati-atihan. Roy said that his inspiration for the name of the
group came from the Bible. Mga Kaliwat ni Datu Marikudo (‘Descendants
of Datu Marikudo’) after the Biblical, ‘Descendants of Abraham’, he
beamed with pride. Marina was not too pleased; it was too long she
said and the word, kaliwat, is antiquated. ‘Why not be simple and a bit
modern?’, she continued, and then names the group, Puro Ati (‘Pure Ati’)
‘It’s short enough to be written on the banners and the shields, and can
easily be remembered by the public’, she ended. The Mateos agreed that
the name to be registered was the one Marina had just suggested.
We then proceeded to form an organizing committee in charge of
membership, costume, music, dance, and food. Both Roy and Marina
knew that the Canadian dollars I had raised were not enough to cover
all the expenses, and they explained that if we wanted to secure the
commitment of the 30 newly registered members, we had to provide
three meals every day for three consecutive days. Confident that I could
solicit help from my friends in Kalibo, I told them not to worry. I told
the food committee to go ahead and inform the members that food
would run for four days. Some of them were coming from long dis-
tances with most probably no cash in hand, so buying meals for the
duration of the festival was out of the question. Being a dancer and
trainer myself, I understood how physically taxing it is to dance in the
streets for three days, from when the sun is at its highest during the day
to when it finally sets in evening.
My arrival in Kalibo a month before the festival gave me the chance

to seek additional donations from Aklanon families I know. I collected
rice, coffee, sugar, bread, and bottled water for the Atis. Because of
these local donations, the money from Toronto went a long way in
buying their musical instruments, props, and costumes, whose design
and construction followed the advice received from Meleton and
other Ati elders. Needing to rehearse their sadsad with their own musi-
cal instruments, Roy and I bought bamboo poles from their Bisaya
neighbour and gave them to the participants, who volunteered to turn
them into striking idiophones. They hollowed the poles and cut them
in varying lengths to shape stamping tubes that they pounded at an
angle on the ground. Out of those poles, they also created quill-shaped
tubes and their accompanying bamboo sticks for striking. The musical
instruments from these hardy plants, which grow abundantly in the
Philippines, produced indefinite percussive pitches.10
When asked, Roy explained that their participation was not solely
for religious reasons, but to remind the public of the Atis customs
and traditions and the need for including the Atis in a festival that is
named after them. Roy pointed out that even if this were their impetus
behind competing, some of their members would attend the festival
as an expression of their Roman Catholic faith. Not all of them were
Protestants or Born Again Christians like himself and his family. In
fact, he stated, his relatives who were arriving from Iloilo were Roman
Catholics. Besides, Roy said, although the majority of them were Atis or
of Ati descent, some were Bisaya neighbours and friends, and they too
were Roman Catholics.
Tribal meeting
As Puro Ati’s advisor, I went with Roy to the Mayor’s office for the first
meeting of leaders, referred to in English as ‘tribal leaders’, who had
registered their groups for the parade competition. Apart from Roy, the
tribal leaders were all Bisaya. I asked Roy to claim the chair in the mid-
dle of the row to announce that he was the leader of Puro Ati. Upon
meeting Roy, one of the tribal leaders said in Aklanon, Owa it pagkapirdi
dayang mga Ati ay sanda abi do original (‘There’s no way the Atis will lose
for after all they are the original’). His female companion continued
in Aklanon, Bukon it piras katon, indi eon sanda kahinangean magdimus
it buling (‘Unlike us, they need not apply soot to darken themselves’).
Roy and I smiled, seeing a sure victory once Puro Ati had crossed the
competition threshold.
A representative from the Kalibo Ati-atihan Management Board, known

among competing participants simply as KAMB, started reviewing the
contest rules and regulations. When he stated in English that, ‘exposed
faces and parts of the body of participants must be covered with black
soot using painting material,’ I asked if the Atis needed to soot them-
selves. The representative answered that they had to, since sooting
had always been part of the contest. Roy turned to me and said in the
vernacular, Mauna guid a kaitum do anda nga gusto? (‘How black do they
really want us to be?’), a question I also shared with him. At that point,
I realized that blackness did not reside among the Atis, or in the biology
of any ethnic group for that matter. For the organizers, the blackness in
the Ati-atihan world was achievable through the artificial act of apply-
ing a painting material of soot on one’s body. Before the meeting ended,
the representative reminded the tribal leaders that if they wished to get
their financial subsidy of 10,000 pesos (Can$250) without delay, they
had to submit a photo of their sample costumes the following week for
KAMB’s approval.
Sensing the urgency, Roy said that he would consult right away with
their elders as to what their ancestors used to wear. His father explained
that men used to wear a g-string and women a piece of long cloth that
they would tie on top of their shoulders, a kind of tubular cloth, almost
similar to the malong, Muslim women wear from Maguindanao in the
Southern Philippines.
Knowing how expensive fabrics are in Kalibo, I offered to buy the
materials for the costumes in Iloilo City, which is four hours away by
bus in Aklan. I told them I knew where to get the fabrics cheap in the
city, from a store owned by a Filipino-Chinese merchant, the same
shop where I bought costumes for the grade school students I trained
for a folk dance competition in 2000. The next day I went to Iloilo
and bought close to 150 metres of fabric. Upon coming back to Kalibo,
I gave the fabric to Marina, who made a model costume for men and
women. The competition required that men carry a spear and shield.
However, the shield has never been part of the way Ati practice their
everyday lives. The Mateo family explained that the Atis as a people do
not engage in wars; they would rather leave a contested place to keep
peace with others. For the sake of the competition, Roy started working
on both these props. Imelda, the older sister of Roy, and their nephew
Gumer volunteered to model the costumes.
Having finished the model costumes and wanting to take hold of
the subsidy, Roy and I went back to KAMB, to show the photos of
Imelda and Gumer in their newly constructed costumes and props. The
disappointment on the face of KAMB’s Director, a friend of my parents,

immediately became apparent. Pointing at the photos we laid before
him, he said in Aklanon:
You should look more tribal, and you should be darker. And you
should use dried banana leaves instead of these printed fabrics, and
if you really want to win, you should hire a beautician to make your
hair appear more kinky. And for your necklace, hang a small human
skull, and clip dried bones on your hair. Just like what you see on
television, on those programmes about Africa.
I was livid, and Roy, equally dismayed, responded in a combination of

Aklanon and English, ‘With all due respect sir, bukon man kami it kani-
bals, ag daya gid man do ginsuksok it among mga ninuno’ (‘With all
due respect sir, we are and have never been cannibals. And besides, this
is what our ancestors used to wear’). In defence of Roy, a KAMB officer
who was also a family friend, told the Director that ‘whatever is their
custom and tradition, that is what needs to be followed’, to which the
Director answered back, ‘It’s up to you, these are just suggestions, and
if you want to win you really have to be original.’ Win or lose, Roy and
I both agreed, Puro Ati would still compete, and the Atis would do so
according to how they wanted to represent themselves.
Street-dancing competition
At the break of dawn, on 17 January 2009, on the day of the street-

dancing competition, Roy with his fellow Atis and a handful of Aklanon
friends left Bulwang carrying the banner of their group, Puro Ati. To get
to Kalibo, they walked past the Aklan River – a journey in contrast to
the hegira the Meletons embarked on to escape the drought on Negros
Island over two decades ago.
Puro Ati reached the Caltex gasoline station in Kalibo where the street
dancing would commence. Just as in the photos that were submitted to
KAMB, the women were in one-piece-wrap-around dress, men in g-strings,
some carrying bamboo shields and spears, and some slinging a bow and
arrow on their shoulders. Taking out a sack of soot, Roy asked the mestizos
and mestizas, those of mixed Bisaya and Ati parentage, and the couple of
Bisaya in the group, to begin sooting, but not the Atis themselves, whom
he estimated were dark enough. Not following the suggestion of KAMB’s
Director, the Atis did not hire any beauticians prior to the competition,
nor did they buy plastic bones to decorate their hair and bones to weigh
down their necklaces. Their hair stayed the same; and they wove the
tropical nito vine, a kind of fern that grows abundantly in the forests of
Panay, for their necklaces and earrings. Moved by the music coming from
bamboos played by the Atis at the back of the line, Puro Ati for the first
time sadsad their way along the route set by the Mayor’s office.
In their sooted and non-sooted bodies, Puro Ati started playing their
newly built musical instruments, percussive sounds that their members
danced with instantaneously. Sandwiched between other participating
groups, Puro Ati street danced, marking with their bodies as closely as
possible the music coming from their own bamboo instruments, which
the snare drums of several ‘tribal’ groups nearby easily overwhelmed.
But Puro Ati persisted and successfully danced the route set by the
Mayor’s office.
Between Kalibo’s town museum and the façade of the Roman Catholic
Cathedral, the competition’s final destination, close to a dozen Atis, who
did not compete that year, eased their way into the crowd waiting for Puro
Ati to arrive. Upon seeing their fellow Atis approaching, they burst into
joy, touching and pinching each other jokingly as the group was coming
through. Linya, linya para mag-daug kita (‘Line up, line up so we will win’),
they shouted in Aklanon to the competing Atis. After they had reached
Figure 2.1 Puro Ati at the Kalibo town plaza after the competition on 17 January
2009 (credit: N. Buxani)
the Cathedral, with its façade no longer in view, Puro Ati walked back to
Bulwang to partake in the food prepared for them by the Meleton family.
That Sunday night, when Ati-atihan 2009 ended, the Mayor’s Office
of Kalibo, as broadcasted over the local radio, announced that Puro Ati
had received a consolation prize. It was a few months later, when I was
already in Toronto, when I learned from my family in Kalibo that Puro
Ati did not win the grand prize. Rumours had it that according to the
Aklanon judges Puro Ati’s costumes were not indigenous enough and
the Atis not dark enough. The grand prize went again to a group of
Bisaya from the town of Malinao that was known for sooting their bod-
ies completely from head to toe, staying away from modern materials
like soft fabrics, and only using indigenous materials of tree barks and
desiccated plants: the ones KAMB preferred.
Discussion
I include two different kinds of performances – that of the Atis them-

selves preparing for and dancing at the festival and that of the immi-
grant Aklanons in Toronto, who donated funds for the 2009 Ati-atihan
participation of the Atis – to suggest that indigeneity, especially in
our contemporary time of intense globalization is intimately linked
not only with modernity but also with changing notions of time and
space.11 I suggest as well that the diaspora and the immigrants inhab-
iting transnational spaces have become major players in the shaping
of citizenships in situ, and in this particular case, a citizenship that
includes the Atis not as symbols of an authentic utopia or as remind-
ers of pre-colonial Philippines, but as individuals whose contemporary
social problems need to be addressed as well.
Such dialogical relationship between these two kinds of performances,
which are in constant conversation with modernity, results in what
I term, following Arjun Appadurai’s influential scape theory (1990), a
‘choreoscape’: a choreography that is performed locally but is enabled
by former residents of that locale who are now living in the diaspora.12
I further suggest that it is in the creation of this particular kind of trans-
national choreoscape that an alternative modernity for an indigenous
group like the Atis is possible.
In a landmark study, Shasti Conrad and Simone Schlindwein prob-
lematize racial stereotyping and make sense of it through their study of
the performance of ‘black’ music in New York City (2006). They further
my argument in this article that performance presents powerful ways
of articulating and understanding racial, ethnic, and regional identities,
like the ones brought to the surface by the Atis of Bulwang during their
Ati-atihan participation.
Being ‘official’ members of the Ati-atihan, the Atis had not only
contributed to the shaping and interpretation of Ati-atihan as an
embodiment of both an Aklanon and a Filipino cultural heritage. In
addition Puro Ati’s performance and that of immigrant Aklanons made
the festival a much more complex event – capable of gesturing towards
social and representational issues that beset the indigenous Atis. These
local, transnational, and diasporic performances, however small and
intermittent they may be, in my estimation can have far-reaching con-
sequences in no longer perceiving the Atis to be living and embodied in
performances as exotic.
Notes
1. In other Philippine languages, Atis are known as Itas, Aetas, Agtas, Dumagat,
and Baluga. For an ethnological and linguistic differentiation of these terms,
see the earlier works of William Allan Reed (1904), John M. Garvan (1964),
and Daisy Y. Noval-Morales and James Monan (1979). For a much later study
of this particular ethnic group, with ethnological focus on the Aetas of Mt.
Pinatubo, see Stephan Seitz (2004).
2. The official name of the national language of the Philippines is Filipino,
which is heavily based on the regional language, Tagalog. Because one of the
projects of this chapter is to foreground differentiated Filipino ethnicities,
I have decided to use Tagalog rather than Filipino, a general term that also
refers to the people of the Philippines.
3. Aside from public performance, the recent edited volume by Victoria Tauli-
Corpuz, Leah Enkiwe-Abayao, and Raymond de Chavez (2010) provides
additional strategies drawn from knowledge and realities of indigenous popu-
lations for overcoming dominant development discourse that stymie them.
Examples of case studies are taken from indigenous communities in the Andes
in Latin America, Thailand, Indonesia, Tanzania, and the Philippines. For an
official statement of the Philippine government’s programmes for the country’s
indigenous population, like the Atis of Aklan, see the website of the National
Commission on Indigenous Peoples (Philippines).
4. In my article ‘Sacred Camp: Transgendering Faith in a Philippine Festival’,
I provide an explanation of ‘third sex’ by drawing a contrast with the
Western category of ‘gay’ men (2007).
5. This was the topic of the panel, ‘Indigenous Modernity and Alternative
Modernities: Performing as a Minority in Asia’, I participated in at the 2011
International Council for Traditional Music. Andrew Feenberg’s concept of
‘alternative modernity’ was the theoretical umbrella employed in the panel’s
discussion on indigenous modernity (1995).
6. In the fields of dance ethnography, dance history, and dance studies,
much has been written about this complex insider/outsider dichotomy.
The following are examples of works that have informed my own subject
positioning and project on self-reflexivity: Sally Ann Ness (1992), Zoila S.

Mendoza (2000), Tomie Hahn (2007), Jacqueline Shea-Murphy (2007), and
Susan A. Reed (2010).
7. This interview is an extract from my two documentary films: Panaad:
A Promise to the Santo Niño (2012) and Ati-atihan Lives (2012). They feature
the participation of Cecile Motus as a balikbayan (Filipino returnee), when
she went back to Kalibo from Washington, DC, as a fulfilment of her prom-
ise to the Santo Niño to participate annually in the Ati-atihan festival.
8. Tourism scholar John Urry argues along the same line in his oft-cited The
Tourist Gaze (1990). In a later anthology, Touring Transformations of Travel
and Theory, co-edited with Chris Rojek, he furthers his study and offers
a theoretical understanding of the interrelationships amongst mobility,
people, authenticity, and the exotic (1997). With a focus on Asian and Pacific
societies, both Michel Picard and Robert E. Wood discuss similar complex
interrelationship of tourism elements in their edited volume (1997).
9. This is an interview extract from the documentary film, Ati-atihan Lives (2012).
10. See Corazon Dioquino’s essay, ‘Philippine Bamboo Instruments’ (2008).
11. Arjun Appadurai, together with the authors who contributed to his edited
volume, Globalization, maintains that the phenomenon of globalization is
best examined away from the optics of modernization and instead through
the changing relationship of temporality with spatiality and vice versa (2001).
12. Informed by Arjun Appadurai’s ‘scape’ theory, I first started developing the
concept of ‘choreoscape’ in my doctoral dissertation.
References
Alcedo, P. (2012) (director and producer). Ati-atihan Lives (documentary film).
Alexander Street Press. www.alexanderstreet.com (55 minutes).
Alcedo, P. (2012) (director and producer). Panaad: A Promise To The Santo
Niño (documentary film). Alexander Street Press. www.alexanderstreet.com
(18 minutes).
Alcedo, P. (2007) ‘Sacred Camp: Transgendering Faith in a Philippine Festival’,
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 38(1): 107–32. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Alcedo, P. (2003) Traveling Performance: An Ethnography of a Philippine Religious
Festival. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of California, Riverside.
Appadurai, A. (1990) ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural
Economy’, Theory, Culture and Society 7: 295–310.
Appadurai, A. (ed.) (2001) Globalization. Durham, NC, and London: Duke
University Press.
Chavez, I. (2008) Audio-recorded interview by P. Alcedo, 8 December. Bulwang,
Numancia, Aklan: private collection of Patrick Alcedo.
Conrad, S., and S. Schlindwein (2006) ‘Playing Outside the Box – Black Identity
as expressed through the Arts in New York City’, Humanity in Action, http://
www.humanityinaction.org/knowledgebase/176-playing-outside-the-box-black-
identity-as (accessed January 2012).
Dioquino, C. (2008) ‘Philippine Bamboo Instruments’, Humanities Diliman 5(1–2):
101–13.
Feenberg, A. (1995) Alternative Modernity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Garvan, J. M. (1964) The Negritos of the Philippines, ed. H. Hochegger. Horn-Wien:

Verlag Ferdinand Berger.
Godreau, I. P. (2006) ‘Folkloric “Others”: Blanqueamiento and the Celebration of
Blackness as an Exception in Puerto Rico’, in K. M. Clarke and D. A. Thomas
(eds), Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of
Blackness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press: 171–87.
MacClancy, J. (2002) ‘Introduction: Taking People Seriously’, in J. MacClancy
(ed.), Exotic No More: Anthropology in the Front Lines. Chicago, IL: Chicago
University Press: 1–14.
Mendoza, Z. S. (2000) Shaping Society through Dance: Mestizo Ritual Performance in
the Peruvian Andes. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Motus, C. (2010) Audio-recorded interview by P. Alcedo, 10 January. Andagao,
Kalibo, Aklan: private collection of Parick Alcedo.
NCIP (2012) National Commission on Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines
Homepage. http://www.ncip.gov.ph (accessed September 2012).
Narayan, K. (1993) ‘How Native Is a “Native” Anthropologist?’, American
Anthropologist 95(3): 671–86.
Ness, S. A. (1992) Body, Movement, and Culture: Kinesthetic and Visual Symbolism
in a Philippine Community. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Noval-Morales, D., and J. Monan (1979) A Primer on the Negritos of the Philippines.
Manila, Philippines: Philippine Business for Social Progress.
Palmani, L. (2009) Audio-recorded interview by P. Alcedo (22 November).
Andagao, Kalibo, Aklan, private collection of Parick Alcedo.
Picard, M., and R. E. Wood (eds) (1997) Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian
and Pacific Societies. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Reed, S. A. (2010) Dance and the Nation: Performance, Ritual, and Politics in Sri
Lanka. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
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Survey Publications, Volume II, Part I. Manila: Bureau of Public Printing.
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London and New York: Routledge.
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with Disaster. Quezon City, Philippines: New Day Publishers.
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Modern Dance Histories. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
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(eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan
Education: 271–313.
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Alternative Development Paradigm: Indigenous People’s Self-Determined Development.
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Quezon City, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press.
3
Performative Participation:
Embodiment of Identities
and Relationships in
Sabar Dance Events
Elina Seye
Introduction
The sabar is a tradition of social dancing and drumming of the Wolof

people, who live in the westernmost parts of the Sahel in West Africa,
mainly in Senegal. The word sabar is a generic term that refers to the
traditional drums of the Wolof and includes the rhythms played with
these drums, as well as the dances connected to the various sabar
rhythms. The same word can also be used for events where sabar danc-
ing takes place.
Sabar dancing is typically performed as short improvised solos with
one, or a few people at a time dancing in the middle of the dance space.
Despite the individuality of dancing, the sabar is a social dance form;
each dance solo comments on previous ones and communicates with
the music provided by a group of drummers. Within these choreo-
musical conversations of sabar dance events, different views of the sabar
tradition are collectively negotiated, and each dance event can therefore
be considered as an embodiment of the tradition.
However, it is first and foremost the social interaction between partici-
pants that is at stake at sabar dance events, where friendships and conflicts
of everyday life can be articulated through movements and gestures.
Furthermore, the hierarchies of Wolof society are reflected in sabar events
in the age and gender of the participants. The participants’ actions are thus
guided by their conceptions of the sabar tradition as well as more general
socio-cultural norms and values. The focus in this chapter is the way that
Wolof conceptions of social status become embodied and how identities
and interpersonal relationships are expressed through people’s presence
(or absence) and participation in sabar dance events.
58
Sabar Dance Events 59
The discussion is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted mainly

in the Senegalese capital Dakar from December 2005 to July 2006.
I have been to Senegal on shorter field trips prior to and after this
period, and my fieldwork has also continued at home through contacts
with Senegalese dancers and musicians residing in Europe. My fieldwork
has included studying both sabar dancing and drumming with different
teachers, as well as filming 25 sabar events and attending many more.
Some of my collaborators are named in the text when referring to inter-
views with them, but as often is the case, additional understanding has
been accumulated through informal conversations, non-verbally during
lessons and at dance events.1
I look at sabar dance events as performances, which according to the
definition of performance theorist Richard Schechner (2006, p. 52) are
‘ritualized behaviour conditioned and/or permeated by play’. Using
the elements of ritual and play performances create their own reality,
their own time and space, which is separate from everyday life. With
its ritualistic, recurring elements, a sabar event creates a specific kind of
social space with its own norms and values. Within this space identities
and relationships, as well as the sabar tradition itself, can be embod-
ied and negotiated in a playful manner through improvised dancing.
Furthermore, the specific social space and its particular mode of expres-
sion frame the participants’ actions as play, as something that is not
entirely ‘for real’ (Schechner, 2006, pp. 89–90). Although most people
at a sabar event would not consider themselves performers, their partici-
pation can still be considered performative, because their presence and
actions both embody and construct status, identities, and relationships
(see Schechner, 2006, pp. 167–8).
Such a view of dance events as performances relates to the idea
presented by dance ethnologist Deidre Sklar that ‘[d]ance ethnography
depends on the postulate that cultural knowledge is embodied in move-
ment’ (1991, p. 6). Further, Sklar states that the goal of dance ethnogra-
phy is to study ‘not just a dance event but the whole cultural process’
(1991, p. 8). Thus, even though my focus is on sabar dance events, they
cannot be analysed without considering their relationship to Wolof
society and culture at large.
Sabar dance events
The origins and history of the sabar tradition are difficult to trace. Oral
history links the origins of Wolof sabar drumming to the neighbouring
Serer people, who still today use the same type of drums. There are also
mythical stories about the origins of sabar drumming, about certain drums
and rhythms, but historical evidence is scarce, especially when it comes
to dancing. What is considered the sabar tradition is thus essentially a
contemporary construction (see Castaldi, 2006, pp. 124–7; also Grau, 1994,
p. 41). It is continuously being redefined in different kinds of performances
of sabar drumming and dancing, both at communal dance events and on
stage, as well as in verbal discussions about these performances. Therefore
local conceptions of ‘tradition’ are sometimes contradictory from an aca-
demic point of view. After an interview with Oumy Sène, a former dancer
of the National Ballet of Senegal, for example, I noted down, that
she was very conscious of tradition and emphasized that everything

was so different in the past [in her youth in the 1960s and 1970s],
but then she also seemed to think that pre-rehearsed performances/
choreographies are the ‘real’ sabar.
(Seye, 2005–06, Journal, 31 March)
Sabar dancing is connected to many kinds of celebrations and gather-

ings, from weddings to political rallies, where drumming and dancing
provides entertainment. Dance parties may also be organized just for
the fun of dancing, and my focus here is on such recreational sabar
events.2 There are some specificities of sabar drumming and dancing
connected to life-cycle celebrations, but for the most part sabar events
unfold along the same lines regardless of occasion.
Sabar events usually take place in the open air, often in a street or
square, sometimes in the yard of the organizer’s home, the largest ones
are on a sports field or a similar wide, open space. The most typical set-
ting is a small dance party that occurs in the afternoon or early evening,
before sunset. Such a sabaru ngoon (afternoon sabar) lasts usually an
hour or two and does not require much more preparation other than
hiring a group of drummers to play, and setting up chairs to outline
the dance space. Occasionally a canopy is put up for protection from
the sun. The other main kind of sabar event is a tànnëbéer, a larger
evening dance party of longer duration, starting between 10.00pm and
midnight and lasting up to four hours. A tànnëbéer may include profes-
sional performances of music, dance, and acrobatics, in addition to the
improvised dancing by the participants. Lighting is needed, and often
a PA system is set up for possible singing and speeches or for playing
recorded music, as in one of the events I attended in 2006:
In the evening I went to HLM [a neighbourhood in Dakar], where

they were waiting for the party to start. The drummers had already
begun some time before midnight, but they also played records while
waiting. It was probably closer to one before it actually started. There
was again a large programme in addition to the sabar [dancing]: a
fire-eater/limbo-artist, at least three different playback performances
[by pop singers and dancers] and the same tabala players as in the
sabar in Colobane [another tànnëbéer a few weeks earlier].3
(Seye 2005–06, Journal, 14 January)
The standard ensemble of sabar drummers consists of seven musicians,

one of whom is the leader of the group, but the larger the celebration,
the bigger the drum ensemble tends to be. The drummers often come to
the spot in advance to warm up and to check the tuning of the drums.
At the same time, this musical warm-up serves as an aural announce-
ment for the occasion. The actual sabar then starts with a sequence of
rhythms that are not meant for dancing, but offer the drum ensemble
an opportunity to demonstrate their musical virtuosity both as a group
and as individuals. After they switch over to the dance rhythms, their
duty is to serve the dancers; they provide the dancers with the rhythmic
framework for dancing and the drum soloist follows the dancers musi-
cally, thus making their movements audible.
Dancing, as well as attendance, in sabar events is dominated by young
women, although in principle anyone present can participate in dancing.
It is also mostly women who organize these events. The eagerness to par-
ticipate in dancing seems to decrease with age; older women tend to dance
only at family celebrations, such as name-giving ceremonies and weddings.
Men generally do not dance unless they are professional performers. Young
men might dance in particular situations, typically at semi-private events
where no older people are present. At smaller afternoon sabar the only
men attending are usually the musicians, apart from occasional neighbours
or other passers-by. When men are present, it is typical of them to stand
somewhere behind the women and children that are gathered around the
dance space and talk amongst themselves, seemingly uninterested in the
dancing. Not surprisingly then, the sabar is widely considered as ‘women’s
business’ (Heath, 1994, p. 92).
It is very hard to get an answer to why people, and especially women,
dance or what dancing means to them. It seems that sabar dancing as
the traditional way of celebrating happy occasions is, for many Wolof,
a ‘natural’, self-evident form of communication in certain situations.
Although they might say that sabar is just something for having
fun, dance events clearly are socially significant for women, because
they offer possibilities to get together with friends and to articulate
interpersonal relationships through dancing. Skilful movement is
certainly appreciated, but the social dimension of dancing is obvi-

ously more important. I have several times heard women complain
about professional performers taking too much time at tànnëbéer. For
example, after a tànnëbéer in Parcelles Assainies (Dakar), I wrote in
my journal:
Anyway, it was a great party, maybe even too much with all kinds
of programmes arranged, so that ‘ordinary people’ hardly had the
chance to dance. That Awa, who gave us some dance lessons, also
said afterwards that there was too much ‘animation’… She probably
would have liked to dance more herself. There were three different
sabar bands and several groups of male dancers that did some group
choreographies. Overall, there were probably more men dancing
than women, which is really quite unusual.
(Seye, 2005–06, Journal, 29 December)
Social sabar dancing is largely improvised: the dancers enter the

dance space one by one to perform a short solo (normally of only 10–20
seconds), typically facing the group of drummers. The only rule con-
cerning the order of dancers is that the organizer of the event should
be the first to dance, otherwise the order is free. This often results in
several dancers starting their solos at the same time, which sometimes
leads to such confusion that the drummers will stop playing and
remind people that they should not all enter at the same time. In any
case, the solo drummer can only play for one dancer at a time, and if
there are several people dancing simultaneously, he can choose whom
to follow.
In terms of movement, the sabar is easily distinguishable from other
West African dance traditions; it has a distinctive, very energetic char-
acter, with vigorous steps, kicks, jumps, and turns, which are further
accentuated by large arm movements that also help the dancer keep
her balance. Since most sabar dance rhythms are relatively fast, the
movements are, too. There is quite a lot of individual variation in the
execution of movements. Therefore, to someone not familiar with this
tradition, sabar dancing may initially appear as a freely improvised
dance form, but the solos actually follow more or less the same conven-
tional structures, and the rhythmic accuracy of movements is crucial in
contrast to the freedom of style.
The central element in sabar dancing, apart from certain rhythms, is
a movement motif that some of my teachers even call sabar. In its basic
form, it is a six-beat pattern: The dancer jumps (on beat four of the
rhythmic cycle) from the right to the left foot, simultaneously kicking
the right leg up in front. Then (on beat one) the dancer’s right foot
touches or rather slaps the ground in front. This is the biggest accent
of the motif, which is emphasized with the movement of the right arm
forward and upward as the right foot moves down. After the second beat
(‘and’), there follows a smaller jump back from the left to the right foot
with the right foot returning to its starting position, then a step with the
left foot in place (on three), a step with the right foot in place (on four)
and a touch with the left foot in place (on one). The knee of the moving
leg is lifted before each step, jump, or touch to emphasize the rhythm
of the movements. The arms are constantly moving throughout the
pattern, usually doing circular movements on the level of the head and
shoulders, but there is a lot of individual variation in hand movements.
Frequently, the left arm is kept bent because the hand is holding up
the dancer’s skirt or top, and in that case the left arm’s movements are
limited.4 Often this motif is repeated a few times without breaks, so that
its relationship to the rhythmic structure changes every second time.
This trademark sabar motif and its variations are typical of double
rhythms, such as the ceebujën, which is probably the most popular
dance rhythm.5 For ceebujën, a characteristic dance solo would begin
with the dancer moving forward towards the drummers just jogging in
rhythm (often with the right arm up in the air) or with a simple alter-
nating ‘in-out’ step: The right foot touches the ground near the left foot
and the right arm swings upward on the side (on beat one), then steps
outward (on two). The same steps are repeated with the left foot (on
three and four) and the right arm swings downward and to the left in
front of the body, and so forth. After the entrance, the dancer typically
starts a sequence of the sabar movement motif repeated a few times,
adding a few turns (counter-clockwise with the weight on the left leg),
and finally moves to the closing sequence.
In a simple closing sequence, the dancer lifts her right leg to the front,
rotates it outwards in the air, and steps on the right foot (on beat one).
The same movement is repeated with the left leg (step on beat three).
Then the dancer rises to the balls of the feet, simultaneously pushing the
pelvis forward with the knees bent (on four), and comes back down and
straightens the legs on the last accent (beat one). This closing sequence
has countless variations that have little in common except for the rhythm
of the movements, but also new, longer closing sequences are being cre-
ated continuously for the various dance rhythms.
There is a standard repertoire of sabar dance rhythms that are played
at all events in more or less the same order, but other dance rhythms
may be added according to the nature of the occasion and the partici-
pants’ tastes.6 The leader of the group of drummers assesses the situa-
tion and changes from one rhythm to another as he judges best. The
aim is to create a cheerful atmosphere and encourage dancing as much
as possible. Frequently, sabar events become quite chaotic towards the
end when people start getting carried away with all the fun of dancing.
They may run into the dance space either to dance or just to show their
delight in seeing other people dance without much consideration for
others. At this point, the drummers usually will not try to call people
to order anymore, but will continue the dance rhythm they are play-
ing for some time, and then end with a musical phrase that signals the
closing of the event.
Identity, social status, and appropriate behaviour
The identity and character of a person is considered by the Wolof to be

defined by his or her family of origin (see Irvine, 1978, pp. 654–5). Wolof
society is traditionally hierarchical, and the social status of a person is
defined by family lineage, age, and gender (see Diop, 1981, p. 8). Despite
changes caused by colonialism and urbanization that have to an extent
broken down earlier social structures – for example, by rendering cer-
tain professions redundant – old conceptions of identity and status still
influence interpersonal relationships and public behaviour. Therefore,
they need to be taken into consideration in the analysis of sabar events.
The musicians stand out from the rest of the participants at sabar
events; first of all they are men, whereas most participants are women,
and secondly, they are professional performers while most dancers are not.
Musical performance as well as all kinds of public speaking is traditionally
the exclusive domain of the géwël caste, an endogamous group of families
that maintain the oral traditions of the Wolof people (see Leymarie, 1999;
Panzacchi, 1994). Still today, nearly all sabar drummers are members of
géwël families, and these families function as the main educational institu-
tion for becoming a musician in the Wolof environment. No formal les-
sons are given, but géwël children are encouraged to sing, dance, and play
instruments at home, and they receive instructions from family members
while doing so. Older boys that show an interest and certain skills in sabar
drumming will then be allowed to play during the warm-up phase of sabar
events, and later, when deemed good enough by the group leader, during
the actual events. To become a sabar drummer, one does not have to be
born a géwël, but a connection to a géwël family is needed to develop the
required musical skills and to be included in a sabar ensemble.
Rules of endogamy protect the professional skills transmitted from

generation to generation within géwël families, and géwël take great
pride in their knowledge of Wolof traditions. Being géwël gives the
drummers at dance events authority as the guardians of the sabar
tradition, but it also sets them apart socially. The géwël are generally
considered noisy and bad mannered by non-géwël, and therefore of low
social status, even though their performance skills and their knowledge
of Wolof history and traditions may be highly appreciated. This view
relates to the Wolof ideal of restraint in public behaviour (Heath, 1994,
p. 90), which cannot be respected by the géwël because of the nature
of their traditional duties that include public speaking and singing as
well as playing music (see Irvine, 1978, pp. 657, 670). An additional
consideration is that the géwël are sometimes feared because of their
knowledge of family histories that they can use in speeches and songs
either to build up or to ruin a person’s reputation.
Wolof social structures and the role of the géwël particularly are
probably the most thoroughly discussed aspects of Wolof culture (for
an overview, see Tang, 2007, pp. 47–56), and similar social systems are
found among several West African peoples (see Hale, 1998, pp. 10–14).
It is important to understand that being géwël does not refer to being
a musician or an oral historian but to being born into the géwël caste.
Although the oral traditions of the Wolof are transmitted within géwël
families, not all géwël practice the hereditary profession of their fami-
lies. On the reverse side, however, all the sabar drummers are usually
considered géwël by other people. Consequently, the drummers at sabar
events are not ‘real men’ in the eyes of most of the other participants,
because géwël are deemed unmarriageable by non-géwël (see Castaldi,
2006, p. 83). Regardless, one can easily find examples of inter-caste
marriages in Senegal today, but still ideas of the deviant character of the
géwël persist. For example, I have heard a professional dancer, who is
not a géwël, call her own husband teasingly a góor-jigéen (‘man-woman’),
a homosexual, referring this term to his identity as a géwël.
The géwël’s role is thus controversial in Wolof society. As the guard-
ians of oral tradition, their performances are considered central for
upholding the norms and values of Wolof culture, in addition to safe-
guarding and transmitting historical knowledge. However, their public
performances underline their identity as géwël and their inferior social
status. Social status in Wolof culture is further connected to the idea
of service; it is the duty of a person of lower status to be of service
to someone of higher status. This is most clearly noticeable in every-
day situations where older siblings send their younger siblings to run
errands for them. In return they might be given a coin, but even if there
is no reward they generally cannot refuse. In the case of the géwël, their
duty is to serve other people through their performances, but it is also
considered an obligation to reward the géwël for their services. In some
situations this is done gladly – at most sabar events you will see people
getting up spontaneously and giving money to the musicians – in oth-
ers less eagerly, more for the fear of appearing poor or stingy, and not
living up to one’s family heritage.
These ideas about one’s identity being defined by the family of origin
and about hierarchical relationships between people, as well as related
views of appropriate behaviour, affect people’s daily lives in many
ways in addition to the few examples given above. When considering
sabar events, it becomes obvious that the traditional social hierarchy
is reflected in who participates in these dance events. The most active
participants are always young women, in my estimate between 15 and
25 years old, who are on the lower end of the social hierarchy due to
their gender and age. As mentioned previously, participation in sabar
events decreases with age, whereas social status increases, as it does
with marriage and having children. However, the age of the participants
depends also on who is organizing the event: a large proportion of the
participants are likely to be of the same age. The identity of non-caste
men and their superior social status thus finds its expression in their
absence and their nonchalant attitude towards dance events.
Still, even young women sometimes feel ashamed about dancing at
sabar events or do not consider dancing appropriate at all. Anthropologist
Deborah Heath’s (1994, p. 92) examples coincide with my observations:
typically women from well-educated or very religious families see dancing
as shameful in general or consider it unworthy of their own social status.
Some may simply be forbidden to dance by their families. Making oneself
become the centre of attention in a performance can obviously feel
awkward for other reasons, too, and there are young women who partici-
pate in sabar events, but refrain from dancing due to shyness or because
they feel that they cannot dance well enough.
All kinds of public performance can be interpreted as an indication of
low social status, but on the other hand it is also a way of serving others,
as was indicated before. Dancing can therefore also be interpreted as a sign
of friendship and respect towards the organizer/s, whose social status will
be enhanced at a successful event (see Neveu Kringelbach, 2007, p. 266).
Furthermore, the willingness to be of service to others can be considered a
quality of the ‘good woman’ in a society that values hospitality and soli-
darity. This reveals another, partly conflicting, dimension of how identities
and status are constructed at sabar events. Although a woman may put
her good reputation and her social status at risk by dancing, she can also
show solidarity towards the organizer/s with her dance solo and thereby
actually present herself as a ‘good woman’ (see Seye, 2012). For the same
reason, participating and dancing at a sabar event can be a social obliga-
tion; it might be deemed hurtful if one does not dance at a sabar organized
by a friend or a relative, and it is not uncommon to see women drawn or
pushed by their friends into the dance space.
Of course, dancing is never simply about obligations towards others or
even about the possible need of young women to define their identity per-
formatively. Surely social dancing is always about enjoyment and taking a
break from everyday life, and sabar events do create, in Schechner’s words,
‘another reality’ (2006, p. 52) with rules different from everyday reality (see
also Neveu Kringelbach, 2007, p. 264). In certain respects, sabar events are
actually contrary to everyday life: At sabar events women are in charge, as
organizers of the events and as active participants, and are at the centre of
attention by performing their dance solos in the middle of the dance space.
Additionally, everyday codes of conduct are sometimes broken by dance
movements that often reveal the underskirts and the thighs of the dancers.
In this sense, sabar events can be interpreted to offer emancipation for
women, as some researchers have presented (Castaldi, 2006, pp. 80–90;
Penna-Diaw, 2005, pp. 213–14). However, the emancipation of sabar dance
events is always temporary. Similarly to how the géwël take pride in their
family origins and their hereditary profession despite their low social status
(see Tang, 2007, p. 52), sabar events provide women with a social space
that they themselves control. As a space with clearly defined limits, the
apparent emancipation of sabar dancing for women does not pose any
real threat to the dominant patriarchal power structures of Wolof society.
Embodying tradition, performing relationships
People can construct their identities performatively in several ways at

a sabar event, but also relationships between people, both sympathies
and conflicts, are expressed within these temporary social spaces. Here,
sabar dancing demonstrates the play-like character of performances
(Schechner, 2006, p. 89): whatever has been ‘said’ inside the dance
space can always be explained to have been just for fun, nothing to
be taken seriously outside of it. This freedom of danced expression is
limited, however, by the rules of the sabar tradition itself, which have
a connection to more general cultural norms, although some of them
manifest in a different way in sabar events than they do in everyday life.
Although sabar events always follow the same overall pattern, each
situation is also unique because all participants influence the course of
the event in their own way. The beginning and ending of a sabar dance
event are marked by musical signals, and the dance rhythms are played
in roughly the same order at all events. But rhythms that are eagerly
danced to by the participants are played for a longer time than others,
and might be returned to later. Additionally, the latest dance crazes
introduced by pop music videos are often adapted to the sabar drums,
and such new fashionable dance rhythms are practically a standard part
of sabar events, although the specific rhythms change over time.
Another feature of sabar events is the custom of the musicians to stop
playing at some point towards the end of the event and speak to the
participants, praising the organizer/s and the participants, and thereby
making them feel obliged to give money to the musicians (see Tang,
2007, p. 133). This habit further underlines the géwël identity of the
musicians discussed above. Apart from these habitual or ritualistic ele-
ments, and also within the different dance rhythms, there is space for
improvisation, which represents the playful side of performance.
Improvisation in sabar music and dance does not refer to the freedom
to play or dance whatever one wants, but rather to the skill of combin-
ing traditional rhythm patterns or movement patterns in a meaningful
way. All the dancers and drummers that I have interviewed emphasize
a profound knowledge of the sabar tradition as the essential quality of a
good musician and dancer. Pape Moussa Sonko, a famous young dancer,
for example, explained to me his view of a good drummer:
The best drummer can play everything, the cool, the tungune, the
ndeer [names of drums]… You have to know all that before becoming
the leader, you have to be the best accompanist, someone who has
played accompaniment until he knows all the rhythms. After that, it
will be very easy to be the leader.
(Sonko, 2006, interview)
An experienced Paris-based dancer and dance teacher, Yama Wade,

described a good dancer with similar reference to knowledge and respect
for tradition:
A good dancer must have complete respect for the music… it’s like
a cultural code, you have to know how to dance to it. One can-
not change the sabar. There is liberty, there are open doors to add
new things, but you cannot rip it from its roots. You cannot dance
without respecting the roots. If you come [to dance] and do not
respect the musical flow, you do not dance the sabar; you do not
know how to dance the sabar.
(Wade, 2011, interview)
Here, as in other interviews, the respect for tradition is linked to the

close interaction of dance and music. Karim Thiam, a young musician
who leads his own sabar ensemble, made this point very clear:
The most important thing is to know the tradition. Sometimes when

I’m playing […] there are people that dance whatever they want.
Then me too, I will play whatever I want… but if you dance accord-
ing to the rhythm, I will play [what you dance].
(Thiam, 2006, interview)
The non-verbal communication between dancers and musicians

becomes possible through the adherence to tradition. It is the cultural
knowledge of the sabar that guides the drummers and dancers in their
performance in a similar way as the grammar of a language when we
speak; for a dance solo to be understandable the rules of tradition may
be bent, but not completely broken. The dancer should respect the
character and the tempo of the rhythm being played, but even most
traditional movement patterns do not follow the music in a strict sense.
Rather, the movements add new rhythm patterns to the polyrhythmic
texture of the drum ensemble, as can be seen for example in the sabar
movement motif described above. Such movement motifs are then
‘played out’, interpreted musically by the drum soloist, which means
that he actually has to anticipate the dancer’s movements in order to
play what the dancer is dancing.
The musical mediation of dance movements by the solo drummer
means that the dancer also mediates between the musical rhythms for
the duration of her solo; when presenting her kinetic interpretation of
a dance rhythm, a dancer has an idea of what her solo will sound like.
This musical context of performance demands that the dancer executes
her solo in a clear and determined way, making use of established move-
ment motifs associated with the dance rhythm in question, so that the
solo drummer will be able to follow her. This, of course, requires not
only physical skills, but also a deep understanding of the music, since
the dance solo should be musically meaningful. Not surprisingly, then,
the rhythmic accuracy and clear accentuation of movements is valued
higher than any other movement qualities.
What follows from this intertwining of dance and music is a kind of

a conversation between a dancer and the drum soloist. The dancer will
consider the dance rhythm and provide an interpretation of it in her
solo, anticipating the musical response from the solo drummer. The
solo drummer, on his part, anticipates and interprets the dancer’s move-
ments based on his knowledge of the sabar tradition. In this performa-
tive exchange between dancers and drummers, in their choreo-musical
conversations, the sabar tradition is collectively embodied and continu-
ously negotiated, with each person presenting their own interpretations
and reacting to others.
The dancers also get immediate musical feedback for their solos from
the drummers. If someone dances out of rhythm or executes move-
ments that do not fit the rhythm being played, for example, the drum-
mers usually ignore the dancer. This is often enough to embarrass the
dancer and make her cut her solo short. If not, the drum soloist will
soon start to play the rhythmic pattern that marks the closing sequence
of a dance solo that is normally initiated by the dancer. The same might
happen for a dancer who seems uncertain of her movements, but it will
be in a more supportive vein. Skilful dancers, on the other hand, may
sometimes challenge the solo drummer with unusual combinations of
movement motifs. Of course, there are also misunderstandings in these
‘conversations’, which may either lead to the dancer cutting her solo
short or to adjusting her dance to fit the drummer’s interpretation.
As the guardians of tradition, the géwël drummers act as referees at
sabar events, in addition to providing the participants with the musical
accompaniment for dancing; it is the dancer who will be embarrassed
rather than the drummer if their communication fails. The verbally
expressed idea that the solo drummer should adapt his playing to the
individual style and movements of each dancer holds true only as long
as the dancer is deemed to dance according to tradition. The drummer’s
loyalty is certainly more to the sabar tradition, which forms the basis
for the largely unverbalized rules of sabar events, than to the organizer/s
or the dancers. On the one hand, the drummers take care that these
implicit rules are not broken and give ‘punishments’ to those who are
out of line; on the other, they may reward better dancers musically,
choosing to follow them instead of someone else if there is competition
for the drummers’ attention.
The interpretations of the sabar tradition by individual dancers always
relate to other dancers’ solos in addition to the specific dance rhythm.
The choreo-musical conversations in sabar events are therefore not only
about tradition but also about interpersonal relationships. If two people
happen to stand up and start dancing at the same time, normally one
or the other will stay further away and give the other one space to
finish her solo before continuing her own. The explicit attempt to break
another dancer’s solo, by drawing the solo drummer’s attention to one’s
own dancing, would signal real hostility or rivalry between these two
people. On the contrary, friendship can be expressed, for example, by
going to dance face-to-face with a friend and mirroring her movements.
The repetition of a previous dancer’s movement motifs can similarly
signal friendship or more generally an approval of her dancing.
An additional dimension to this social conversation is added by the
verbal and non-verbal comments from the participants. There may be
reactions to dance solos from the people watching, typically in the form
of approving exclamations such as waaw waaw (‘yes yes’) in support of
a dancer and her solo, as well as non-verbal gestures such as clapping
(to the beat) or raising one’s right hand up with the palm upward, often
with the left hand on the heart. The raising of the right hand, a com-
mon gesture of delight or admiration, is something that seems to con-
nect sabar dance movements to everyday gestures and to give another
clue to why sabar dancing is so definitely perceived as an expression
of joy among the Wolof. I would consider this gesture an example of
how cultural logic is embodied in dance and gestural symbols become
‘inscribed’ into a dancer’s body, to use the expression of dance anthro-
pologist Sally Ann Ness (2008, p. 25, passim).
Despite the cheerful atmosphere at sabar events, sabar dancing is also
competitive. In some cases, the competition is made explicit with an
announcement of prizes that are given to the best dancer.7 I have not
been able to find out if a winner was ever chosen at the events where
I have witnessed such an announcement, but at least a part of the prizes
were given to various dancers during the event. The same sort of playful
competition is apparent at all sabar events, whether there are prizes or
not. On the one hand, a dance solo considered good by the spectators
inspires others to dance themselves, but on the other, the frequent solo-
ing by skilful dancers can also discourage participation by less skilled
dancers. The next dancer hopes to perform at least as good a dance solo
as the previous one, to confirm what has been ‘said’ before or to add
something new to the conversation.
The competition in sabar dancing is not only about dancing skills.
Maybe even more, it is about presenting oneself well in front of other
women, about looks and style, as well as behaving in a way appropriate
to one’s status. Women normally dress up for sabar events and favour a
traditional style of clothing, a wraparound skirt and a top of the same
material rather than the Western-style clothing (such as jeans and T-shirts)
often worn by young women in everyday situations. Anthropologist
Hélène Neveu Kringelbach (2007, pp. 258–9) sees dressing up as a way of
gaining social status among women, and entering the dance space offers
the possibility to show one’s outfit to everyone present, even some of
those parts that are normally not visible, particularly underskirts. The
participants sometimes comment upon the beautiful dresses, but what
seems to be crucial is the way that one acts. There will be a lot of whisper-
ing if someone is judged to transgress the limits of appropriate behaviour,
but these limits are relative to context. For example, letting one’s thighs
and underwear show while dancing may be considered inappropriate at
a wedding reception but usually not at a tannëbéer.
The rules of sabar events are thus relative to context and in a state of
flux, with the sabar tradition being redefined in each performance. But
the rules are still relatively stable, since cultural norms and values tend
to change very slowly. In any case, it is these rules of the sabar tradi-
tion that provide the dancers with an environment where friendships
and solidarity can be reinforced but where negative sentiments towards
other participants can also be expressed safely within playful competi-
tion, without the fear of escalating real-life conflicts.
Conclusion
I have dealt here with recreational sabar dance events that primarily
serve the purpose of entertainment. Still, they are socially and cultur-
ally significant, and it is the cultural knowledge that becomes embod-
ied in sabar events that I have investigated in this chapter. There are
undoubtedly more dimensions to the cultural knowledge embodied in
sabar dance events than what has been discussed here, but I hope to
have demonstrated that sabar events create a social space where people
negotiate cultural norms and values embedded in the sabar tradition, as
well as expressing their identity and their relationships to other people
through performative actions.
Sabar dancing and drumming are both regarded as low status activi-
ties, and due to this they are often considered unnecessary or even as
morally suspicious entertainment by people conscious of their own
superior social status. Therefore, both participation at sabar events and
absence from them can be interpreted as a performative expression of
identity. Despite these common attitudes towards dance and music, the
sabar tradition is a central element in Wolof culture, being often the
most visible part of various celebrations and gatherings. I would draw
here a parallel to the géwël, who are considered deviant and of low social
status, but still it is exactly the géwël who are traditionally responsible
for upholding Wolof cultural norms and values. Similarly, sabar dance
events function under their own rules that are in part contrary to
everyday codes of conduct, but still these events reinforce everyday
norms rather than challenge them.
Sabar dancing clearly demonstrates both the ritualized patterns and
the playfulness that characterize performances as defined by Schechner.
The expression and construction of identities and relationships at sabar
dance events happens within boundaries defined by tradition, but at the
same time the rules and boundaries of the sabar tradition are negotiated
during each event and can manifest differently in different contexts.
Furthermore, it is the adherence to tradition that enables the improvisa-
tory interaction between dancers and musicians. However, each indi-
vidual performance is put into perspective by the feedback from other
participants. These social dynamics of sabar events embody cultural ide-
als of an individual’s role in the community: involvement in communal
activities is encouraged and people are expected to show solidarity with
others, whereas individual expression is limited by social norms.
Notes
1. I specifically wish to mention, and thank, some of my teachers: dancers Astou
Faye and Pape Moussa Sonko, and percussionists Cherif ‘Dupin’ Cissokho and
Yirime Gueye.
2. For a description of the different contexts for sabar drumming, including
dance events, see Tang, 1997, pp. 126–53.
3. The tabala is a big bass drum normally used in the religious ceremonies of the
Senegalese Qadiriya, a Sufi brotherhood.
4. A left-handed person would perform this and other motifs in reverse, with the
left leg and arm marking the accents.
5. To be precise, all sabar dance rhythms are double rhythms, but with either
double or triple subdivisions (see transcriptions by Tang, 2007, pp. 106ff).
6. For transcriptions and analyses of sabar dance rhythms, see Tang, 2007,
pp. 96–125.
7. The prizes are usually different kinds of ‘female’ materials, from underwear
and waist beads to dress material and hair products.
References
Castaldi, F. (2006) Choreographies of African Identities: Négritude, Dance, and the
National Ballet of Senegal. Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Diop, A. B. (1981) La société Wolof. Tradition et changement. Les systems d’inégalité
et de domination. Paris: Karthala.
Grau, A. (1994) ‘Myths of Origin’, Dance Now (Winter 1993/4): 38–43.

Hale, T. A. (1998) Griots and Griottes: Masters of Words and Music. Bloomington
and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.
Heath, D. (1994) ‘The politics of appropriateness and appropriation: Recon-
textualizing women’s dance in urban Senegal’, American Ethnologist 21(1): 88–103.
Irvine, J. T. (1978) ‘When Is Genealogy History? Wolof Genealogies in Comparative
Perspective’, American Ethnologist 5(4): 651–74.
Leymarie, I. (1999) Les griots wolof du Sénégal. Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose.
Ness, S. A. (2008) ‘The Inscription of Gesture: Inward Migrations in Dance’,
in C. Noland and S. A. Ness (eds), Migrations of Gesture. Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press: 1–30.
Neveu Kringelbach, H. (2007) ‘“Cool Play”: Emotionality in Dance as a Resource
in Senegalese Urban Women’s Associations’, in H. Wulff (ed.), The Emotions:
A Cultural Reader. Oxford and New York: Berg: 251–72.
Panzacchi, C. (1994) ‘The Livelihoods of Traditional Griots in Modern Senegal’,
Africa 64(2): 190–210.
Penna-Diaw, L. (2005) ‘La danse sabar, une expression de l’identité féminine chez
les Wolof du Sénégal’, Cahiers des Musiques Traditionnelles 18: 201–15.
Schechner, R. (2006) Performance Studies: An Introduction, 2nd edn. New York and
London: Routledge.
Seye, E. (2005–06) Journal/Fieldnotes, December–July. Tampere, Finland: private
collection.
Seye, E. (2012) ‘Constructions of Femininity in Sabar Performances’, in Dance,
Gender, and Meanings: Contemporizing Traditional Dance. Proceedings of the 26th
Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology, 2010. Třešt´, Czech
Republic: 55–61.
Sklar, D. (1991) ‘On Dance Ethnography’, Dance Research Journal 23(1): 6–10.
Sonko, P. M. (2006) Audio-recorded interview by E. Seye, 2 May, Dakar, Senegal.
Tampere, Finland: private collection of Elina Seye.
Tang, P. (2007) Masters of the Sabar: Wolof Griot Percussionists of Senegal.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Thiam, K. (2006) Audio-recorded interview by E. Seye, 23 May, Dakar, Senegal.
Wade, Y. (2011) Audio-recorded interview by E. Seye, 9 April, Helsinki, Finland.
Part II
Issues of Cultural Identity
Through the Influences
of Social Dance Events
and Tourism
4
Uncovering the Invisible
Female Dancers of Moreska:
An Ethnochoreological Analysis
Iva Niemčić
According to social anthropologist Kay Milton, what is presented in

the majority of ethnographies in the twentieth century is a male model
of society, which mostly stems from colloquies with male respondents
(Milton, 1979, p. 47). Korčula’s Moreska (mock sword-battle dance), as
well as the Lastovo carnival, is a well-researched subject and has so far
been explored mostly by male ethnologists and historians.1 Therefore,
it is easy to assume that not only did a male-dominant perspective on
Lastovo carnival and Korčula’s Moreska originate from statements by
male respondents – pokladari (male masks) and Moreska dancers, but also
from the conceptual world of such researchers (see Milton, 1979, p. 47).
In my analysis I will first juxtapose and stress the differences in
my research conducted on two southern Croatian Dalmatian islands,
Lastovo and Korčula. I will then focus upon Korčula’s Moreska and Bulas.
Finally, I will reflect upon how to approach writing the text requested
by the local community: should a scientific perspective be omitted in
favour of publishing the text about the only female marginalized role in
Moreska? Or should I retain a scientific (etic) interpretation and ignore
the continuing local (emic) male-produced interpretation?
As a researcher I have chosen a marginal group, the Bulas, and the
story about Bula was created exclusively from the female point of view
(mine and theirs). Although it is necessary to research both parties
(both male and female) equally, as there is very little research under-
taken on the subject. In this case, though, I opted only for the female
perspective because it was marginalized and neglected in scholarly
research. I was commissioned to write a text on Bulas (Niemčić, 2006a),
which I chose to do from a female perspective on gender; however, it
was the response from the local community, namely men, when they
read what I had written that brings me to reflect within this text on
77
78 Cultural Identity: Dance Events and Tourism
the responsibility of my role as a researcher and the community under

investigation.
While researching the Lastovo carnival (1999, 2000, 2001, 2009), I did
my best not to be exclusive and fall into a trap of gender identities. So
I conversed with, observed, and noted down statements, impressions,
and personal remarks by both male and female participants equally. It
was important to collect and notice as many details as possible of that
multi-layered event in which gender roles of participants are strictly
divided and which has many parallel actions. The method I used the
most was the role of an observer. That is why my research into Lastovo
carnival has lasted for more than ten years. It comprises field research
and taking part in six carnivals as well as two trips to the field in the
autumn before the preparations for the next festival had begun. By
going there at the time when the carnival was not taking place, I gath-
ered certain information and stories from different points of view that
I could compare with my personal experience of the carnival and with
the information and interpretations of various texts by authors pub-
lished about Lastovo carnival. At the next carnival I could also check all
that had been left unclear and, finally, how much a personal experience
and the participants’ presentations to an outside researcher overlapped
and deviated from the real event; that is, from my experience of it.
Since researchers, in the course of conversation with respondents,
often try to be formal and lead the conversation to a selected subject
(Nahachewsky, 1999, p. 183), we need to be aware of the larger role of
the researcher in the final outcome, regardless of the kind of text and
the subject of research we are dealing with. While reflecting upon the
restitution of ethnologic research, Čapo Žmegač points out that eth-
nologists often choose topics and subjects of research that are in a way
subordinate (poor, marginalized, exploited, weaker); that is, anthropol-
ogists would rather give a voice to social victims than to power holders
(2006, p. 215). When it comes to Croatian ethnochoreology case studies
that deal with dance events and customs, the situation is just the oppo-
site. Researchers2 mostly opt for representative parts of customs as the
subject of their research. The subjects of research, dancers and interlocu-
tors are mostly members of the dominant group responsible for the pres-
ervation of customs, the holders of leading roles, dance leaders, heads
of companies, organizers, and most often men. Unlike ethnologists who
deal with research into social processes, for example migration, and
whose basic materials of scientific interpretation are collocutors’ state-
ments, ethnochoreologists have an additional role as an observer, and
often as a participant in a researched dance event because, according to
Invisible Female Dancers of Moreska 79
the rules of their profession, ‘a dance is researched in the context of the

performance’ (Zebec, 2006, p. 172). Thus, they become the witnesses
of the event, maybe partly the very interpreters/subjects of the event
who create their own truth/interpretation based on their experience,
not just using a selective method to interpret other and different truths
(see Čapo Žmegač 2006, p. 225; and Buckland, 1999, p. 204). According
to dance ethnologist Tvrtko Zebec, ethnochoreological texts rely on the
author who writes about a specific dance, as well as dancers’ descrip-
tion of the same event. This transforms it into a different medium. This
multiple transfer of messages can be more successful or less successful
(Zebec, 2006, p. 167).
On beautiful masks and chain dances
Every year on Shrove Tuesday on the island of Lastovo, the Lastovo

carnival takes place. The main participants in this extensive, all-day
event are divided into two groups, the female group of beautiful masks
and the male group of pokladari together with the carnival puppet. I will
devote my attention and the following descriptions to beautiful masks
and their female chain dance, which despite its uniqueness has so far
remained invisible in bibliographies. I would like to emphasize once
more that while I was searching for invisible dancers, I found the ques-
tions on what and who to write about important, as also what affects
us as researchers, and our choices in the interpretation of each event.
The first question that arises is: when did the beautiful masks and
their group become the constituent part of Lastovo carnival? When did
Lastovo women begin dancing their chain dance with handkerchiefs? Is
that an influence from abroad, for example from Dubrovnik (Croatia),
or in other words, did their chain dance arrive in Lastovo indepen-
dently from the male chain dance with swords? Or, if we accept Richard
Wolfram’s3 theory, according to which the chain dance with swords is
the traditional male companies’ dance (Wolfram cited in Ivančan, 1967,
pp. 110–11), did women adopt the traditional male companies’ dance,
and use handkerchiefs instead of swords, thus adopting and modifying
the existing chain dance on Lastovo?
It is difficult to give a reliable answer to these questions because his-
torical sources do not mention women. The history of Lastovo indicates
how isolated the island people were, which was partly caused by poor
transport links with the mainland. That is why, despite being under
the constant impact of foreign rulers, the locals focused on their own
customs. Women would rarely leave Lastovo and go to nearby Korčula
or Dubrovnik, so they had very little contact with the outer world.
Knowledge from the outside world, that is, from Dubrovnik and other
Dalmatian cities, was brought to the island by men, Lastovo men who
had travelled or others who had come to Lastovo on business. Owing
to long-standing strong ties with Dubrovnik as the administrative and
ecclesiastical centre, Ivančan’s assumption of the acceptance of male
chain dance with swords on Lastovo from Dubrovnik is partly accept-
able, although when writing about sword and chain dances in Croatia
and ex-Yugoslavia, he did not deal further with the beautiful masks
chain dance phenomenon (Ivančan, 1967, p. 121).
Among the chain dances that have been performed by Croatians up
to now, there are sword dances by Korčula’s kumpanije (dance compa-
nies), sword carnival chain dance from Lastovo, chain dance with hand-
kerchiefs by members of the Bokeljska navy from Boka Kotorska, and
the chain dance with handkerchiefs by beautiful masks from Lastovo. It
is important to point out that all chain dances with swords and hand-
kerchiefs are performed exclusively by men, except the dance by beauti-
ful masks from Lastovo which is exclusively female. It is also interesting
that researchers of dance and customs have not so far addressed the
phenomenon of the only female chain dance in Croatia. It is surpris-
ing, indeed, that for the researchers who have definitely seen this chain
dance, it has remained almost invisible and unrecognized.
As regards questions about the appearance of the female chain dance,
I am personally inclined to think that Lastovo women, inspired by their
own creativity, wish to take part and have fun at the carnival. By enter-
ing the group of beautiful masks, modelled on the existing male carnival
chain dance, women have created their own chain dance with handker-
chiefs. Thus Lastovo women, in accordance with tolerated carnival devi-
ation from day to day, have over time shown great determination and
strength, resisting the imposed norms according to which, in not such a
distant past, women did not belong in a public and social sphere of life.
The everyday relationship between men and women, that is, the
gender division of roles in life, can also be recognized in the Lastovo
carnival, which is a public event and takes place in public space. Since
a community creates a dance, the community is the one we need to
observe in order to understand that dance (see Spencer, 1990, p. 38). The
group of female beautiful masks are supervised and led by male officers.
The women leaders of the group are elected by the carnival commit-
tee, who are men, and among the commanders and priests their chain
dance is also led by male officers. But today, by appearing on the most
important Tuesday in the year in Lastovo, the beautiful masks women
also have a very important role that so far, owing to the research and
its interpretations, has remained almost invisible. Beautiful masks, by
arriving at the Dolac (the space between the church and the school),
are the ones that mark the end of the male carnival chain dance, though
neither pokladari, nor beautiful masks talk about it. That piece of infor-
mation cannot even be found in the Proposal of the Statute of Lastovo
carnival, despite the fact that at the carnivals in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2009,
and 2012, the beautiful masks were ‘late’ to the Dolac on purpose, thus
putting pokladare into the position of the ones who wait. Those being
late can be interpreted as a tolerated deviation from the planned order
because, in the end, both parties are content. The beautiful masks break
the usual, everyday rule of the social/gender hierarchy and at least for a
moment deviate from the norm as, through dancing, they symbolically
take over the power. The pokladari accept all this, since as the female
chain dancers are late they gain dancing time. Therefore, the pokladari
chain dance that they are extremely proud of, and which they have the
honour to dance only on that day, marks the peak of the festivity and
lasts longer. Besides, the pokladari, and also the beautiful masks, while
endorsing socially imposed patriarchal ‘subordinate’ female roles, do
not notice that women take over the role of finalists at the last moment.
Owing to insufficient data throughout history and within the frame-
work of patriarchal society, we have difficulty in pinpointing when
women started dancing the chain dance and taking part in the carni-
val. According to female and male informants’ statements, they have
‘always’ taken part or ‘since they can remember and even before’, or
they appear ‘at the beginning of the twentieth century’. Hence, no one
really knows for sure how long the female chain dance has been there,
but it has most definitely been danced continuously throughout the
whole century.
Tracing the invisible Bula
On the neighbouring south Dalmatian island of Korčula, Korčula’s

Moreska has been performed regularly in the city of Korčula during the
tourist season (May to September). Moreska is a drama and stage show
that includes text, music, and choreographic elements. In its textual
part, which precedes the famous sword dance and presents the context
of its performance, there are four characters: the black king; the white
king; Otmanović, the father of the black king; and Bula, the only female
character (also the only unarmed character in Moreska), who the two
armies fight for with their virtuoso dance steps and forceful clashes
of their swords. In this drama, two different Muslim armies clash; the
white group led by the white king Osman and the black group led by
the black king Moro and his father Otmanović. The confrontation
between the two armies begins when the white king arrives to free his
Bula, who had been captured by the black king. After the introductory
part, there is a battle dance performed by 24 Moreska dancers, a dozen
on each side, and structured into eight choreographic parts (see Čale
Feldman, 2003, p. 67; Foretić, 1974, pp. 5–70; Ivančan 1973, pp. 209–22;
Marošević, 2002, pp. 111–40).
Very little research has been carried out so far on the role and the
meaning of Bula, despite being the key character in Moreska. She sym-
bolizes the sense of the good and the virtuous over bad and evil, as
Moreska dancers fight over her by dancing their sword dance. As Bulas
themselves point out, and whether Moreska dancers admit it or not, Bula
is the leading role; she is being fought for, and without her there would
be no Moreska (Niemčić, 2003, p. 24).4
What to do next with the received materials?
After the research and many conversations and reflections, I was in

doubt about how to write on Bulas. My concern was based on the fact
that the text had been requested by the local community and needed
to be published in a book that would present Korčula and Moreska at
its best, something that it of course takes great pride in. Moreska is seen
to render Korčula unique in the world. It is sold out during the entire
tourist season, and is framed by local people as the symbol of bravery,
manhood, and the victory of good over evil.
Furthermore, my doubts also referred to the many responsibilities of
being a researcher and scientist. On the one hand, I have a responsibil-
ity towards the academic community to which I belong and which has
given me an opportunity to research and write about Moreska. On the
other hand, I have responsibility towards my researched community
without whom I would not have been able to conduct my research.
Thirdly, I have a responsibility towards the wider society; for exam-
ple, tourists, visitors, and lovers of Korčula and its heritage for whom
the book is written. According to Čapo Žmegač, not only are those
responsibilities many, but they can often be in conflict, which has hap-
pened in my case (Čapo Žmegač, 2006, p. 216). As a result of all these
circumstances, I have chosen a descriptive approach using only Bulas’
statements without an analytic interpretation so that the text can be
approved. Moreska men are key figures in this (and not a single Bula!).
So I have had to neglect my professional research identity, silence my

voice, and express only the points of view and interpretations of the
participants of the event – the Bulas. I thought that the Bulas in the
memoirs deserve the first text that describes only them. I did not want
to challenge the outcome of the text with an etic interpretation bear-
ing in mind the strong patriarchal relationship with Moreska men. The
very fact that the local community has approved and requested a text
on Bulas, who have so far received only a few lines in different written
sources (academic but also the ones for wider audience for touristic
purposes), represents a big step. Though I, personally, do not think
that many different interpretations necessarily exclude one another, or
that one is better or worse than the other, but that different perspec-
tives contribute to the interpreted phenomenon, I have left out the etic
interpretation and instead put forward solely the emic interpretations
of female participants in Korčula’s Moreska.
Zebec believes that while writing about dance and dance perfor-
mances, we transmit multiple messages in many ways, and our aware-
ness of it enables us to reflect upon the meaning created during a dance
performance, ‘and to determine whether and how much our attitudes
and interpretations are also acceptable to the ones we write about,
in other words, the ones who, apart from our scientific curiosity and
interest, are the main incentive for the creation of those texts’ (Zebec,
2006, p. 168). Thus I created the first ethnographic text on Bulas, enti-
tled The Bula in Korčula’s Moreska (Niemčić, 2006a), beginning with a
short description of my arrival in the field and my encounter with the
researched group; as Snježana Zorić notes, ‘when “a detailed descrip-
tion” begins, the author vanishes from the text completely’ (Zorić,
2004, p. 47).
Despite my belief that it is unnecessary to present the researched
community with texts written exclusively in a professional language
and with ethnographic terminology, dealing with theories and research
methodologies that contain only the interpretations of the author,
I do believe that we still need to share with the community texts with
detailed descriptions of a researched custom or phenomenon that can
be used to preserve the tradition. We should be prepared to receive
the community’s criticism and suggestions on our work, since there is
always the possibility of making mistakes when it comes to facts.
French ethnologist Françoise Zonabend in restitution5 – that is, pres-
entations of our interpretations/texts – ‘sees a later control of research.
Restitution is getting to know the consequences that our own observa-
tions and analysis have on people, objects of research, to whom this
objectification is addressed’ (Zonabend, according to Čapo Žmegač, 2006,

p. 221). In the interpretative sense, I believe everyone has the right to
their own truth and their own interpretation, as in the case of Korčula’s
Moreska Moreškanti (male), and Bulas, including all the researchers so far,
as well as future ones. In this example, the aggravating factor is that all
local reviewers were men, whereas the objective of the research was
the role of a woman in Moreska. Men have read and reviewed my text,
and have interposed their interpretation in the use of the word Bula.
Consequently, I did not want to accept those reviews in large part
(except for some corrections of facts), as they intruded into the space of
women’s interpretation and imposed the men’s perspective. My choice
as the author of the text was clear: an exclusively women’s perspective
of the only female role in Moreska.
Here, I would like to go back for a moment to the research into
Lastovo carnival. I interviewed pokladari about the role and the mean-
ing of beautiful masks, and who preserved the carnival and beautiful
masks, but I also encouraged both parties to tell me their story of the
carnival as a whole. Thus I received both male and female stories and
their own perspectives as well. However, there is the inescapable fact
that I, as a researcher and later as the author of texts written as the result
of that research, am a female with all the characteristics and differences
that there are in relation to male researchers, and also to the partici-
pants of the event. My female identity had greatly influenced both the
choice of a topic with an emphasis on gender perspective, and the
final results of the research. According to ethnographer Goran Šantek,
since only in interaction with their informants can an ethnographer
‘create’ the field and ‘enter’ it, the process of ‘creating’ the field is not
exclusively the ethnographer’s individual venture, but the researched
community is also included into that process and becomes ‘the co-
author’, who ‘allows the ethnographer access, sets their limits, decides
about the end of research and such’ (Šantek, 2005, p. 129). On Lastovo,
too, beautiful masks happily agreed to take part in the research and were
honoured that a researcher perceived them as equal participants in the
event, and wanted to hear their story, thoughts, and problems they
encountered while rehearsing and performing at the carnival. They
also talked enthusiastically about pokladari and their parts in the event
as they see it, and how they actually take part in it in an invisible way
as well as in the preparations. As in the case of Valentina Gulin Zrnić,
who deals with city research, my own interests and gender identity were
closer to one group of the researched community – female beautiful
masks – while, for the other pokladari group, I had to ‘perform a certain
infiltration’ (Gulin Zrnić, 2005, p. 165). I had an easier, more pleasant,

and open communication with female participants of the event, and
they were probably more open to me as a researcher than they would be
to a male researcher. Whereas, with the pokladari (though it was with a
great amount of affability), I had a more formal and more distant com-
munication. This I put down first and foremost to my female identity.
When it comes to Bulas and the restitution of that text, there is a dou-
ble disagreement in perspectives. First of all, the researcher and author
is an outsider and is observing from that point, reflecting and creating
the text, whereas Moreškanti are insiders who review it and judge it.
Here, we have an opposition, outsider as opposed to insider, but at the
same time also a (gender) male–female one. Apart from the fact that I,
as author, am female, the only female role researched was examined
exclusively from the female perspective, but the reviewers, on the other
hand, are exclusively men. Therefore, among insiders, too, perspectives
are divided into male dominant ones (Moreškanti), and female ones
(Bulas) unfamiliar in the bibliography so far, and completely margin-
alized. The reviewers have intervened in the Bulas’ words in the text.
They tried to change the story about Bulas from the female perspective
with their reviews and comments, and they also tried to explain to
me that things were not as I had written. In other words, they tried
to reimpose their perspective.
In the new commissioned book, Korčulanska Moreška, as well as in
every text and booklet, the male Moreska performers are trying to pre-
sent Moreska in the way they see it or want to see it. They are trying to
portray a so-called model (Rajković, 1974, p. 133) or imaginary order
(Rihtman-Auguštin, 1982, p. 35) which they do not want to burden with
real problems. There is a refusal to talk about the commercialization of
Moreska and everything it brings, since every historical fact also leaves
its trace on the very drama and dance theatrical work. On the other
hand, being aware of an outside researcher and future outside read-
ers, they control their story and put forward only an ideal version (see
Agelopoulos, 2003, p. 80). We also need to bear in mind that prominent
Moreškanti are so called experienced interpreters who are used to eth-
nologists, ethnomusicologists, ethnochoreologists, traditional Croatian
ethnology, and a long-standing attitude by the profession which strives
to search for only the oldest, the most dominant layers of tradition
(Zebec, 2005, p. 19). Hence, ‘when encountered with an ethnologist or
journalist, they choose a way of telling the story or topic, often present-
ing it in a way they believe we expect them to present it’ (Zebec, 2006,
pp. 171–2; see also Buckland, 1999, p. 205).
Perhaps a further reason for this is that regardless of outsiders, they

simply do not want to leave a trace about everyday Moreska in writ-
ten form. Bulas have their own female vision that is different from
the vision of Moreškanti as it is presented to researchers and authors of
tourist brochures. Women have been left out of communication about
Moreska for years. They have never talked about the dance and about
their role to the people who are in direct connection to Moreska, and
no one has ever asked them about the story of Bula. This creates a feel-
ing of being secondary and not very important. So, they have never
had an interpretive role until now. Not even within their society do
they have the right to decide or elect new Bulas.6 Moreover, for years
young Bulas have been prepared for the first performance exclusively by
men. Probably all these things are the reason why Bulas express their
attitudes and facts more openly and more honestly, perhaps have a
clearer picture and see every detail better. It appears to be without any
hidden agenda, so they coin a phrase tourist Bula and present Moreska
at its closest to the so-called achieved order (Rihtman-Auguštin, 1982,
p. 36) without much speculation about what light they will shed on
the immaculate Korčula’s Moreska in written media. The black and the
white kings, and the former and current presidents of associations, are
the persons unofficially in charge of verbal presentations of Moreska and
their frequently told story is transmitted as an echo to new generations
who will transmit them to some future researchers. Bulas, who have not
had a chance to tell their story yet, have not unconsciously put together
an ideal verbal version of Moreska for the public. So they talk about
problems, their neglect, and the unequal relations in Moreska. In other
words, they do not control their story (see Agelopoulos, 2003, p. 80).
Problems of interpretation: texts and ethnographic

representation
I wonder if we should take the path of least resistance and write in a

way that depends on readers. Because ‘a text as such does not exist, it is
created only while reading, its reality is constituted and not intended’
(Zorić, 2004, p. 41). Or perhaps even another consideration is to ask
myself: Have I used Korčula people and their Moreska for my scientific
needs, have I used their comments and reactions? Yes, I have. I have done
it, consciously knowing that I write for academic readers. Nevertheless,
I still have a bitter taste in my mouth when I think that I have completed
a certain task fairly, or written a requested text, but only as a writer who
puts together a story, since my scientific/academic interpretation has not
been of any interest to anyone. I find scientific satisfaction in all texts7

created as the reaction to the fore-mentioned text, where I reflect upon
the perception of our work and field research as a craft.
According to Čapo Žmegač (2006), the strategy of publishing texts in
a foreign language is suitable for local ethnologists who criticize social
practices in the society they live in. It is not suitable for ethnologists who
do not research folklore topics of ‘material culture’, but are interested in
modernity, political controversies, and personal secrets, human intimacy,
and human behaviour in specific situations (Čapo Žmegač, 2006, p. 229).
Ethnochoreologists often deal with folklore, but I strongly disagree that
these topics do not go deep into personal secrets, relationships between
people, their intimacy, and people’s different behaviour in specific situ-
ations. According to Zebec, music and dance researchers have an initial
advantage in relation to their colleagues in other disciplines, since music
and dance belong to a public sphere that is more accessible and which the
researched community often gladly shares with all interested observers
and researchers. But many important things for performers and also
researchers of dance performances take place backstage in a private sphere,
out of view of the public. So the public, visible, and main part of a dance
event is easily accessible for everyone, but a deeper meaning and symbol-
ism that participants experience, their relationship, and the whole context
are not often easy to reveal and understand (Zebec, 2006, p. 167).
In the text in which Šantek (2005) reflects upon this, an ethnographer
and his or her relationship with the researched community is that the
ethnographer can take part fully in the life of a chosen group, a group
which beforehand has not been acquainted with the objectives of her/his
research. Giving apologies for this unintentional unethical behaviour,
which is due to the fact that very often at the beginning of research,
Šantek acknowledges that the ethnographer her/himself does not know
in advance what she/he is researching, and she/he does not know where
this collected information and their interpretations will lead her/him
(Šantek, 2005, p. 129). In such cases, music and dance researchers have
an advantage compared to their colleagues who deal with other topics.
This is because they can clearly explain to the researched community
what has brought them to the research and what music or dance events
interest them. But, that again only refers to the first, invisible level,
because during research we, too, come across numerous problems and
misunderstandings while wanting to penetrate into the context of the
researched event and into those deeper, finer and invisible layers. We do
not know if those levels exist at the beginning of the research, let alone
where and how they will, first, lead our research curiosity, and then
the interpretation of the researched event. Therefore, at first glance,

harmless and non-political research can also cause a very inconvenient
restitution of published results with which the researched community
or explicit individuals feel disappointed and offended. Sometimes, they
even believe that a certain researcher has done a very bad job, that she/
he has completely misunderstood the researched event, that she/he has
published untruths and used informants/dancers so that returning to
their community becomes unwelcome.
The other possible strategy familiar in Croatian ethnological bibliogra-
phy from the 1970s, and first applied by Olga Supek-Zupan is that when
writing in Croatian, keeping the identity of the informants and the
place of research secret was the norm (Supek-Zupan, 1979). It is almost
impossible to apply such a strategy in ethnochoreological research
that comprises different living and annual customs in their entirety or
just the parts that are rich in dance, which as a rule are public social
events accessible to numerous accidental or intentional observers. In
the example of Lastovo carnival and the Bulas in Moreska, owing to the
uniqueness of the researched event, it is difficult to hide the location
of research to the Croatian public. Moreover, people from Lastovo and
Korčula would definitely recognize that it is about their customs and
dance events and would probably (and rightly) be offended if they are
not named. Also, if it is not stressed that they are the ones who perform
and it is something they are extremely proud of, what, then, makes
them different from other communities? One of numerous markers of
symbolic differentiation from other island communities is that Lastovo
carnival is for people from Lastovo and Moreska for people from Korčula
(Zebec, 2005, p. 264). Hiding the informants’ identities is partially fea-
sible for the wider public, but again readers from the community where
the research was conducted will more or less easily recognize their fel-
low citizens from their quoted statements or the roles they perform in
the researched dance event. In the case of Bulas and the text I am talk-
ing about, it does not matter which exact person commented on their
marginal position in Moreska (in most of the cases in the text I did not
write any Bulas’ names or surnames next to their statements). What
is important is what they said and how much that deviates from the
official and publicly known attitude of Moreškanti. In those segments
presenting Bulas in a way that differed from the published accounts and
which revealed the problems and marginalization too much, Moreškanti
demanded changes, even censorship. As far as I know, they did not talk
to Bulas personally about their statements, but they came to me, as the
author of the text, and to the book’s editor to demand corrections.
Let us now return to my choice as an author and my decision to

‘lend’ my voice to the researched group, to Bulas, and thus present to
the public only their points of view exclusively (see Čapo Žmegač, 2006,
p. 216). According to Snježana Zoric´, the authenticity of a culture and
its customs cannot be expressed, ‘the only thing we can grasp in the
text are their fictional systems in their stringency and relevance’ (2004,
p. 44). And every text is the construction of its author. Paul Rabinow
(1977) said that every culture and interpretation as well as the so-called
anthropological facts or material an anthropologist goes to look for in
the field are already interpretations. The facts we are searching for are
already made, and with every new research we reinvent and reinterpret
them. They are seen from different points of view and this is a continu-
ous process without a specific beginning or an end. They are interpreted
by a researched community and by the anthropologist/ethnologist who
carries out the research, accidental observers, and every new participant
anew (Rabinow cited in Čapo Žmegač, 2006, pp. 225–6). So, according
to Čapo Žmegač, ‘in anthropologic research there is neither a privileged
position nor absolute perspective. Ethnographic research is an inter-
subjective creation of knowledge in the encounter between a researcher
and the subject of research’ (2006, pp. 225–6).
As much as my voice was suppressed in the ethnographic text I am
discussing now, the fact is that I chose the subject of research, and in
accordance with my choice, I consciously decided to talk only to Bulas and
I did not accept most of the Moreškanti’s comments. Finally, despite having
written the story according to the Bulas’ words, still I remain the author of
the text and the one who has published it. After all, every text is more or
less an interpretation, ‘a certain construction of a researcher’s “truth”, the
one that seems to be the most convincing and the most logical explana-
tion of what they have experienced and found out in the light of collected
information – in their interaction with people, the subjects of research’
(Čapo Žmegač, 2006, p. 225). The text is undoubtedly my construction
and finally my property, whereas knowledge and the information that
I present do not belong to me (Grau, 1999, p. 170). Because the knowledge
and information are not mine, I believe that text restitution is both desir-
able and necessary. When a detailed description of the researched phe-
nomenon is the case, the text restitution is partly the point of the research.
Concluding reflections
Still, I cannot come to terms with this bitter taste in my mouth. After
this research experience, I believe we need to write down everything we
come across in the field. I say that from the scientific point of view of
an ethnochoreologist who mostly deals with pleasant and non-political
topics, dance events and customs. Together with the dominant points
of view about a researched phenomenon, we are obliged to include in
our interpretation the marginal ones as well, even when influential
actors are not ready to accept them. According to Šantek, ‘an ethnogra-
pher is capable of reaching field “reality” and the purpose of his work
is not aimed exclusively at researched people’ (Šantek, 2005, p. 126).
I would like to add that the purpose of ethnographers’ work is not aimed
exclusively at the dominant group of researched people, but also at the
ones on the margins of a custom or dance event and at all lovers of such
texts. Since our interpretation affects the people we are researching, our
understanding and interpretation of social relations and even symbols
of identification may help those invisible and publicly marginalized
actors – Bulas and beautiful masks in Lastovo carnival – to prove their
own position and role. Some Bulas spoke to me saying that ‘Perhaps
some new visions and some new thoughts about this will originate now
that you have emphasized our role here’ (Niemčić, 2003, p. 30).
I agree with the idea that we should not cause damage to the actors
of research and that we do not have any moral right to do so. But what
should we do when the voices of the main group, who want to dominate
again with their comments and suggestions, suppress the voices of those
who oppose their points of view, and oppose the marginalized group?
By endorsing one of those groups we have certainly caused harm to the
other one, consciously or unconsciously. But if we interfere between
these two opposed perspectives with our scientific and impartial one,
there will be hurt and disappointed individuals possibly in both parties.
I do not know the exact answer to this question and this will remain
open for a while as far as I am concerned, but in my future research
I will look for the best and the least painful solution. For now I have
used some of my strategies and I am trying to reconcile my scientific/
academic identity with the feelings and different thoughts of the people
who are the subjects of my research, and open doors to other and dif-
ferent perspectives and interpretations. I definitely have in mind the
readers for whom I write my texts. For scientific purposes and for read-
ers who belong to the academic community, either domestic or foreign,
I write with a more open style, including in the text all my observations,
comments, and interpretations, even about the intimate family life of
a researched community, of course hiding the identities of the people
I mention. Therefore, as Zebec also points out, having in mind the read-
ers for whom certain texts are intended, ‘it does not mean we have to
go against our beliefs in order to please the wider public, but we have to
raise awareness systematically about the need for dialogue to hear the
voices of all participants in the cultural processes we observe, to inter-
pret and take part ourselves in their realization’ (Zebec, 2006, p. 169).
So we should try to make people in the field who live that tradition
be more aware and pay attention to less recognizable characteristics
of their customs. We have to encourage them to be critical, but also
to allow and accept the different opinions of people who do not live
that tradition but observe it, since they are competent and have expe-
rience with other examples. If informants have a good knowledge of
their local tradition, their knowledge may be limited to one time and
place (Nahachewsky, 1999, p. 183). According to anthropologist Kirsten
Hastrup, the difference between anthropologic and local discourses of
knowledge lies in the difference between knowledge and understand-
ing. Knowledge, Hastrup believes, is an unconditional worldview of the
local society, whereas understanding is an outer, visible, and clear form
of professional/scientific knowledge (Hastrup cited in Agelopoulos,
2003, p. 83). The very significance and role of anthropology is to bind
these two, knowledge and understanding, together (Hastrup, 1993,
p. 75). Regardless of our different positions and with very different
roles, we are intertwined in that tradition. Informants preserve it and
cherish it with movement, voice, and performance, and researchers try
to note it down and interpret it. We leave a written trace, and our text
will be read by some future researchers, and also future Moreškanti and
Bulas. We must take into account the interpretations of all actors of a
researched event or phenomenon, add them to our interpretation, but
also differentiate stories from fantasies (Buckland, 1999, p. 205).
Finally, anthropology gives other/different versions of reality which
do not have to be the ones that please a researched community (Cohen,
according to Hastrup, 1993, p. 176). I therefore deem crucial writing down
and describing as many details as possible, mentioning and researching
all actors of a particular custom, and giving voice to everyone, not only
the main and the visible ones. We need to persuade those voices that are
against such an approach and neutralize interventions, such as in my
example of Moreskanti in the text about Bulas. I do not think 100-year-
old relations will change overnight and that one text will persuade those
voices in the field, but this might be a good way, or at least an attempt
to do so. But there is also a possibility that it is a completely mistaken
attempt and that with this, I have closed the door of Korčula’s Moreska
to myself as a researcher. It is not possible to research Moreska as a whole
from the perspective of only one female unarmed character – Bula.
My experiences and interpretations are described in this field research,

and I have derived pleasure from an ex-Bula’s response to a question
about the idea of writing a text only about the role of Bula: ‘I reckon it’s
just one step forward because the kings have been in charge until now.
Bulas should also be given a particular place as she is the one fought about
in Moreska; she is the symbol of good. Moreover, I’m very glad! And thank
you for coming to that idea in the first place…’ (Niemčić, 2003, p. 12).
Notes
1. Vinko Foretić (1974), Marinko Gjivoje (1974), Ivan Ivančan (1974), Igor Lozica
(1974), Zoran Palčok (1974), Zlatan Podbevšek (1974), and others. Since 2000,
female researchers Elsie Ivancich Dunin (2001), Lada Čale Feldman (2003), and
Grozdana Marošević (2002) have taken up Moreska and written about it.
2. In Croatian ethnological and ethnochoreological literature, see Foretić (1974),
Ivančan (1967, 1973, 1974), Jurica (2001), Lozica (1997), Zebec (2005).
3. Richard Wolfram (1901–1995), ethnologist from Vienna. His research deals
with sword dances.
4. One Bula said: ‘Little importance was placed on the dialogue itself. Although
they insisted on having it, they never really cherished it. This was simply
something that needed to be there before the moreska performers start the
sword fight’ (Niemčić, 2003, p. 27).
5. Françoise Zonabend (1994) ‘De l’objet et de sa restitution en anthropologie’,
Gradhiva 16, pp. 3–14.
6. This is what the former Bula, considered by many to be the best tourist Bula,
said about the qualities required for the part of the Bula and the way of learn-
ing the part: ‘She has to be beautiful, she can’t be ugly. But when you think
about it not all of them were beautiful, but each Bula had her own personal
characteristics and she managed to stick out from the others in the crowd as
the actor alone on the stage. Not every teenager will have the nerve to come
out on the stage alone and face the crowds and act out great love, suffering,
and feelings. So you really have to have the talent for acting and a way to
show your skills. Our teacher had always asked us to speak louder and to speak
clearly […]. They said Bula is no good if she is not understood. They had always
looked for the Bula who will be heard and understood by everyone. At one
time I realized I was pleasing the men who wanted the Bula to be loud. And
then I said: “Wait a minute, Bula is not the one who has to shout!” Especially
when foreigners came. There was no longer the need to be understood. The
foreigner has no idea what you are saying, anyway. He doesn’t understand
Croatian. That means you have to give him some kind of a hint, some gesture
so he can see something is going on. It was often the case that at the start of
the performance, people were still entering and finding their place during that
introductory dialogue between the Bula and the king and they only really
focused their attention when the armies came’ (Niemčić, 2003, p. 33).
7. Text presented at the 23rd Ethnochoreology Symposium (ICTM) which took
place in July 2004 in Monghidoro, Italy (Niemčić, 2008, pp. 86–9). A chapter
in the edited collection Etnologija bliskoga (Ethnology Close) (Niemčić 2006b,
pp. 191–212) and, finally, the current text.
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5
Embodying Cultural Identities
and Creating Social Pathways
through Mallorquin Dance
Linda E. Dankworth
As I surveyed the scene around me, I recognized my

dance teacher Gabriel and his wife in the crowd at an
extraordinary banquet. It had a surreal atmosphere,
as I looked upon possibly four hundred people feast-
ing and dancing in the moonlight: children, babies,
grandmothers, and the odd person who, like me, had
stumbled into what seemed like an immense fam-
ily party. This was my first encounter of watching
a mass participation of people dancing at a ballada.
I thought then that the music appeared to invoke
an automatic response in the Mallorcan community
as their bodies reacted to the rhythm. I later came
to realize that it is the dancers beating the pulse on
the castanyoles [castanets] that creates this rhythmic
response in their bodies, as well as their knowledge
of the repertoire of dances. The energy expended by
their movement patterns seemed to create an illusion
of being carried along on a crest of a wave, turning
and twisting in different directions. I wondered then
if I would ever experience this natural harmonious
fluid state within my body as I hurtled through the
air, like a resistant force in this steady stream, crash-
ing one way and then another as I danced amongst
the crowd of people.
(Dankworth, 2002, Fieldnotes,
24 July, Mallorca)
95
Introduction
The description above depicts my first encounter of participating at

the ballada, a social dance event. It also illustrates the translative expe-
rience of my embodied practice through a participatory-orientated
methodology of dance ethnography. Embodied reflexive practice in
dance ethnography and its cultural analysis invariably situates dance
movement as inseparable from the cultural contexts in which it exists,
see Browning (1995), Hastrup (1995); Hastrup and Hervik (1994), Ness
(1992, 2004), Sklar (1991), and Thomas (2003), who all delineate the
relations between the self, culture, embodied practice and performative
experience. My investigation into the practice of dance improvisation at
the ballada presented a more unusual and complex reflection of identity
in comparison with countries that do not have a dual cultural ethno-
linguistic context, such as in this case where Catalan and Castilian are
the official languages.1 It also revealed that there is an interrelationship
between the processes of revival of Mallorquin traditional dance and the
influence of tourism that has contributed to the formation of Mallorcan
identities.
The ballada originated in 1981 during the San Sebastiá festival in
Palma. It was initiated through key musicians and dancers at the Escola
de Música i Danses de Mallorca, one of my field-site schools. A new
emphasis in the dance revival at the beginning of the 1980s focused
on improvisation, and challenged the Mallorcan dancers’ notions of
tradition and previous choreographic practices of dance, which I go on
to discuss. It also posed questions about people’s perceptions of their
identities within this recreational space. How are cultural identities
constructed, for example, at temporary sites of belonging, such as the
ballada? I explore the practice of improvisation as a mode of embodi-
ment for performing traditional dance at this event, and consider why
Mallorcan music bands were instrumental to its formation.
Ethnographic fieldwork was carried out at short intervals between
2003 and 2007, at three field sites on the Spanish Balearic Island of
Mallorca; two of which are the Escola de Música i Danses de Mallorca
in Palma, in the south-west of the island, and Aires Sollerics based at
the Centre de Cultura C’an Dulce in Soller, in the north-west.2 The third
field site is the ballada, staged in the villages and town plaças (squares)
throughout the island. I chose these two schools because their direc-
tors were instrumental in reviving and reconstructing dances from dif-
ferent historical periods, taking a revivalist and antiquarian approach
respectively.3 It is the revivalist context of dance that is the subject
Mallorquin Dance 97
of this chapter because it is these dances that are performed at the

ballada.
As I became more competent in mastering the Mallorquin dances,
such as the boleros, fandangos, and jotas, I began to question the role
that the improvised dances fulfilled in the socio-cultural politics of
the everyday life of the Mallorcan community of dancers, musicians,
and general public. The Mallorquin dances are devised for couples,
performed in symmetry, projecting a mirror image of one another. In
contrast to most other European folk dances, it is women in Mallorca
who lead the improvised dances. These dances are known as ball de bot
(small jumping dances), and the vernacular term of ball de plaça (dance
of squares) because the dances are performed in the town or village
squares; and baile popular (popular dance), which is a generic term that
represents three categories of Mallorcan dance – ball de bot, ball de pages,
and ball de figures.4 Popular dance, as Sherril Dodds states, ‘is a his-
torically contested label’ (2011, p. 3), and ‘an intellectual approach to
dance that takes place under a range of conditions’ (p. 201).
Dance has been described as a levelling activity that draws people
together in solidarity and contrasts with normal everyday life (Spencer,
1985, p. 28). Similarly, the ballada represents a social space where the
dancers and musicians are separated from their ordinary everyday lives
and routines, and are drawn together as a community for the duration
of this event. Mallorcan individuals negotiate nationalist politics, gen-
der relations, and their cultural identities through improvised dance
and music practices at the ballada. In this way ‘a singular becoming of
a community’ (Grossberg, 1996, p. 102) is articulated in the politics of
the spatial environment of the ballada.
I have drawn on cultural theorist, Lawrence Grossberg’s (1996, p. 88)
theoretical notion to explore different aspects of the collective relation-
ship of people performing dance in the socio-cultural environment of
the ballada. Thus, Grossberg (1996, p. 102) considers that singularity
creates a concept of alternative politics for defining cultural identity,
which essentially addresses how cultural and political identities are
produced in temporary points of belonging. A singular becoming of a
community does not mean that their collectivity is represented by a
single definition. In contrast, there are many underlying conditions of
political and cultural concerns that are identifiable within communities
and their socio-cultural practices.5
The dual cultural ethnolinguistic context of Castilian and Catalan
since 1983 has created a distinction between the older and younger gen-
erations. The older generations are more affiliated with their Castilian
cultural identity; they perceive the revival of dance as part of the emer-
gent Catalan/Mallorqui culture. In contrast, the younger generations
are more affiliated with the Catalan culture and would like independ-
ence from Spain. The ballada became a site for collective agency in
Grossberg’s terms of temporality, and for the intervention of political
and social changes instigated by the local community. Ultimately, the
directors, dancers, and musicians mainly perform dance for their own
enjoyment in this recreational space, which is a post-Franco political
reality of the social changes and freedoms that ensued after Franco’s
death in 1975.
Dancing into a new dawn
Islands appear as microscopic images embodying the various, ambiv-

alent and contradictory narratives of being in the world. Through
their arrangements, they evoke specific philosophies of time and
being.
(Picard, 2011, p. 147)
The revival of dance that took place in Mallorca at the end of the
1970s and beginning of the 1980s was to restore improvised dances
in social contexts, and in part, a defensive response to tourism. The
mass tourism of the 1960s, for instance, had contributed to the tradi-
tional dances’ disintegration when only choreographed dances were
performed for tourists. It was also driven by the desire to recover
traditional dances as part of the Mallorcan people’s cultural heritage,
because many of the dances were lost during Franco’s reign (1939–75).
During this period dance was controlled through the Sección Femenina
(Women’s Division of the Falange Party), who functioned as ‘a special-
ized agent in the indoctrination of women during the entire Franco
period’ (Casero-Garcia, 1999, p. 79). Restrictions were also imposed on
men, who were stopped from dancing, and improvised dancing was
suppressed.
The demise of the Franco Regime in 1975 opened up the way for the
transition to democracy in 1977, and Mallorca was granted a decree of
a Statute of Autonomy on the 1st March 1983. Mallorcan, Bartomeu
Enseñat-Estrany established the Escola de Música i Danses de Mallorca in
1975, and was the main protagonist of the dance revival (Dankworth,
2012). Enseñat-Estrany was a revivalist and folklorist (1917–1999),
who revived a declining regional improvised form of ball de bot from
the beginning of the twentieth century, based on interviews he carried
Mallorquin Dance 99
out with Mallorcan village elders between the 1950s and 1960s.6 He
considers that:
Son testigos vivientes que conservan todas sus facultades y que

pueden mostranos, explicarnos y enseñarnos este arte que heredaron
de sus progenitors.
(Enseñat-Estrany, 1975, p. 59)
(They are living witnesses who still have all their faculties and who
can demonstrate to us, explain to us and teach us this art that they
inherited from their ancestors).7
A number of people at his school believe that a very positive effect of

Enseñat’s work is that he eliminated any artistic influences inherited from
the choreography of the Sección Femenina. He also made dance more acces-
sible for ordinary Mallorcans who were not actively involved in dance
previously, because of the exclusivity enforced on folk dance groups by
the Sección Femenina. Enseñat revived the ball de bot into an easier style,
and replaced what Aries Sollerics director Guillem Bernat described as ‘the
“authentic” eighteenth-century boleros for Enseñat’s new ones’ (Bernat,
2004, interview). Dance classes were set up throughout the island at the
end of the 1970s to teach the improvised dances to the local community.
The dances were not revived to improve the local economy of tourism.
Instead, key people from the Escola de Música i Danses de Mallorca initiated
the creation of the ballada to create a contemporary cultural heritage of
Mallorquin dance and music for themselves in social recreation, at which
tourists are not present and neither are the traditional costumes worn.
The Mallorcan people also describe the ballada as ‘fiestas popular’, which
are held throughout the year, and at the weekends.
Mainly, the participants are derived from the Mallorcan middle and
lower classes and a few foreign residents whom I have met while study-
ing dance at the Escola de Música i Danses de Mallorca. They include
teachers, housewives, a bank clerk, dressmakers, cleaners, shopworkers,
and dancers and musicians in the local community. The largest age
group of people participating at the ballada was of 16–24 year olds, and
I have also seen people dancing well into their seventies and eighties.
The Neighbourhood Associations are one of the main organizations
that are actively involved in organizing many of the ballades in the pub-
lic squares and provide money for the musicians to play at these events.
Interestingly, the Asociacion de Amas de Casa (Housewives Association)
and Asociaciones de Vecinos (Neighbourhood Associations) were the only
officially tolerated women’s groups in the past, and were closely linked
to the Sección Femenina (Brooksbank Jones, 1997, p. 3).
The Ballada event: improvisational dance practices
I attended my first ballada in Calvia, in the south-west of the island

with an acquaintance, Kathy, who was a dancer from the village of
Binissalem. As I looked around, I could see long tables joined together
and covered in white tablecloths surrounding the edges of the square.
There appeared to be an enormous number of people of an intergen-
erational mix seated at them. At the far end of the square, people were
standing in a long queue to purchase tickets for refreshments. The main
dish was a typical Mallorcan tumbet, made with pork, aubergines, pep-
pers, and tomatoes. In the middle of the square was a large space for the
dancing to take place. Feeling slightly apprehensive having had only
two private, introductory lessons in the art of Mallorquin dance (I was
a trained dancer in ballet and contemporary dance, and other dance
forms), I followed Kathy’s advice on how to participate in the ballada.
There were at least six large circles consisting of up to 50 people in each
circle, and the idea is to follow the spatial patterns and dance steps set
by one person leading a particular group. During my first encounter of
dancing at the ballada I could not decipher straight away who was actu-
ally leading the group, partly because I had picked quite an advanced
group who were using a complicated fast sequence of steps. I also dis-
covered that when following a less competent lead dancer, it also pre-
sents some drawbacks, particularly if the lead dancer makes a mistake,
which can result in the circle’s disintegration.
Nieves, a dancer and an interpreter by profession, explains the com-
plexities of performing improvised dances at the ballada; ‘In general
people that are not competent and feel insecure, hardly ever want to lead
the dances. It is complicated enough that you do not try unless you are
really good at dancing’ (personal communication, December 2004). In
comparison, a dancer from the group Aires Sollerics considers that they
could easily overcome their partner’s mistakes: ‘Although it is impor-
tant that my female companion knows all the punts (points), but if she
doesn’t know them, I could continue dancing and complement them
with another point’ (personal communication, Soller, November 2005).
Improvised dances performed at the ballada are partially experimental in
relation to the way that a dancer combines the structural elements of steps
with the music. The music melody or song predetermines the changes and
initiation of new steps. The names of the steps describe directions, such as
Mallorquin Dance 101
devant i darrera (front and back), or specific parts of the body like espatlla
(shoulder). Catalina a teacher from the Escola de Música i Danses, states:
I do not prepare myself for improvisation, but practice helps. First

I listen to the rhythm to figure out which dance I will perform, and
then I decide the steps as they come to mind and feel inspired by
the music.
(Barcelo-Hernandez, 2004, personal communication)
During the verses of the bolero, for example, a sequence of step motifs
are performed, but during the instrumental interlude and final cadence,
a step called volta (turn) is performed. Volta separates each series of
steps and links each musical phrase, leading into a position known as
bien parado (good stop) when a brief pause occurs.8 The bolero melody
(3/4 time signature) is often constructed with a nine bar vocal melody
(see Figure 5.1), and here it is shown without the three bar percussive
interlude (Dankworth, 2007, p. 551).
Toni, who is a musician and dancer at the school in Palma, states that
‘I must have a clear idea of the step that I am about to mark, otherwise
there will be a shambles when dancing’ (personal communication,
2005). Another dancer said, ‘I go to the ballada because it is the best way
to learn. It corrects errors and shows new details and fluidity’ (personal
communication, Palma, February 2004). In fact a few dancers told me
that they try out different combinations of dance steps on their friends,
because it makes them better dancers. In a similar vein, most dancers
felt that it was important to be competent in their ability to impro-
vise, and have a good knowledge of the pre-existing material. Overall,
a majority of people’s reasons for attending the ballada were, ‘I like to
dance for pleasure as it is part of our way of life’, and that ‘they are fun’.
The dance space is transformed within a few minutes at the ballada,
as people converge to take part in a shared experience of dancing. Not
Figure 5.1 Bolero – nine bar vocal melody (transcribed by A. Dankworth) taken
from a DVD clip of a dance class held at the Escola de Música i Danses de Mallorca,
2005
all of the dances are performed in circles; the fandangos are performed in
parallel lines facing a partner. Local populations have since challenged
Enseñat’s original vision of women leading the dances:
In the popular dances there is a big revolution, because you can see
dances in the circle now being led by men. The dances must have an
evolution, but I do not like it, although I do not dance like they did
one hundred years ago. My friends in the group prefer to dance as
couples with women leading the dances. As a man, I have never had
to choose a step. I have always copied the woman’s step.
(Hernandez, 2005, interview)
The Sección Femenina originally created dancing in circle formations,

because they did not permit people to dance as couples. As Biel
Hernandez states, ‘The circles are a modern tradition but it is also a way
that people can dance if they do not have a partner’ (Hernandez, 2005,
interview). There were no mixed gender performances until the 1960s.
The climax to the ballada is when the bullanguera is performed; it is
a derivation of the jota and recognized by a step called bot (jump and
beating step) and begins by one couple running into the middle of the
dance space, while others stand and watch, forming a circle around
them. Different dancers intercept the previous female or male dancer’s
partner in a relay sequence, while a flirtatious encounter is conducted
between the men and women vying for each other’s attention. By enter-
ing the circle they interrupt the sequence of individual couples perform-
ing, and literally push either the female or male dancer away to take
their place in the dance. There are different ideas about how this dance
was invented, Manel, for example explains:
A long time ago there was a very important fiesta in Mallorca where
they sacrificed a pig, and afterwards everyone would dance. The most
flirtatious woman started to dance in the circle and wore a long skirt
and a handkerchief covering her face. She could not see anything
because it was also very dark at night. A man who liked this woman
would dance with her, and perhaps could kiss her while they were
dancing. It was like an erotic dance, competing for the woman.
(Manel, 2003, interview)
The circle configurations often reflect the politics of the dance; who
leads the dance circle is often somebody recognized as being a very good
dancer or teacher, and capable of calling out the directions if people are
unsure of the movements. It is here, in the union of the people dancing,
that a collective sense of identity emerges through individuals’ relations
Figure 5.2 Ballada at Porreres with Al Mayurka, 15 February 2004 (credit: L. E.

Dankworth)
within the space and engagement with dance. Similarly, the dancing
reflects Grossberg’s argument that, ‘agency, like identity, is not simply
a matter of places, but is more a matter of the spatial relations of places
and spaces and the distribution of people within them’ (1996, p. 101).
After Enseñat died in 1999, Cultural Director Antonio Biblioni and
other dance teachers gradually changed the direction of the initial
dance style that was taught at Palma (Biblioni, 2004, interview). A few
modifications were implemented in the Mallorcan dancers’ style of arms
and footwork to make the dances fit the public’s expectations of a more
natural and relaxed approach to embodying the dances at the ballada.
The Mallorcan dancers also considered that there is the element of sur-
prise in performing improvisation, which is seen across most forms of
improvisation in dance (see Foster, 2003, p. 7). Research on improvised
traditional dance in Europe has been carried out more frequently on
men’s dances (Foley, 2001; Giurchescu, 1983; Martin, 1980), which sug-
gests that improvised dancing by men is a more common trait in Europe
than it is for women.
Music bands of Mallorca
I have been told many times that after Franco died, people were still
afraid to go out into the streets to play music and dance. This is because
Franco not only repressed music by banning musicians from playing in

the streets, but people were also prevented from dancing in the streets.
When ballades became legal around 1981, first of all there would be
only ten people dancing in the square and others would be afraid,
either because of the previous history during Franco’s period, or they
did not know how to dance. This resulted in some teachers who began
to teach the dances to others.
(Dopisco, 2004, interview)
The development of composing new music as part of the revival was

an important impetus for most of the new bands that originated in
the 1980s. Two bands are synonymous with this event (although for
different reasons); Música Nostra, whose founding members originated
from the Escola de Música i Danses, is considered to be one of the first
bands that were active in staging music for people by playing at the
initial San Sebastiá fiesta in 1981. Miquela Llaudo, the lead singer of
Música Nostra, explained why this band was instrumental in creating
the ballada:
The Sección Femenina performed horrible dances and their music is

what we call Rondellas. People who play music but they do not feel
it, and then it is not authentic. The fact is that these dances were not
authentic and people felt very sensitive to this fact, and that is why
people decided to start groups without costumes. We realized that we
wanted to be musicians, but we did not want to wear the traditional
costumes, and so the three of us decided to separate from the school
and started Música Nostra, Pep Toni, Enrique, and I. Later on we
recorded CDs, Ball de Bot, Ball Sa Plaça, and others.
(Llaudo, 2005, interview)
The other band is Al Mayurka, whose late leader Toni Roig was a political
activist and nationalist. Originally, Roig, who played the guitar, was also
a founding member of Música Nostra and played with them for nearly
20 years, but later departed for artistic reasons. Other musicians followed
by forming bands to play music in the streets and village squares. The
musicians’ aims were to make the traditional music more up-to-date for
local tastes by using electric instrumentation, and to attract younger
audiences at the ballada.
Francisco Dopisco, a director of a dance group in Son Ferriol, states
that, ‘The bands’ influence at the ballada has been to bring many people,
with large crowds. Some people turn up to listen to the music and others
turn up to dance’ (Dopisco, 2004, interview). There is a distinct divide
between the bands that were established during or towards the end
of Franco’s reign, such as Aires Sollerics, Tall de Vermedors, and Balls
i Tonades, and bands that formed after democracy like Al Mayurka,
Música Nostra, Traclada, and Herbes Dolces, who are not attached to a
folk dance group, as was the previous custom. These last-named groups
have cultivated a modern approach with electric instrumentation, and
draw a large number of fans that follow the groups to different events,
similar to that of fans associated with rock groups. They believe that
the music should speak for itself, so much so that Roig only played
‘authentic’ eighteenth-century music solely for tourist performances.
I consider that ‘authenticity’, however, is a theoretical construct and
used by individuals to evaluate artistic and aesthetic qualities of dance
and music.
Roig’s performances for tourists were devised to project an ancient
identity by wearing the traditional costume of Mallorca, unlike his per-
formances at the ballada where his image was more contemporary. Roig
explains, ‘At the ballades, it is new music we have composed. We think
that it is important to perform new music so that it stays alive, and that
it does not turn into a museum piece’ (Roig, 2006, interview).
Over the years the musical rhythms have been modified slightly in
keeping with the modernization process of the music, such as the jota’s
6/8 beats to a bar, which has been changed to a 3/4 rhythm. In contrast
the bullanguera is danced to a very lively 2/4 rhythm, in which the
drummer builds up the rhythm to a crescendo towards the end of the
dance, by beating the thick, round end of the drumstick on the side of
the drum. Similarly, the guitarists accentuate the beats by slapping the
sides of the guitars.
Roig states that
During the 1960s and 1970s, the main music played in the Mallorcan
discos was English pop music for the tourists. The effects of globaliza-
tion have now filtered through into the local culture with a restruc-
turing for ourselves of our music rhythms at the ballada.
(Roig, 2006, interview)
The playing of the castanyoles to accompany the bolero has not changed
much over the years. Rhythmically, the rattling of the castanyoles makes
them sound distinctly Mallorquin rather than Spanish, because the
castanyoles played in Spain have more rhythmic beats. The castanyoles
Table 5.1 The castanyoles percussive rhythm of the bolero (L. E. Dankworth,
Fieldnotes, January 2003)
Count 1 + 2 + 3 +
Beat | ||| | ||| | |
Rhythm DA da-da-da DA da-da-da DA DA
Hands Both RRR L RRR L Both
percussive rhythm played in Mallorca is used as a structural element

in the dance that works on a level of counterpoise to the steps (see
Table 5.1). The castanyoles, for example, accentuate the counts of i tres
(and three) in comparison to the execution of the bolero steps – tres i
(three and).9
Al Mayurka often appeared to be involved in artistic and political col-
laborations that were of an anti-establishment nature or at least contro-
versial. Roig later told me in an interview (2006) that all the members
of his band consider themselves as nationalists. This statement may
explain why he often used the ballada as a platform to air his political
views. His penchant for writing new lyrics with political connotations
stirred the audiences to rebel, amongst other things against the gov-
ernment’s proposed plans for excessive building works to make new
motorways. One particular phrase that he used to insert into a song was
‘Yo no soy Español, soy Mallorquin’ (‘I am not Spanish, I am Mallorquin’).10
Roig had a large following of both political allies and music fans, and in
particular, he used the medium of music to promote his political ideals
for independence from Spain.
Nationalism, Països Catalans (Catalan countries)

and autonomy
The ballada has provided a space for the new Catalan nationalists and
politicians to use the event for their own political agendas, such as
the Joves d’ Esquerra Nacionalista (Youth of the Nationalist Left) and
Mallorcan Independència Partit (Mallorcan Independence Party), who
sometimes held political rallies as a preamble to a ballada. As a conse-
quence, regional identity is now being developed in line with Mallorcan
autonomy and self-government from Spain, both within local politics
and by younger Mallorcans who have taken demonstrative steps to
make their voices heard. They want to push the boundaries of social
and political control into even further separation from Spain. A young
dancer expresses her concerns in her condemnation of the Spanish gov-

ernment’s relations with the Balearic region:
I am a Catalonista, nationalista, and independista; that is to say, I am

joined with Catalunya and Valencia. This means that we are a
minority, and misunderstood. The Spanish region does not respect
our culture, language, and traditions. I don’t know much about the
main political parties, but from what I do know, I don’t support any of
them. The most important thing about Mallorca is our culture, the sea,
and our land often destroyed by the excessive building construction.
(Personal communication, Palma, August 2008)
In comparison, Gabriel Frontera, director of the Escola de Música i Danses,

states, ‘I am very proud to be Spanish and of our Spanish heritage. I like
the Spanish language and feel that it is more important to speak Spanish,
because Spanish is spoken throughout the world’ (personal communica-
tion, 2005). The older generations are to a certain extent hostile to the
idea of losing their sense of Spanish national identity and becoming a
minority region of Spain, a shift that promotes Catalan nationalism.
There are exceptions to this generational and cultural division, as
shown by Roig, whose empathy and loyalty was to the Catalan/Mallorqui
culture. Roig particularly associated his identity with other Catalan
speaking countries and Catalan nationalists who envisaged the creation
of an extended Països Catalans (Catalan Countries), a term considered
by Guibernau (1997, p. 139). This extended community would include
Valencia, the Roussillon region in France, Catalunya, and the rest of the
Balearic Islands, and establish a new political and cultural boundary of
the autonomous Mallorcan community with the Països Catalan.11
A further cultural distinction is also made by Maria, a dance teacher,
who states that ‘My culture is Castellano, but when I dance, I express
my Mallorquin roots’ (personal communication, 2006). She perceives
Mallorquin dance as part of an emergent second-level Catalan/Mallorqui
culture, which she has internalized as an expression of embodying
Mallorquin dance. Her first instinct is to align her affinities with the
national culture of Spain, which she perceives formed her first values
and beliefs as a child in framing her identity as Castilian.
The Catalan culture has become more predominant since the Balearic
Islands were decreed a Statute of Autonomy in 1983, and took precedence
over the Castilian culture, which up until 2011 was given less promi-
nence in education institutes. The establishment of the new Balearic
Government on 14 July 2011, Partido Popular (PP) led by President Jose
Ramón Bauzá, however, saw changes imposed on work and education

reforms of the Catalan language policy. This means that speaking Catalan
is now no longer a requirement for access to education and obtaining
work, which is ‘the biggest cut of the linguistic rights of citizens of the
Islands since the end of the Franco dictatorship’ (Gonzales, 2012, n.p.).
As a result of these cuts, a large demonstration of between 20,000 and
50,000 people took place in Palma on 24 March 2012 to demand that
this new rule be overturned. The rally was organized by the Obra Cultural
Balear (OCB) (Balearic Cultural Work) and the Consell Social (Social
Council) of the Societat Civil (Civil Society) of Mallorca (Gonzales, 2012).
The issue of language is an ongoing problem that is driving a wedge
between the cultural and political divisions of the community.
Mallorcan identities are constantly in motion and constitute a state of
existence that is also determined by language, kinship, aesthetics, gender,
age, social class, culture, history, local politics, and globalization. Michael
Keating argues that in Catalunya, ‘the politics of multiple identity builds
on the pre-existing sense of dual Catalan and Spanish identity’ (2000,
p. 34). This same sense of a dual Catalan and Spanish identity for some
people also builds on a third sense of cultural identity, that of being
Mallorcan. Bernat, for example, considers himself as ‘a citizen of the
world’, but was born in Mallorca and speaks Catalan. In fact, he states,
‘to live on an island, makes us feel independent of the rest of the Spanish
state’ (personal communication, Soller 2008). Younger dancers do not
perceive many differences, however, between their Catalan and Mallorcan
cultural identity, and consider it is derived from the same root. A com-
plexity lies in the way that Mallorcan people have addressed the issue of
difference within the two main cultures of Castilian and Catalan.
Social pathways and a singular becoming of a community
Although the ballada originated in Mallorca, later on, bands such as

Al Mayurka began to perform at fiestas in Barcelona. Biblioni considers
that ‘ballades were later staged in 2004, in Catalunya and Valencia, but
not anywhere else in Spain’ (Biblioni, 2004, interview). For some foreign
residents, the ballada has become a way of integration into Mallorcan
society. Not everyone participating at this event shares a commonality of
experience of the Mallorcan people’s Castilian and Catalan cultural herit-
age and politics. It is where the problematical concepts of defining identi-
ties, and their various social, cultural, and political contexts are manifold.
Grossberg (1996, p. 103) is interested in the possibilities of political
identities and alliances, which seems to suggest the concept of belonging
without a shared identity. I am not arguing that this is the case for defin-
ing Mallorcan identities, but rather that the ballada provides a space where
individuals can belong through their participation at this dance event.
There is a sense that the dancers and general public, who follow
the Mallorcan bands from place to place, follow a social pathway that
brings them into a transformative performance through their embodi-
ment of dance in the spatial context of the ballada. An analogy can be
made here with the dancers travelling to multiple ballades and that of
Victor Turner’s (1974) data on ‘secular pilgrimage’, along with Arnold
Van Gennep’s (1960) three-fold classification theory of rituals of separa-
tion, transition and re-aggregation/incorporation.12 In relation to Van
Gennep’s first stage of separation, for example, the Mallorcan dancers
and members of the public are separated from their everyday life and
work as the ballades are staged at the weekends and during the most
important fiestas in Mallorca, such as celebrations of Patron Saint days,
and at wine festivals and harvests in the villages.
Turner found that pilgrimages are liminal phenomena and that they
exhibit a quality of communitas in their social relations and organization
(1974, p. 166). Similarly, I consider that the dancers’ and musicians’ re-
appropriation of the village squares to perform improvised dances and
play music exemplifies this collectivity of behaviour. Political and social
changes are also negotiated within this space. It is a spatial construc-
tion of temporary belonging where dance has drawn people together
for a network of events. Different sites are formed and reformed at the
ballada with shared performance spaces for the various bands.
The transient and transitional nature of the ballada creates a net-
work of social pathways that is comparable, for example, with walking
groups making pathways across the countryside. Anthropologist
Wendy Darby’s analysis of the construction of landscape and identity
in the English countryside is through the recreational pursuit of walk-
ers (2000, p. 226). She considers that the patterns and symbolics of
walking in the Lake District create a secular parallel to pilgrimage. Her
perception is that a walking group allows a severance of what is for
some an urban-generated isolation. Similarly, the Mallorcan dancers
and musicians meet others, some of whom might otherwise be isolated
if the ballada did not provide them with an opportunity for social-
izing at the weekends at various sites, and forming temporary instal-
lations of people. One person mentioned to me that previously she
was a teacher but is now unemployed, and participating in the ballada
became an important part of her existence (personal communication,
January 2003).
Van Gennep’s second stage of rituals is that of transition, which con-

forms to the dancers at the ballada who enter a liminal period, where
dance is embodied as a collective recreational activity and thus becomes
part of a transformative performance. During this period, Turner’s nor-
mative communitas can be experienced (1974, p. 169), which reflects the
ballada community’s collectivity.13 Turner distinguishes between every-
day social space and liminal space (1979, p. 467), where performances
require framed spaces and are often performed in village and town
squares (public liminality). Dancing bodies are actualized in the tem-
porality of its space as an energizing expression of self and creativity.
The ballada is a site where an interrelationship between cultural poli-
tics and freedom of expression merges with innovative dance practices,
thus creating a network of collective agency. Manel, a dancer states,
‘What we do here at the ballada is improvised dancing. We invent what
we are dancing. It is improvised choreography’ (Manel, 2003, interview).
Moreover, within the few seconds prior to the dancer’s execution of
improvisation, it is at this precise moment of being in-between one stage
and moving to another that the dancer enters into the transitional stage.
In Van Gennep’s final stage, known as incorporation, Turner consid-
ers that either a higher status level, or altered state of social being occurs
(1979, p. 467). It is at this point, after the ballada has ended, that the
dancers and musicians return to everyday life, often invigorated by their
experience. Through an experimental approach to improvisation, indi-
viduals can broaden their repertoire of dance steps, develop their dance
skills, and increase their knowledge for future reference. A dancer from
the Escola de Música i Danses states that ‘it is the best way to learn, with
people from different places, and in such festive surrounds’ (personal
communication, Palma, January 2003). As Sklar notes, ‘it is the kinetic
qualities of movement that provide clues to the experiential meaning
of people’s movement knowledge’ (2001, p. 3).
Dance is not only kinetically embodied, but it also depends on the
sensual and emotional experience emanating from the dancer. Edgard,
who studies dance at the school in Palma, believes that Mallorquin dance
is an integral part of Mallorcan culture and the relation between the
movement and its emotional effects are merged together. He explains,
‘No one can know the ball de bot unless they have seen it improvised.
Dance is not just steps, but feeling and culture’ (personal communica-
tion, November 2005). Sklar conceptualizes the proprioceptive details
involving somatic modes of embodiment as a process and experience of
‘spiritual knowing’ (2001, p. 187). I consider that the more experienced
and competent Mallorcan dancers, such as Edgar and Manel, experienced
the somatic and emotional embodiment of dance at a level that could

be internalized beyond the aesthetic qualities. They perceived that the
sensations felt within their bodies were instrumental in developing an
embodied knowledge of the dances. Improvisation as a practice became
second nature, and became internalized through memorized patterns of
movement sequences and the emotions aroused through dancing.
Conclusion
The spatial context of the ballada has allowed Mallorcan dancers and
musicians to negotiate nationalist politics and their identities as a collec-
tive way of being within this environment, which aligns with Grossberg’s
idea that people experience the world from a particular position that
defines them spatially in relation to others as entangled or separated
(1996, pp. 100–1). The ballades influence on the dancers’ participation at
this event has given them a sense of belonging, and in doing so, created a
social pathway across the Mallorcan landscape. It reflects Turner’s (1974)
notion of social pathways as secular pilgrimages made by the collective
community of people who follow the bands to different sites.
Significantly, the philosophical trajectory of revivals and their
embodied orientations in performances differ. The revival of dance in
Mallorca was instrumental in bringing about cultural changes to the
Mallorquin traditions. Enseñat revived an improvisatory technique of
dancing from the past, which has been adapted by the people at the bal-
lada to fit the changing values of a newly established autonomous com-
munity. The dancers’ embodiment of improvised dances for themselves
at the ballada is contemporary and relates to modern life, which is fluid
and self-expressive, but also culturally expressive of the present socio-
political circumstances. Similarly, the improvised repertoire of dances
has advanced the development of teaching practices on the island.
The new music rhythms composed by the bands have added to the
vitality and modernization of music repertoires, making music a pro-
gressive art form. These rhythms reflect a contemporary image that fits
better with peoples’ sense of their identities. The music is also used as a
vehicle to promote the idea of Països Catalans, and to attract members
of the public regardless of whether they want to dance or just listen to
music at the ballada.
The construction of the ballada has produced a more contemporary
image of Mallorcan identities, reflecting a modern face of the Mallorcan
traditions. In particular, the musicians and dancers have prioritized
what is relevant for a new era, and by doing so they have created a
collective sense of identity at this event. In contrast, dance and music

performed for tourists is imbued with ideals of tradition, unchanging
and fixed in the past. It can be concluded that the popularity of the
Mallorquin participatory improvised repertoire more accurately reflects
the values of the dancers and musicians, and distinguishes the region
of Mallorca from the Spanish peninsula.
My embodied participation in Mallorquin dance has given me a greater
insight and cultural understanding of the dance practices of the com-
munity. It also reflects the cultural approaches of dance ethnologists in
recent years, of a paradigm shift from objective observation towards a
participatory-orientated methodology. Ultimately, it leads to the uncov-
ering of new insights in dance (Ness, 2004). Unlike other dance eth-
nographers investigating dance and cultural identity (Browning, 1995;
Ness 1992, 2004; and Sklar, 1991), I found that for some people the
dual cultural ethnolinguistic context in Mallorca had the effect of creat-
ing a separation between their cultural identity and dance. Mallorcan
identities are derived from different layers, combining personal identity
reflecting an individual’s perception of his or her habitus with historical
influences of political, nationalist, and cultural spheres.
This ethnography gives a voice to the present directors, dancers, musi-
cians, students, and community members, particularly because their
enunciations were absent during the Franco period. In working with
interpreters who have at times mediated between my interviewees and
myself, I have also incorporated their perspectives in the translation of
cultural meanings. The interrogation of embodied selves is dependent
on multiple voices and textual strategies for its cultural analysis. In the
final analysis, it is the ethnographer’s responsibility to represent the
meanings negotiated through discourse in the field.
Notes
1. I use the word Mallorquin when describing the cultural traditions of dance and
music. Mallorquin is derived from the Mallorqui dialect of the Catalan language
spoken in Mallorca, which has the same spellings as the Catalan language but
the pronunciations are different. When I refer to the island of Mallorca, I use
the Castilian and Catalan spelling ‘Mallorca’ and not the English spelling
Majorca.
2. Mallorca lies in the western Mediterranean Sea, situated to the east of the
Spanish mainland.
3. An antiquarian’s interest lies within the historical artifices of the past. In
Mallorca, Aires Sollerics director, Guillem Bernat’s main priority was not only
to study the Mallorquin dances derived from Escula de Bolero (Bolero School) of
Spain and the European courts of the eighteenth century, but also to preserve
them as part of Mallorca’s heritage.
4. For further reading on Mallorquin dance, see Bernat (1993), Galmes (1952),
Mulet (1956), Noguera (1894), Roca (1996), and Vallcaneras (1997).
5. Grossberg compares the notion of a ‘singular becoming of a community’
(1996, p. 103) with Agamben’s (1993) concept of ‘the coming community’,
where singularity is defined as a mode of existence that is neither universal
(conceptual) nor particular (individual).
6. Andriy Nahachewsky’s ‘Strategies for Theatricalizing Folk Dance’ (2001) pro-
poses a broad definition of a dance revival, which is relevant to my research.
His definition of revival covers ‘any dance event at which the participants
actively perceive the connection with earlier events in that tradition’ (p. 228).
7. Translation by Ximena Alarcon, Leicester, 2004.
8. Originally bien parado was an important element of the bolero in the Escuela
Bolero and represented the virtuosity of the dancers as they leapt and spun
around the floor, and in regaining their poise at the end of the dance within
this final balance.
9. The first step of the bolero is described here: The left arm is held high,
rounded overhead, and the right arm is curved, held in front of the waist
(very similar to the arm position known as attitude croisé 4th depicted in bal-
let terminology). Step on the left foot and hop on the left foot, uno i (counts
1 and), lifting the right leg out unfolding in front (arms stay). Step on the
right foot and hop on the right foot – dos i (counts 2 and), lifting the left leg
out unfolding in front. Take two small steps on the left foot and the right
foot – tres i (counts 3 and). Repeat all (author’s fieldnotes, January, 2003).
10. After Roig died, Mallorcan audiences gathered to pay homage to him with the
slogans ‘No Ens Fareu Caller’ (‘We will not make you quiet’) and ‘t’anyorarem’
(‘we will miss you’). See Internet source: t’Anyorarem Toni Roig, http://www.
mallorcaweb.net/perejoanm/toniroig.html (accessed 15 December 2012).
11. The Catalan Statute encourages ‘collaboration and cultural exchange with
other self-governing communities’ (Guibernau, 1997, p. 139).
12. In the first stage of separation, Van Gennep (1960, p. 21) defines the rites
of separation as preliminal rites; in the second stage, he calls it a transition
period of liminal or threshold rites; the third stage he classifies as ceremonies
of incorporation into the new world as post-liminal rites (1960, p. 21).
13. In this definition of normative communitas, Turner considers that under the
influence of time, there is a need to organize and mobilize resources to keep
the group members alive and thriving, and to impart some social control for
the pursuance of collective goals (1974, p. 169).
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6
Kecak Behind the Scenes –
Investigating the Kecak Network
Kendra Stepputat
In the average tourist’s view, the dramatic dance performance kecak is

a typical display of a lively Balinese performing arts tradition. For the
Balinese on the other hand, it is a social event, where the emphasis is
not so much on artistic value as it is on monetary profit and strength-
ening the community. The discrepancy of what a kecak performance
stands for in the eyes of the performers and the tourist audience could
not be greater. In this chapter, I want to focus on kecak as a performance
genre that constitutes a social and commercial event, and serves a vari-
ety of purposes for a local community. The discussion will focus on the
power relations around the staging of a kecak performance with the
main relevant groups: performers, travel agencies and tourist guides,
stage and hotel owners, and the tourist audience. Investigation into
this social network of people, including an analysis of gatekeeper roles
in the network, offers the opportunity to understand the power rela-
tions behind the scenes, and provides explanations for standardization
processes and changes in the artistic quality of the kecak.1
Kecak – the performance
About 20 different groups, mostly located in southern Bali, perform the

kecak on a regular basis on specially built stages, at hotels and restau-
rants, in outer temple courtyards or community grounds. In all cases,
tourists pay a relatively high entrance fee for a performance that always
lasts about one hour and starts in the evening. Although some groups
have adapted different elements of the old Indian Ramayana epic,2
most groups perform a plot entitled The Abduction of Sita (Kepandung
Sita), which is an abbreviated version of the Ramayana epic, focusing
on the main characters and storyline. A kecak group in performance is
116
Kecak Behind the Scenes 117
composed of around 100 male kecak singers (pengecak, plural pengecak-

pengecak), and up to 12 individual dancers, each portraying a char-
acter of the Ramayana storyline. While the dancers convey the plot,
the pengecak-pengecak serve as musical accompaniment as well as live
backdrop to the depicted scenes. The music provided by the pengecak
group, sometimes called vocal gamelan (Dibia 2000, p. 4), is purely
vocal and based on a complex, multi-layered interlocking structure.3
The name kecak derives from the syllable ‘cak’ that is voiced by the
pengecak-pengecak and serves as the basis of all interlocking structures
in the kecak.
For most of the performance, the pengecak-pengecak sit cross-legged on
stage, organized in several concentric circles. In the middle, a circular
space is left open for the solo dancers, which they reach through narrow
pathways leading through the seated pengecak group. The solo dancers –
in contrast to the pengecak-pengecak, who wear simple babuletan (a large
loincloth wrapped around the waist) and a saput (a sash worn over the
loincloth) (Dibia, 2000, p. 30) – wear elaborate dancing costumes, adapted
from the costume styles of other dramatic dance genres on Bali and Java.
They carry out complex dance movements, each character in his or her
specific style. The pengecak-pengecak’s movements are rather simple in
structure and execution and are carried out collectively, mostly restricted
to the use of their upper bodies, due to their seated position on stage.
The genesis of the kecak dates back to the early 1930s when Walter
Spies, a German expatriate on Bali, and I Wayan Limbak, a Balinese
dancer, worked together in the village of Bedulu to develop this new,
presentational form of a dance performance (Spies and de Zoete, 1973,
p. 83). The musical roots and many movements of the pengecak-pengecak
had been adapted from the ritual trance dance sanghyang dedari,
whereas the movements of the solo dancers – at that time several male
dancers depicting episodes of the Ramayana or Mahabharata4 – and the
whole idea of including a dramatic aspect by conveying a plot have
been newly developed for the formation of the genre kecak.5 By 1934,
the new dance performance had been given its name (Spies, 1934, n.p.).
Published travel diaries6 of the 1930s show that the kecak from its begin-
ning was performed in a non-ritual, purely entertainment context, and
that the main audience for the kecak has always been travellers and
guests to Bali, a group of people today generally called ‘tourists’.7
Over the last 80 years, kecak has experienced some changes, most
prominently in 1969 when the dance, from then on also called kecak
ramayana, was developed and standardized into what is now known as
a typical kecak performance (Bandem and deBoer, 1981, p. 147). At that
time the Kepandung Sita plot was established together with the move-
ment repertoire and costumes, adapting major parts of the elaborate
and also newly developed dramatic dance performance sendratari.8
Kecak – the network
To stage a kecak performance in a professional manner, several groups

must work closely together and through this process are interdepend-
ent; they form an enclosed, delimited social network.9 The term ‘social
network’ was first coined by John Barnes in 1954, and has been defined
by Wasserman and Faust as: ‘A social network consists of a finite set
or sets of actors and their relation or relations defined on them. The
presence of relational information is a critical and defining feature of
a social network’ (1994, p. 20). The nodes or ‘actors’10 in this social
network are composed of kecak groups, the hotel, restaurant or stage
owners, local travel agencies, individual tourist guides, and the tourist
audience. I first elaborate on these five person groups before discussing
how their ties function.11
Kecak groups
My discussion on the kecak groups is drawn from interviews that I con-
ducted with prominent members of 20 different kecak groups on south-
ern Bali. Kecak groups performing on a regular basis for tourists are always
community based. They are composed of people who belong to the same
village (desa) or local community organization within a village (banjar).12
The most common form of organization for kecak groups is a sekaha,
where membership is voluntary and based on a common purpose, aim,
or hobby. Such purposes can be the organization of a water supply for
neighbouring farming lands, or all forms of artistic activities (see Tenzer,
2000, pp. 77, 454). In contrast to banjar or desa based groups, where mem-
bership is compulsory, membership here is open to anyone interested.
If a sekaha commits to performing kecak, it is called a sekaha cak. Sekaha
cak have two main purposes, first, to collectively generate income for the
community and its members, and second, to strengthen the community
by having a variety of people working together for a common goal. In
general, only a small part of the profit from kecak performances is shared
among the members. Most of the income is kept and used for community
necessities; for example the building of a new community hall, or the
restoration of a temple. In addition, it is a tool to value the local perform-
ing arts as a part of the collective. Members are not necessarily educated
in music, drama, or dance; in fact most of the members of a kecak group
are laymen. Depending on the area in which the kecak group is located,
sekaha cak can draw from more or less skilled members. Groups are fortu-
nate in the Ubud and Peliatan area, where many professional musicians
and dancers live, and where participation in a gamelan group has a strong
tradition. In all sekaha cak, specially skilled members will have more
elaborate musical posts, and of course the male and female solo dancers
occupy prominent positions in the performance part of the sekaha. Some
additional members are also needed for maintenance and management.
Several kecak groups – banjar, desa, and sekaha – perform at their own
performance spaces. These are not purpose built stages, but instead the
kecak is performed in the open air on community grounds; for example
in the outer courtyard of a village temple (pura desa). For the audience’s
convenience, chairs are placed around the performance space. However,
if a kecak group does not have a suitable space, or if their location is too
far away from regular tourist venues, they will perform at professionally
run tourist establishments like restaurants, hotels, and stages.
Stage owners
With the term ‘stage owners’ here, I include all owners or managers
of establishments that engage kecak groups for performances. This can
be a restaurant with a stage wide enough for a whole kecak group to
perform, as, for example, the Sari Wisata Budaya in Kuta, which used
to offer kecak dinner packages (Suwendra, 2001, interview). Second,
there are many hotels that invite kecak groups regularly or for special
events to perform at their performance venue in the hotel. Many kecak
groups have permanent contracts with hotels; for example, in 2000
the Sekaha Cak Bajra Yasa of Angantaka regularly performed at the Bali
Imperial Hotel in Legian, and the Sekaha Cak Apuan Sari of Singapadu
performed in the Hotel Sandika in Kuta. Finally, there are stages that
are built for the sole purpose of presenting Balinese local performances
for tourists. Such stages are organized and run as professional tourism
venues, generating income for the people working there, while provid-
ing tourists with cultural performances. Examples of such a stage are
the very popular Puri Anom in Batubulan, where every day barong13
dances are performed in the mornings, and kecak in the evenings, or
the Uma Dewi stage in Kesiman, which concentrates on kecak evening
performances.
Local travel agencies

The Association of Indonesia Tour and Travel Agencies (ASITA) currently
lists 121 travel agencies on Bali as their members (ASITA, 2011). But
these are only the members of one of several official organizations, and
there are many more small agencies that work on Bali without being a
member of any official association. Travel agencies on Bali function as
mediators between local Balinese tourist enterprises, such as restaurants
and hotels, and international travel agencies which are located outside
Bali (Ruastiti, 2004, p. 58). Individual tourists can contact these small-
to medium-sized local agencies and become their direct customers. As a
standard concept, local travel agencies offer ‘holiday packages’, which
usually include transportation, a personal guide, meals, overnight stays,
entrance fees to sights and performances with a fixed route and pro-
gramme. This includes kecak performances, which can be incorporated
into such packages (see also Picard, 1996a, pp. 58–9, on Bali travel
agencies).
Tourist guides
Working as a tourist guide on Bali is a very popular occupational choice
among Balinese men in southern Bali, due to the comparatively high
income it offers. Some of these freelance, professional guides are organ-
ized through the Himpunan Pramuwisata Indonesia (HPI; or in English
translation, the Indonesian Tourist Guide Association) (HPI, 2011;
Bali Tourism Board, 2011). The HPI issues licences, and offers exams
for would-be guides in order to keep the standards high. According to
Komang Karyawan, a long-time professional in the tourism industry
on Bali, the process of becoming a licenced guide is a costly and time-
consuming process. Karyawan states:
In order to get a licence they have to take special exams for stand-
ardization, they have to pass a test from the HPI and the tourism
department. I don’t have a licence for guiding […] but often I work
as a guide or driver, and there are thousands of others like me.
(‘Untuk mendapatkan License mereka mengadakan pelatihan khusus

untuk standarisasi, harus lulus test dari HPI dan Dinas Pariwisata
[Tourism Department]. Saya tidak punya License untuk Guiding,
[…] tp sering jadi guide atau driver. dan masih puluhan ribu orang
seperti saya.’)
(Karyawan, 2009, interview)
This statement shows that above the few licenced guides, countless
more professional, or semi-professional guides work in this business,
outside of every statistic. Quite commonly, as in many tourist centres
around the world, the only qualification these guides have is some lan-
guage skill and a means of transporting tourists individually. Individual
tourist guides can be hired directly by tourists through encounters on
the street, and if proven worthy of good services, their customers will
further recommend those guides. Alternatively, tourist guides can co-
operate with locations and establishments where they are hired on a
freelance basis, to escort tourists individually if asked. These guides
are the most direct link to tourists with individual travel requests on
Bali. Of course, tourist guides are well informed about places of interest
to take their customers, and they certainly will be able to escort their
clients to a kecak performance – either on request or on active recom-
mendation by the guide.
Tourists
In the late 1960s, tourism on Bali started to boom. This was primarily
caused by the new social, economic, and political stability that had
been established in Indonesia after the incoming president Soekarno
took over and established a strong leadership supported by the military.
Encouraged by the government, the basis for the promotion of tourism
on Bali at that time was luxury, seashore tourism. ‘Sightseeing’ and
‘culture’ were treated as less important, but still included in the tour-
ism development plan in the form of fixed sightseeing routes across the
island (Picard, 1996a, p. 46). Balinese authorities in the 1970s accepted
the concept of cultural tourism (pariwisata budaya) as the preferred
form of tourism to Bali, with the aim of avoiding mass tourism to the
island (Picard, 1996b, p. 143).14 This aim has not been fulfilled; 40 years
later, tourism on Bali has for the most part turned into mass tourism
and is one of the major sources of income for the Balinese economy
(Hitchcock and Putra, 2007, p. 161). Different forms of tourism on Bali
range from beach holiday mass tourism, individual guided tours across
the island, and backpacker holidays, to luxury tourism in resort areas.
Although cultural tourism is presently a minor part of tourism in Bali,
the cultural aspect in promoting Bali as a vacation area is still strong,
and many tourists travelling to Bali expect to be presented with certain
aspects of the local culture, among which the performing arts form a
strong part. Beginning in the 1930s and over the last decades, several
standard performances for tourists – amongst them the kecak – have
appeared and continue to be performed on a regular basis. Some tourists
might have encountered the kecak in travel documentaries, heard of it
from other tourists, or read about it in travel guidebooks, either before
their trip or while on Bali. In any case, as a survey I conducted in 2006
has shown,15 they consider the kecak to be one of the most ‘traditional’,
‘real’, maybe even ‘authentic’ performances of Balinese culture, and will
be attracted to watch any kecak performance they come across.
The kecak network – gatekeepers and gated
The kecak network is a social network composed of several nodes which

represent the above-mentioned person groups, and the ties between
them, which represent their interaction and flow of information. As can
be seen in Figure 6.1, the ties are of different values, causing a hierarchy
of the nodes. This hierarchy can best be explained by focusing on the
way the ties between the groups are set up, using the theory of gatekeep-
ing within a social network.16 Gatekeeping occurs whenever informa-
tion does not travel directly from one group or person to another, but
instead has to pass a (virtual) gate that is controlled by another group
or person, the gatekeeper. Usually a gatekeeper is a member of an elite
or in an elevated spot in the respective system he operates in, whether
it be a company, the media, or a social network. Foster, Borgatti, and
Jones (2011) have shown that gatekeeping theory can be used to explain
selection phenomena in cultural contexts. What they found to be true
for local rock bands in Boston, in the United States, can to a certain
extent be applied to kecak groups on Bali as well. Very similar patterns
occur in the talent scouting and band hiring system in Boston on one
hand, and the way kecak groups are hired and promoted on Bali on the
other. Only a few gatekeepers control information and, through that,
monetary flows, turning the majority of the performers as well as the
audience into gated.17
The first gated actor according to this theory represents kecak groups.
They offer the commodity that the customers want, but because there
are many kecak groups competing for a limited pool of tourists,18 ways of
cleverly advertising their groups must be found. Tourists, as the second
gated actor and final customers, can be found at the other end of the
chain. These two actors have a weak direct tie, which represents the few
cases where kecak groups promote themselves directly to tourists, either
by employing street sellers, or by using media, like advertisements on
the street (billboards, banners) or websites.19 But this direct way of
advertising does not work in an already established social and economic
system that is based on other forms of advertisement. Tourists, being
unfamiliar with their holiday surroundings, tend to rely on personal
recommendations either from their guides or fellow travellers, or just
receive what they are offered through a package or at their hotels.
Figure 6.1 The kecak network with its five main actors (credit: K. Stepputat,
W. Kienreich). Photographs of tourist guides used by permission
In order to reach the tourists, to sell their performance and sustain

themselves, kecak groups have to use the system and co-operate with
tourist guides, travel agencies, and stage, hotel, or restaurant owners.
Through this they actively, though probably unknowingly, turn them-
selves into gated.
Kecak groups initiate contact with agents and guides by means of a
simple strategy of monetary benefit: most kecak groups sell a two- or
three-page leaflet as a ticket for their performances. On the back of the
leaflet is a marked corner that can be cut off, with a certain amount
in rupiah (Indonesian currency) written on it. Street sellers who sell a
ticket will cut the corner off before handing the ticket to the tourist.
With this corner as proof for the sold ticket, they are allowed to keep the
amount that is written on the corner for themselves. If a tourist guide or
private driver escorts a client to a performance, he discretely approaches
the cashier after his clients have paid and will get the amount written
on the corner directly from the cashier. All this goes unnoticed by the
tourists (Karyawan, 2009, interview, and personal communication with
several other freelance guides working in the Ubud area). There is a
clear imbalance: kecak groups need to pay the guides and drivers for
their services and depend on their co-operation, whereas the guides

are free to choose among many performing groups and locations and
do not depend on a particular group or performance. It is up to the
guide to give recommendations in one or the other direction, and often
their decisions do not depend on the quality of the group, but instead
on where they will get higher commissions. The same holds true for
local travel agencies, which function on the same level as the tourist
guides. It is possible that a travel agency will approach a well-known
kecak group in order to include them in their programme. However, it
mostly is the other way around, as for example Pak Redana, secretary
of the Sekaha Tari Cak Karang Boma states: ‘Usually, concerning the
agencies, we go to their office right away, negotiate there if they want to
co-operate’ (‘Biasanya agent, langsung ke officenya, nego di sana kalau
mau kerja sama’) (Redana, 2001, interview).
Kecak groups are just as dependent on the agencies as they are on
the tourist guides, who are willing, or not, to bring their customers to
a certain kecak performance. In order to achieve co-operation, kecak
groups must accept having to pay commissions to the agencies that
take a kecak performance into their programme and package deals. On
the other hand, as is the case with tour guides, travel agencies do not
depend on single kecak groups and are likely to co-operate with those
kecak groups that provide better monetary profit. Tourist guides and
travel agencies therefore are the gatekeepers in this network. If they do
not relay information about certain kecak groups, those groups have
little chance of contacting tourists directly. This also means that only
those kecak groups that have a good connection with the gatekeep-
ers will profit from the system. Relaying or concealing information
about kecak groups automatically means monetary profit or loss for
the groups. Through their governance of information, the gatekeepers
here are also controlling economic conditions for the kecak groups. This
strong influence in their role as gatekeeper is visualized in Figure 6.1 by
the strong ties connecting them with kecak groups in one direction and
tourists in the other.
Tourists provide the money that is distributed to guides and agencies
and of course kecak groups. For them, economic factors are not influ-
enced by gatekeepers, but they are also directly gated. One might sus-
pect, since tourists are the customers and reason for the whole network
to exist, they would have most power to influence the network, and
that all other actors would be dependent on them. Of course, all actors
depend on the presence of tourists, because if there are no tourists, there
will be no kecak performance. Yet, if the tourists are present or absent
does not depend on the other actors of the network; this depends more
on the promotion of Bali as a travel location in the international tourism
market. Tourists are often lured to Bali because of cultural aspects, and
as soon as they are on the island, they become part of the culture-selling
machinery and will buy their share of the advertised Balinese culture by
purchasing tickets for a local performing arts event. What they will see
and where they will see it depends entirely on the other actors, first of
all the agencies and guides, and in a few cases, the stages or kecak groups
themselves. Therefore tourists, being ignorant of the system that is at
work here, consume what is offered without knowing that there could
be other performances, maybe even with higher artistic value.
Another network actor is the stage where kecak is performed. A weak
tie exists between stages and tourists, which refers to a kecak perfor-
mance that takes place in a hotel for the hotel residents. A second
option is that tourists who travel through Bali individually and have
their own transport, respond to an advertisement at the side of the
street. A comparatively stronger tie leads from the kecak stage owners
towards kecak groups. Kecak groups that do not have their own perfor-
mance venue are bound to co-operate with professional stages, and it
is up to the group to sell their performance to them. They will have to
contact the responsible person for a potential performance venue and
offer a good deal in order to be booked. Once a kecak group has agreed
to a deal, stages as well as hotels and restaurants are likely to continue
working together with this group, as it supposedly has been proven
worthy for their establishment. According to Dewa Made Oka Merta,
the manager of the Uma Dewi stage in Kesiman, if a new group is estab-
lished and can offer better conditions, it is possible that the stage owner
will choose this new group. Kecak groups who manage to get a continu-
ous deal with a stage can consider themselves fortunate, because usually,
performance venues will pay the group a fixed salary per performance
and therefore carry the risk of a loss if not fully booked out (Oka Merta,
2001, interview). In order not to face this loss, stage owners depend on
a constant minimum of visitors, which binds them to the same system
of interaction with travel agencies and guides as the kecak groups who
perform at their own performance venues. Ketut Suwendra, owner of
the Sari Wisata Budaya stage in Kuta, explains: ‘What is most important
is that we continue the good collaboration. If they (the guides and rep-
resentatives of agencies) come here we always give them compliments’
(‘Yang paling penting kita selalu menjaga kerjasama dengan baik.
Kalau dia datang kita selalu kasih komplimen dia’) (Suwendra, 2001
interview). ‘Compliments’ in this case means commissions, either in
monetary form or as non-cash benefit. According to several interviews

with stage owners, establishing a good collaboration with travel agen-
cies and guides is crucial, especially at the beginning of the enterprise,
but in order to keep the profits high and maintain the collaboration,
guides and agents need to be continuously ‘cared for’. Which means
that in terms of network hierarchy, kecak groups that do not have their
own venue depend on the stages, but the stages depend just as much
on guides and travel agencies. Considering this, it is obvious that kecak
groups and stage owners are on the same level in the hierarchy, equally
interdependent on each other, but in a considerably weaker position
than guides and travel agencies. In some cases one could argue that
stage owners have a secondary gatekeeper role, because they choose the
kecak group that will be promoted to the guides and agencies. But the
reality shows that in many cases, it is exactly the other way round. If
the agencies and guides acting as gatekeepers do not approve of the
kecak group performing at a venue, they will not guide their custom-
ers to that stage. Theoretically, this could be compensated by the stage
through even higher royalties for the gatekeepers; it consolidates their
dependency on the established system. In any case, it will have become
clear that stages, just as kecak groups and tourists, are not the gate-
keepers in this network, they must be counted on the side of the gated,
being significantly dependent on the guides and agencies.
Kecak – standards
It is insightful to investigate how the kecak network, with its nodes and
ties, guided by gatekeepers, actually influences the artistic quality and
variety of kecak performances. It should have become obvious that per-
forming kecak is not an act of presenting an artistic work and gaining
satisfaction from the fact that an audience is watching one’s art. Instead,
performing kecak always has an economic background; the satisfaction
comes from the fact that the audience pays for watching, and that
money can be gained through collaborating as a group in a cultural
activity. This does not mean that kecak groups in general do not care
for their standards and their audiences. In 2005, for example, the Krama
Desa Ubud Kaja group in central Ubud had engaged the well-known
kecak choreographer I Wayan Dibia to develop a new choreography
around a new storyline. This happens especially in the Ubud area,
where many members of kecak groups have a considerable knowledge
of music and dance and can therefore evaluate a performance in terms
of artistic quality. Those groups tend to care for what they present and
keep the standards of their performance high. Nevertheless, I have on

two occasions, once in Batubulan in 2002 and once again in Peliatan
in 2006, witnessed kecak groups who over the years have continuously
lowered their standards until the performance became so obviously
weak and uninspiring that even tourists, who had no direct compari-
son with other kecak groups, started noticing and went out before the
performance was over. Because performance venues usually continue to
co-operate with hired kecak groups, it will take a long time before the
artistic standards are a reason for a group to be fired. I have heard of
only one such instance, where the group’s performance continued to
deteriorate over a long time, until the owner finally decided to engage
a new group (Suwendra, 2001, interview).
In its current state, the kecak network does not particularly support
high-value performances. On the contrary, the system functions in
such a way that kecak groups have to fulfil a minimum standard, good
enough to satisfy tourists’ expectations and values, but beyond that, no
artistic challenge is asked of them. This refers mostly to the basic music
and dance elements, the kecak structure itself. On a choreographic level,
however, kecak groups do tend to change and develop new elements.
But if one group adds a new element to their performance, it will not
take long before other groups copy this element and include it in their
choreography as well. This approach of copying other artists’ innova-
tions is very common in Balinese performing arts in general, where
there is no such thing as copyright. Bandem and deBoer write: ‘Balinese
choreographers and musicians are very alert to the efforts of their col-
leagues and rivals, and a successful local novelty can become standard
practice all over the island in a matter of months’ (1981, p. 147). In the
case of kecak ramayana, this means that all small innovations within the
Kepandung Sita standard performance are quickly copied and performed
by all groups, making them indistinguishable from one another.20 There
are, however, big differences concerning the level of musicianship and
quality of the dance, depending on the professionalism of each group’s
members, leaders and teachers. Being a group with an emphasis on high
artistic quality is something that the group itself can pursue, and, fortu-
nately, in many cases indeed the group does want to fulfil this aim, but
it is not necessarily required of a kecak group in order to get a contract
or attract many visitors.
The historical development of the kecak shows that the conform-
ity one finds today among many, if not most kecak groups is based
on a process that started in the 1970s, when the Kepandung Sita plot,
together with its typical dance elements and costuming taken from the
sendratari, was first introduced. Bandem and deBoer write: ‘These inno-
vations were adopted almost everywhere within a few months under
pressure from the travel agents, who threatened to halt the buses to vil-
lages refusing to adapt their play to the newer style’ (1981, p. 147). This
is a very typical example of how the kecak network worked back in the
1970s and still does now. Due to the economic pressure travel agencies
in their function as gatekeepers put on them, kecak groups were forced
to change their performances on an artistic level, just in order to stay
in business.
As a final remark I want to address the fact that kecak, as I have
depicted it here, is not the only way kecak is performed on Bali. There is
a parallel way of performing kecak, generally called kecak kreasi or kecak
kontemporer. This parallel genre was established at about the same time
as the tourism-based kecak ramayana, but is much less known. It has
its foundations in the Balinese contemporary performing arts scene,
and finds its genesis in individual choreographers who employ differ-
ent concepts and approaches, using kecak material as a starting point
to develop new choreographies, often integrating elements from other
performing arts traditions from inside and outside Bali. Suffice to say,
kecak kreasi is generally performed out of the tourist context and, of
course, is not bound to the above-mentioned structures of performing
and selling. To me, this seems to be proof of the above stated fact that
the kecak network in its established form actually blocks innovations
and condemns a genre to its standard, static form, although it could be
used in a very creative, adaptive, and innovative manner, as the kecak
kreasi shows (Stepputat, 2012).
Summary and conclusion
Many local kecak groups perform the Balinese dramatic dance perfor-
mance kecak ramayana on a regular basis for a paying tourist audience
on Bali. In order to provide this commodity for tourism and to make
it a part of the performing arts standards in the well-functioning tour-
ism economy, several groups of people have to work together. The way
the involved groups or actors co-operate behind the scenes forms them
into a social network that has for this chapter been termed the ‘kecak
network’. The kecak network has five main actors – kecak groups, tour-
ists, stage owners, tourist agencies, and guides – that are connected
through ties of different value. Within the network, agencies and
guides have a gatekeeper function, controlling information flows about
performances between kecak groups and stage owners on one side and
tourists on the other. Because of their dependency on the gatekeepers

and thereby their lower status in the network, tourists, kecak groups,
and stage owners alike are turned into gated. The difference between
them is the way in which they become gated. Kecak groups and stage
owners, on one side, actively enter the network because they depend
on the gatekeepers who relay information about their group or perfor-
mance venue or not. Tourists, on the other side, are unaware of the
fact that they have access to gated information only, and passively
blunder into their role as gated. This system of gated information, and
through that control of monetary flows, can work because the direct
ties between tourists and kecak groups/stage owners are rather weak.
Kecak groups do not use media to advertise their performances – and
tourists seldom receive the few cases in which they do. The lack of a
strong direct tie leads to all three actors primarily depending on the
gatekeepers to connect them.
A view of the historical development of the kecak ramayana, espe-
cially in the late 1960s, shows that gatekeepers not only control which
kecak groups flourish or diminish. Above having a major influence on
the economic realities of kecak groups and stages, they also played and
still play a significant part in the artistic development of the kecak. By
working together with those groups that provide what the guides and
agencies consider appealing for their clients, they select only those
groups that fulfil a certain standard. This approach led to an almost
complete standardization of kecak performances some 40 years ago,
with its aftermath strongly recognizable today. The present system of
advertising automatically lures a kecak group into dependency on the
gatekeepers, and to a certain extent limits their creativity and potential
for artistic development. This system has been established over more
than 70 years, and all kecak groups, stage owners, and unknowingly, the
tourist audience continuously accept it.
The kecak ramayana in its tourism context is an example of how social
ties of differing value, and the thereby established economic realities,
influence and shape the artistic quality of a performing arts genre.
The question remains open whether a change of pace, like more direct
advertisement and the avoidance of dependencies on gatekeepers,
could change this system and give more opportunities to kecak groups
to market themselves directly to their audience. Beyond that it can be
speculated that a less gated system will offer the possibility of signifi-
cant change in artistic quality as well, within the standard performance
and beyond, making room for more innovation and diversity in kecak
performances for tourism.
Notes
1. In 2010 I finished my PhD dissertation, entitled The Kecak – a Balinese
Dance, its Genesis, Development and Manifestation Today, at the University of
Music and Performing Arts, Graz. It is based on several long- and short-term
fieldwork periods on Bali between 2000 and 2008, as is the content of this
chapter.
2. For a detailed introduction to the Balinese version of the Ramayana, see
Saran and Khanna, 2004, pp. 176–96.
3. For more information about the basic principle of interlocking structures in
Balinese gamelan, called kotekan, see Tenzer, 1998, p. 46.
4. The Mahabharata is the second of the two great old-Indian epics, equal in
importance to the Ramayana.
5. For a thorough discussion of the genesis of the kecak, see Stepputat, 2010,
esp. pp. 275–81.
6. See, for example, the impressive descriptions of kecak performances by Bruce
Lockhardt (1936, pp. 345–6), and Hans-Hasso von Veltheim-Ostrau (1943,
pp. 73–4).
7. Tourism, especially cultural tourism on Bali has been researched and written
about extensively (see Bruner, 2005; Dunbar-Hall, 2006; and Picard, 1996a).
8. The Balinese version of the sendratari is a genre that includes elements of a
variety of older dance and music forms from Bali and Java. For an introduc-
tion into the sendratari in its Javanese and Balinese form, see Bandem and
deBoer, 1981, pp. 86–8.
9. For an introduction into social network analysis in the social sciences, see
Scott, 2000.
10. Wasserman and Faust define ‘actors’ in social networks as ‘social entities’
that can be individuals or groups (1994, p. 17).
11. This way of organizing qualitative data from fieldwork experience about the
kecak is entirely based on ethnological premises and methods. It would cer-
tainly be worthwhile to see this first venture into analysing kecak in terms of
economical issues as a starting point for further study and analysis from the
perspective of economic and communication sciences.
12. For a discussion and definition of the banjar concept, see Eiseman, 1995,
p. 73; Hobart, Ramseyer and Leeman, 2001, p. 86.
13. The barong dance is another very popular tourist genre that has been
developed out of performances where good and evil forces, represented by
masked dancers, meet in a ritual context. For more details, see Picard, 1996b,
pp. 146–59.
14. For a thorough discussion of the topic of cultural tourism in general, see
Richards, 2007.
15. The survey with tourists watching kecak performances in the Ubud area
showed that most kecak tourists knew very little about the kecak before they
went to the performance, and that they were lured there by recommenda-
tion from fellow travellers, guides or hotel employees (62 of 124) or reading a
guidebook (20 of 124) while already on Bali. In addition, the survey showed
that tourists are actually searching for something ‘authentic’, ‘real’, or ‘tra-
ditional’ within the kecak and tend to ignore all information that confronts
them with realities that diverge from their perceptions (Stepputat, 2011).
16. Gatekeeping theory dates back to the 1940s, when the German social psy-
chologist Kurt Lewin first introduced the concept (Lewin, 1947). It has since
been used in many disciplines to explain flows of information, foremost in
information science, communication, political science, and sociology (also
see Barzilai-Nahon, 2009, p. 1).
17. ‘Gated’ is a term that was coined by Barzilai-Nahon as ‘the entity subjected
to gatekeeping’ (Barzilai-Nahon, 2009, p. 12).
18. I am not able to provide exact data about how many visitors a kecak group
has per performance. According to statements made by groups, a survey from
2001 and personal experience of over a decade watching kecak performances at
different locations, there are always more people on stage than there are in the
audience, with numbers ranging from around ten up to 80 tourists watching.
19. For example, http://www.kecakdance.com/.
20. In 2001, 16 of 20 groups performed the same Kepandung Sita plot.
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Part III
Dance in Psychosocial
Work, Gender and Textual
Representation
7
Forced Displacement, Identity,
Embodiment and Change
Allison J. Singer
Introduction
This chapter looks at the use of embodiment as a process to facilitate

changes in individual, social, and cultural relationships in the context
of forced displacement and resettlement following war. It considers
embodiment from an ethnographic perspective (Coffey, 1999; Gore,
1999; MacDonald, 2001; Royce, 2002) where multiple meanings become
visible and a reflexive approach towards ethnography comes to the fore.
It also considers embodiment from a psychotherapeutic perspective
with particular reference to Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP)
(Espenak, 1981; Laban, 1971; Meekums, 2002; Payne, 1992, 1993, 2006)
within which embodied images and experiences can be used as part of
a process of symbolic and personal transformation. In addition, the
chapter considers the use of embodiment as a methodological tool.
Embodiment here is conceived as part of a kinaesthetic and symbolic
process that occurs in a specific place and time and through which an
individual or group can experience or re-experience emotions, feelings,
ideas, lived experience, and memories. This re-experiencing creates the
possibility for understanding, change, and a symbolic transformation1 of
experience. People hold different types of memories including thought
memories and sensorial memories, both of which can trigger emotional
responses and contribute to the development of the individual. Working
with embodied processes through work with the body, movement,
and narrative, visual and symbolic images and their interrelationships,
within specific boundaries creates the potential for ‘experiencing what
one is ex-pressing […] dropping down into the body’ (Sklar, 2001, p. 184).
This process facilitates transformation because of the potential to develop
new kinaesthetic, emotional, and intellectual awareness.
135
136 Embodiment, Gender and Intertexuality
This chapter draws on ethnographic research carried out between

2001 and 2007, in which I examined the use of, and interrelationships
between, movement, dance, story, visual images, and etno (folk arts) in
psychosocial work with war-affected refugee children and their families
and internally displaced people (IDP). The fieldwork for this research
was undertaken between 2001 and 2002 in Serbia, just after the end
of the war in former Yugoslavia. It was based with a Serbian Non-
Governmental Organization (NGO) called Zdravo Da Ste (Hi Neighbour)
that worked with refugee and IDP children and their families. The field-
work particularly focused on Zdravo Da Ste’s workshops with pre-school
and school-age children.
In this chapter I suggest that the workshop activities led by Zdravo Da
Ste created opportunities for the participants to embody their experi-
ences of war, forced displacement, and re-settlement. This set in motion
the potential for individual and collective symbolic and psychological
transformation that helped to facilitate the creation of new individual,
social, and cultural relationships. This in turn created opportunities
for individuals and groups to discover, or re-discover innate physical,
emotional, and spiritual potential, within themselves and in a group
context that could be used as resources in the context of forced displace-
ment and contribute to processes of development and resettlement.
Embodiment and methodology
The methodology used for this research integrated Dance ethnography

and Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP). It included participant
observation and documentation through fieldnotes, creative and per-
sonal journals, drawings, video, and photography. During fieldwork
I participated in and later co-facilitated a number of workshops with
Zdravo Da Ste in different contexts, including weekly workshops with
pre-school children held at Zdravo Da Ste’s offices in Belgrade; regular
workshops with children of all ages at the Collective Centres (refugee
camps); large integrated workshops for refugee and IDP children and
their families at cultural centres in Belgrade; integrated workshops for
refugees, IDP, and local children held at cultural centres and local parks
in Belgrade; exhibitions of etno objects created by the refugee children
and adults and IDPs held at local cultural centres; and a summer camp
held in Montenegro for 400 refugee and IDP children from Serbia and
Republika Srpska.
Sociologist Amanda Coffey proposes that fieldwork is an embod-
ied activity in which the ethnographer is ‘an embodied social actor’
Forced Displacement 137
(1999, p. 59) while the body itself serves ‘as an agent of cultural repro-
duction and as a site of cultural representation’ (p. 64). Embodied
experience can thus be considered as a vehicle through which social
norms and values can be learnt, and culture represented. In the context
of dance ethnography, embodiment is a means for the researcher to
learn and understand the dances or movements used within the field
and their possible meanings. The embodied experience represented
through dance and movement becomes a medium of communication
and understanding. Dance anthropologist Anya Peterson Royce suggests
embodiment can be conceived as ‘another kind of field language’ (2002,
p.xxiii). By learning the dance movements, the ethnographer becomes
a student of the dance. I became a student of Zdravo Da Ste’s dances,
for example, through my participation in the activities and processes
of the workshops. Through these learning processes some of the power
differentials within the research process can be equalized. Furthermore,
the embodied aspect of ethnographic research facilitates reflexivity as
the researcher has the opportunity to become aware of his/her physi-
cal and emotional relationship to the field. It allows the researcher to
distinguish between the meaning they may be imposing on a situation
and the meaning given to the situation by the informants.
Contemporary ethnography, in its application of ‘ethnographic
reflexivity’ (MacDonald, 2001, p. 68), allows a negotiation of meanings
and understandings between the researcher and members of the field. It
thus considers both the people studied and the researcher as creators of
meaning. This negotiation is acknowledged at all stages of the research.
Dance scholar Theresa Buckland (1999, p. 7) suggests that reflexivity
allows the power relations within the field and accompanying values
and ethics to be exposed, particularly the often unequal relationship
between the researcher and his or her informants.2 In this way, a reflex-
ive approach to ethnographic research attempts to represent the multi-
ple realities present in the field at the time of the research.
Dance Movement Psychotherapy (DMP) is the psychotherapeutic
use of movement and dance through which a person can engage
creatively in a process to further their emotional, cognitive, physical,
and social integration. It is founded on the principle that movement
reflects an individual’s patterns of thinking and feeling. Through
acknowledging and supporting the clients’ movements, the therapist
encourages development and integration of new adaptive movement
patterns together with the emotional experiences that accompany
such changes (Association of Dance Movement Psychotherapy, 2006).
In DMP in the United Kingdom it is assumed that there is a relationship
between ‘motion and emotion’ (Payne, 1992, p. 4), which allows
individuals to explore and express their emotions by exploring and
developing their use of movement. Dance movement psychotherapist
Liljan Espenak states the mover ‘explore[s] the phases of their own self-
discovery as they delve down into the wellspring of feeling’ (Espenak,
1981, p. 86). Espenak further suggests that re-experiencing memories
and sensations through the body, allows a person ‘to re-experience
oneself in the present (1981, p. 87). This re-experiencing of ‘memo-
ries and sensations through the body’ can be considered as a form
of embodiment.
Within DMP meaning is discovered through the embodied and thera-
peutic process and the relationship between the therapist and client.
The notion of embodiment is concerned with the relationship between
the individual’s conception of themselves and the presentation of this
self to others. Within this concept there is also an intention towards
integration of the whole. Clinical supervision, which is a professional
requirement of DMP clinical practice, considers the embodied processes
of the client, therapist, and the interactions between these two creating
possibilities for reflexive and reflective practice. The clinical methodol-
ogy applied in DMP practice can thus be conceived as a form of embod-
ied knowledge combined with a theoretical base drawn from dance,
movement, psychology, and psychotherapy.
Sociologists Alberto Arce and Norman Long suggest that within the
context of international development, an important aim of ethno-
graphic studies is
to capture how people experience the establishment of new and the

transformation of old codes of communication and to understand
how they re-order their myths, images and ‘monsters’ (i.e. their fears,
as well as their hopes and expectations) in narratives and practices
which are held together through partial relations
(2000, p. 27)
My research was inherently concerned with the establishment of

new and the transformation of old codes of communication and the
re-ordering of myths, images, and monsters. This culminated in the
examination of the relationships between identity, symbols of identity,
and frames of meaning and their manipulation by the instigators of war
in former Yugoslavia and by Zdravo Da Ste. The ideas outlined by Arce
and Long above explain why it was useful for me to adopt an ethno-
graphic and reflexive approach towards my research that incorporated
embodiment, and highlighted the central concerns of my research and

its relation to the wider discourse of anthropological study in the area
of international development. In addition the embodied and reflexive
approaches that I adopted within my research allowed me to integrate
the sometimes conflicting and yet congruent methodologies of dance
ethnography and DMP.
Zdravo Da Ste
Zdravo Da Ste was founded in 1992, at the beginning of the war in for-
mer Yugoslavia, by a group of Serbian psychologists and academics. It
was founded in response to the influx of refugee people to Serbia and
a particular concern for the welfare of the refugee and IDP children.
By 2006, Zdravo Da Ste had up to 25,000 beneficiaries a year whose
ages ranged from babies to elderly people (Zdravo Da Ste, 2006). They
described the activities in which they were involved as psychosocial
support, cultural and social integration, professional training and skills
development, income generation, summer and winter camps for chil-
dren, exhibitions, humanitarian assistance, etno programmes, and inter-
cultural exchange. Zdravo Da Ste stated their main aims were ‘protecting
and promoting development during war and post-war crisis [… and]
provid[ing …] support in building social communities’ (Zdravo Da Ste,
1996). Zdravo Da Ste’s intention was to allow people to find resources
from the past and to question these in the context of the present, in
order to create new possibilities for the future. It is important to note
that Zdravo Da Ste did not consider their work to be psychotherapy,
although they acknowledged that they were engaged in therapeutic
processes.
Zdravo Da Ste’s approach was process oriented and the workshops
were conceived as ‘an interactive source of development’.3 The work-
shops were intended to be incorporated into daily life and therefore
did not have strictly drawn boundaries separating them from everyday
life. The participants in the workshops expressed themselves through
different arts media and, I suggest, used them to embody experiences
from the past and present, and project wishes and fears for the future.
Zdravo Da Ste believed that through participation in the workshops, the
children and adults would be able to find new relationships and ways
of perceiving which would create new possibilities for the future. The
embodiment of the self and its relationship to the social and the physi-
cal through story, movement and dance, visual images, and etno also
allowed older people to teach younger people about the past, including
values, ideology, history, skills, and relationships to place and people.

Embodiment thus facilitated a process of narrativization, which can be
viewed as part of a discourse within which individual and collective
identity was negotiated.
Zdravo Da Ste conceived identity as a process. This links to contem-
porary post-structuralist sociological notions of identity (Brah, 2003,
p. 124; Hall, 2003a, 2003b), where identity is perceived as ‘discourses,
matrices of meanings’ (Brah, 2003, p. 124) situated in and a response to
specific economic, cultural, and political contexts. Zdravo Da Ste were
also influenced, however, by the ideas of psychiatrist and psychologist
Carl Gustav Jung, whose concepts of the Self and Individuation4 (Jung,
1995, 2002) imply that each person has a core that is unique to them
and within which is contained the essence of the individual. Zdravo Da
Ste’s concept of identity thus appeared able to integrate both perspec-
tives, identity as a process, and the unique aspect of identity within
each individual as a resource that can be activated.
Jung’s work was also important to Zdravo Da Ste because of his con-
cepts of the conscious and unconscious.5 The unconscious interacts
between the feelings, emotions, thoughts, perceptions, and experiences
of the individual, and the objects, places, time, and situations in the
external world. The unconscious is both an activity and a process (Jung,
1995, p. 235) and acts as a bridge between the known, the unknown
and the potential for the new. Interactions between people and engage-
ment with processes of embodiment allow aspects of the personal and
collective unconscious to become conscious and thus become a resource
to facilitate transformation.
Another important idea central to Zdravo Da Ste’s work was the ‘zone
of proximal development’. This was an idea developed by the Russian
developmental and social psychologist Lev Vygotsky in the early 1930s
(Luria and Vygotsky, 1992; Rieber, 1998; Vygotsky, 1986). His approach,
known as the socio-cultural approach, suggests that social interac-
tions are the foundation from which a person develops. A founding
member of Zdravo Da Ste, who was also a psychologist and academic,
described the zone of proximal development as ‘a space, a mental not
physical space, in every human being where you may go to the next
developmental step’ (Skorc, 2001, interview). The notion of the zone
of proximal development implies that there is always a potential for
development within a person facilitated through their interactions with
others. As Vesna Ognjenovic, the founder of Zdravo Da Ste, suggested to
me, ‘Human beings have an endless capacity for change and develop-
ment’ (Ognjenovic, 2001, interview). The key to this development lies
in the interactions themselves and the ability to be receptive to new

people and new ideas. Members of Zdravo Da Ste called this work ‘build-
ing relations’. It was through the workshop activities that the people
with whom Zdravo Da Ste worked had an opportunity to build relations.
In the workshops all activities began in the present, and in this way
the workshops created opportunities to make new interactions. They
were ‘an interactive source of development’ (Zdravo Da Ste, 2006)
within which each participant was inseparable from and contributed
to the activities of the group, and was able to learn through this expe-
rience. Zdravo Da Ste emphasized groups over and above work with
individuals because they felt that the group could reflect the zone of
proximal development. In a group ‘it is possible to build a common
activity within which I, Self, and We are integrated’ (Ognjenovic,
2001, interview). Ognjenovic suggested that this emphasis on work
with groups went against traditional views in psychology, which
emphasized the development of the individual and work within clearly
defined methods.
Zdravo Da Ste learned to adapt the theories and methods from
psychology to the situation in which they found themselves. Zdravo
Da Ste’s emphasis on work with groups rather than individuals also
went against predominant working methods used in international
development, which assume group activities are difficult to imple-
ment because of political or national differences (Van Willigen, 2002,
pp. 12–13). Their approach, therefore, was one that developed in rela-
tion to the development of the work itself and was open in the way
that it could change and incorporate different ideas and approaches
as the need was presented.
Different approaches in the workshops of Zdravo Da Ste
Zdravo Da Ste facilitated many different kinds of workshops with a

range of people, but these followed a similar pattern, beginning with
the journey to the location. There was space and time given for the
participants to arrive and explore the physical, creative, and social
environment before the main activity began. At the beginning, the
whole group was brought together for introductions and preparatory
work, such as warming up the body, name games, greeting gestures,
and introducing the theme of the main activity. After completion
of these initial activities, the larger section was usually divided into
smaller groups, using a game or activity. They then began preparing for
and participating in the main activity. This often comprised of making
things, for example, collage, story, or paintings, and when this was
completed, each group shared their experience or products with the
others. The whole group was then brought together again for a closing
activity which could include movement, sound or song, and clearing
up. After the workshop, particularly in the pre-school workshops and
the larger integrated workshops, food was often shared between the
participants. This was either provided by Zdravo Da Ste or by the adult
participants.
The participants themselves often gave meaning to the activities
within the workshops. This occurred by naming their creations, or sum-
marizing their experiences through short performances at the end of the
workshops and then sharing these with others who had had different
experiences. The performances also allowed each participant to become
visible both within the smaller groups and the larger group. This whole
process allowed the integration of an inner and outer reality: the inner
could be said to be an embodied experience; whilst the outer includes
the expression of this experience to others or within the wider social, cul-
tural, and geographical context. The identification of an inner and outer
reality was a premise that underpinned Zdravo Da Ste’s approach; they
considered it could be integrated, to some extent, through the workshop
process. The bridging of these inner and outer realities through creative
processes also underpins DMP theory and practice.
Within the workshop activities, Zdravo Da Ste used a range of crea-
tive and performing arts media including movement and dance. In
an interview with Branislava, a pre-school teacher and member of the
children’s team, said that children ‘express themselves mainly through
movement’ (Branislava, 2002, interview). Through observation of the
children’s movements, she felt it was possible to see the ‘inner state of
soul’ of a child, how the child was and who they were. Working with
movement made possibilities to create change through the discovery of
new ways of perceiving. To emphasize this idea Branislava told me, ‘[I]
once heard a grown man who said, “I am a handicapped person because
I am not taught to express myself through movement”’ (Branislava,
2002, interview). Other members of Zdravo Da Ste considered move-
ment to be just one of a number of ‘human potentials for expression’,
tools that could be ‘discovered and actualizad’ (Ognjenovic, 2001,
interview). These tools could be used alongside one another to find and
develop the hidden potential within each person and the ‘voices of the
future’ (Ognjenovic, 2001, interview), the potential future development
of the society. Ognjenovic considered these potentials to be fundamen-
tal to human nature and indestructible.
Zdravo Da Ste also used etno in the workshops. Etno was a term used
by Zdravo Da Ste to describe regional dance, music, and craft forms con-
sidered as arts of the people of former Yugoslavia, or Yugoslav folk arts.
Specific regions could be recognized through particular visual motifs,
rhythms, costumes, or dance forms. The term was also used to designate
folk arts from other countries and regions. Etno was used within Zdravo
Da Ste’s work in different ways; for example, through making etno objects
for income generation, participants could engage in the processes of
creating these objects, embodying this creative process and sharing
this knowledge with others. The dance steps and songs that sometimes
emerged spontaneously at etno exhibitions allowed people to remember
the events that surrounded these songs and dances, and their meaning.
Through their active participation in etno, the people with whom
Zdravo Da Ste worked could learn ‘to use their own richness which they
have inside them now, and from passive people they become active
people’ (Branka, 2001, interview). The personal and collective stories and
objects, symbols in their own rights, were thus placed in ‘another social
frame, not how it was, but how it is now’ (Branka, 2002, interview); the
stories thus became a form of ‘narrative identity’ (Le Vay, 2002, p. 36)
and the participants engaged in a process of ‘narrativization of the self’
(Hall, 2003a, p. 4).6 Sociologist Stuart Hall’s concept of ‘narrativization of
the self’ suggests that identities are developed through ‘the resources of
history, language and culture in the process of becoming […] within dis-
course [… and] through […] difference’ (2003a, p. 4). It can be argued that
Zdravo Da Ste gave participants an opportunity to discover the resources
contained within their own individual histories and the history, culture,
and language of former Yugoslavia through their engagement with etno.
In this way the use of etno helped to facilitate a ‘narrativization of the
self’, an embodiment and retelling of individual and collective stories,
history, language, and culture to create understanding and change.
Participants were also given opportunities to tell stories in other
workshop contexts; this included both their own stories and new stories
created through the various media and frames applied within the
workshop. In the pre-school workshops, for example, children some-
times made characters and the beginning of stories while waiting for
the workshops to begin, or chose stories from their collection of books
which they asked older children, members of Zdravo Da Ste, or guests to
read. The workshop leaders used stories as a tool to help develop skills
in literacy and play, and to build new social and cultural interactions.
These stories and their telling and enactment can also be considered as
embodied images and processes that can facilitate transformation.
Child psychologist and writer Bruno Bettleheim (1989, p. 5) proposed

that a story can enrich the life of a child by stimulating their imagina-
tion, developing intellect, clarifying emotions, being attuned to the
child’s anxieties and aspirations, and can both recognize and give solu-
tions to problems that the child may face. Furthermore, Bettleheim sug-
gested that the most important aspect of raising a child is to help them
to find meaning in their lives. In the context of war-affected refugee
people and IDPs, it is often necessary to find new frames of meaning.
The creation, remembering, and telling of stories within Zdravo Da
Ste’s workshops thus created the possibility for the emergence of new
meanings and relationships and symbolic transformation; it facilitated
a discourse through which identity could be explored.
Art therapists Debra Kalmanowitz and Bobby Lloyd (2005, p. 24)
found in their work with survivors of political violence in the United
Kingdom and in Bosnia that many of the people with whom they
worked spent a great deal of time looking for meaning. This meaning
was manifested within social, religious, and psychological contexts
through various media. I suggest that Zdravo Da Ste facilitated the
development of meaning for the children through engagement with
processes of embodiment in specific workshop contexts. This gave the
participants the opportunity to begin to understand and redefine them-
selves and their relationships to other people, and the social, cultural,
and physical environments by which they were surrounded. The activi-
ties in the workshops facilitated this process by creating a frame for
discourse through both verbal and non-verbal means allowing a ‘multi-
vocalic communication’ and a ‘narrativization of the self’.
Vrbica Dan workshop
The following workshop example illustrates the use of embodiment

within Zdravo Da Ste’s work. The workshop integrated movement, voice,
story, visual images, and etno. Vrbica Dan, also known as Willow Day or
St. Lazarus Day, is a Serbian Orthodox Christian children’s festival that
marks the beginning of the Orthodox Easter; it is held on the Saturday
before Palm Sunday. Vrbica Dan signifies Jesus entering Jerusalem and
being greeted by children after the resurrection of Lazarus. Children
wear their best clothes with little bells around their necks and they
are given Vrbica (willow) branches, which are blessed; Vrbica is used to
represent palm fronds. Informants from Zdravo Da Ste also told me that
Vrbica Dan was derived from a pre-Christian festival.
Approximately 200 children, parents, and other family members

attended the Vrbica Dan workshop held at the Ethnographic Museum
in Central Belgrade and organized by Zdravo Da Ste (Spring 2002).
Many members of Zdravo Da Ste were also at the workshop, each with
distinctive roles including co-ordinating the food, videoing, facilitat-
ing or co-facilitating the workshop, greeting people, and overseeing
the whole event. The atmosphere was bustling as the children arrived.
A member of Zdravo Da Ste greeted each child and gave them a bell
to hang around their neck and a wreath made of willow to put on
their heads. The children found their friends and siblings and stood
in small clusters talking excitedly. The parents gave homemade food
to the Zdravo Da Ste team who greeted the parents, and organized the
food and drink. Other members of Zdravo Da Ste guided small groups
around the downstairs exhibition at the Ethnographic Museum. When
most of the groups had arrived, everyone squeezed together in the first
room to listen to an introduction given by Jasmina, a pre-school teacher
and member of Zdravo Da Ste’s Children’s Team. The participants were
then divided into five groups, each led by two facilitators. They chose
their group space within the three downstairs exhibition rooms of the
Museum and stood in a standing circle to begin the main activities.
The same basic workshop structure was used in all five groups but each
facilitator worked in a different way with the materials. The workshop
began with exercises using movement and voice. When this work was
completed, each group created large collages using materials introduced
by the Zdravo Da Ste team.
Jasmina’s group began by creating sounds with the voice. Jasmina and
another facilitator used gestures to conduct the volume of the sound,
raising their arms for loud sounds and lowering their arms and crouch-
ing down on the floor for quieter sounds. Coming back to a standing
circle, the group formed pairs, turning towards the person behind or in
front. Each member of the pair lifted their hands so that their palms
and their partner’s palms were opposite each other in front of their
chests, close but not touching. Keeping this position, each pair moved
from standing to crouching and back to standing. When everybody had
repeated this twice, they were asked to turn around to face the person
behind them and to repeat the movements and make contact with their
new partner. When the introductory sound and movement work was
completed, a big piece of folded white cloth was put onto the floor in
the centre of each group and pieces of willow and plants were laid on
top, as well as glue, tape, and string.
In Jasmina’s group, everybody opened the white cloth together, laid

it on the ground and then stood back and clapped before the willows,
plants, and materials were placed on top of the cloth and the partici-
pants began to create the collage. As the groups created their collages
the room became animated with sound and activity. Participants made
more willow wreaths and bouquets, which they attached to the collages.
Some people moved between different groups to look at the developing
collages and gather more materials.
Eventually the collages were completed and a few members from
each group carried their collage to the gallery that overlooked the first
exhibition room. They tied the collages to a rail so that they could be
unrolled to the exhibition room below, while everyone else gathered in
this room to listen to Jasmina. The collages were approximately 20 feet
long and reached from the gallery to the floor of the room below. When
all the collages were lowered, they became the walls of the space that
contained all the participants in a newly created environment for the
closing of the workshop and the sharing of the food. As the workshop
was coming to an end, a late group of children and their families
arrived. They were immediately included in the activities, invited to add
willow branches to the collages and shown the Ethnographic Museum’s
downstairs exhibition.
The symbols represented by the willows, bells, and etno products
used to decorate the workshop space were part of a shared history and
heritage of the participants as Serbs and former Yugoslavs. The symbols
used by Zdravo Da Ste can be considered as part of a collective culture
from a perceived shared history. This notion of symbols is close to
Jung’s concept of archetypes. Jung further suggests that symbols can
be considered from a semiotic perspective in two ways, ‘as signs or
symptoms of a fixed character’ or as ‘true symbols […] expression of
a content not yet consciously recognised or conceptually formulated’
(Jung, 1953a, p. 294). Jung uses the metaphor of ‘the tessera hospitalitas
between host and guest, the broken coin which is shared between two
parting friends’ (1995, p. 367, fn. 7) in order to describe the notion
of symbol. The coin represents and is a reminder of the friendship
between two people. This idea of ‘not yet consciously recognised or
conceptually formed’ and yet to be revealed is similar to Vygotsky’s
notion of the ‘zone of proximal development’.7 From these perspec-
tives, symbols can be considered as part of an ongoing process of
bringing the unrealized into realization, where the individual uses col-
lective symbols, or archetypes, and personal symbols in their attempt
to understand their relationship to the world around them. Because
a symbol is a representation of something else, it has the potential to

create relationships between images or concepts that would not be in
relationship in the context of the everyday. A symbol is thus a repre-
sentation of something else, and has the power to recall not only the
image of the thing represented but also the emotions and experiences
with which it is associated (Langer, 1951, p. 46). Symbols can thus also
be thought of as a form of embodied knowledge that can be activated,
as dance ethnographer Deidre Sklar suggests:
As imaginative abstractions from embodied schemata, symbols are

like pressure points that can be touched to evoke larger and deeper
territories of knowing. It is the toucher and the touching that pro-
duce lasting affects and motivations […]. Symbols reverberate back
to doings, reviving somatic engagement. In the cyclical process, the
connection between doings and presence, symbol and soma, is real-
ized as a way of knowing.
(2001, pp. 193–4)
As a form of embodied knowledge, symbols and the meaning ascribed

to them can form the basis of identification of a community where
there is shared ownership of the symbols. Ways of behaviour in relation
to the symbols may be common, but the meaning ascribed is not neces-
sarily shared. Social anthropologist Anthony Cohen suggests, ‘People’s
experience and understanding of their community … resides in their
orientation to its symbolism’ (1985, p. 16).
Within the Vrbica Dan workshop, the materials available for the
creation of the collages manifest as symbols of this festival. The etno
embroidery is viewed as representative of etno and the symbolic asso-
ciations connected to etno, including the Serbian Orthodox Church.
In this way the workshop can be understood as an attempt to give
participants an opportunity to find meaning and to build new rela-
tionships with other people, history, and culture. In the Vrbica Dan
workshop, symbols became part of a process represented by the final
collages and the new environment created by the collages. The partici-
pants in this way shared not only the symbols, but also some of the
meanings they ascribed to the symbols through the process of creating
the collages. The final environment created by the collages allowed
the experience of the workshop to be acknowledged, which included
sharing the symbols and the symbolic meaning ascribed to them. It
was a common practice within the workshops to complete a workshop
with an activity that consolidated the experience; this often took a
performance form. The experience of making the collage also allowed

the participants to create a new environment through the process of
their activities.
Zdravo Da Ste’s use of symbols in their workshops contrasted with
how symbols were used during the war in former Yugoslavia, where
they served national and political goals. These differing applications
are linked to notions and the development of individual and collective
identity. According to sociologist Avtar Brah, ‘Questions of identity are
intimately connected with those of experience, subjectivity and social
relations’ (2003, p. 123). Furthermore, Brah stresses:
political mobilisation is centrally about attempts to re-inscribe sub-

jectivity through appeals to collective experience. Paradoxically, the
commonalty that is evoked can be rendered meaningful only in
articulation with a discourse of difference.
(2003, p. 124)
A nationalist movement thrives by emphasizing difference, repre-

sented by notions of the other; this idea was central to the use of
symbols and the promotion of nationalist sentiment within former
Yugoslavia. The dominant political parties during the war in former
Yugoslavia used symbols and images from the past to identify and
promote difference, to stake claims on land, and to incite war against
others. Zdravo Da Ste attempted to use symbols to facilitate new social
and cultural relations, to create different possibilities that individuals
and communities might not have conceived or previously experi-
enced. Within their workshop activities Zdravo Da Ste created opportu-
nities for participants to embody, explore, question, and interact with
symbols representative of their past and former Yugoslavia. Through
these processes new relationships could be made to these symbols and
to the social and physical environment, creating new possibilities for
the future.
Political scientist Walker Connor suggests that symbols endure and
have power because they ‘create a bridge to the side of our minds
not amenable to rational explanation’ (1994, p. 204). From a Jungian
perspective, this may be because symbols are linked to archetypes and
the collective unconscious. By adopting a Jungian frame, Zdravo Da
Ste’s use of symbols can be considered as allowing the participants in
the workshops to engage in and explore the personal and collective
unconscious, and to see them as a resource through which they could
develop their individual and community lives and question their
experience of war. In this way Zdravo Da Ste’s work facilitated the

potential both to deconstruct and reconstruct individual and collec-
tive identities through embodied processes, and to create new symbols
with which to engage in social interaction and thus facilitate new
forms of transformation.
Conclusion
In terms of psychosocial work with refugee children and families

and IDPs, any psychotherapeutic intervention needs to be negoti-
ated between outside organizations and the individuals and com-
munities themselves (Van Willigen, 2002, pp. 12–13). In work with
refugee children, families, and communities, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) suggests that experienced workers
with children should work alongside refugee parents and community
members in planning activities: ‘If one involves elders of the commu-
nity it can help promote continuity of identity and culture’ (United
Nations High Commission for Refugees, 1998, p. 17). The activities
planned should be ‘appropriate to the refugees’ culture and use locally
available materials and resources’ (UNHCR, 1998, p. 17). The activities
for children that UNHCR recommend include play, dance and music,
drawing and painting, storytelling and singing, as well as support
groups where children can discuss the problems they face and possible
solutions (UNHCR, 1998, pp. 15–18).
Zdravo Da Ste gave the participants in their workshops opportunities to
embody and represent images, experiences, ideas, and emotions through
dance, movement, singing, story, visual images, and etno. In this way they
gave the refugee people and IDPs an opportunity to realize themselves
and their relationships to the new social, cultural, and physical worlds by
which they were surrounded. Zdravo Da Ste believed that through par-
ticipation in the workshops, both children and adults would be able to
find new relationships and ways of perceiving which would create new
possibilities for the future. Fundamental to this work was the notion
that human developmental processes are social (Ognjenovic and Skorc,
2003, p. 102), hence the emphasis on groups and group processes in the
workshop contexts. In some senses Zdravo Da Ste could be said to have
taken on board ideas from UNHCR and other sources, and adapted these
in relation to the development of their work.
I suggest that through the workshop activities, the Serbian refugee
people and IDPs were able to explore and redefine meaning in relation
to their experiences of war and displacement. In this way Zdravo Da Ste
and the participants were involved in a process of ‘narrativization of

the self’, stimulating the development and re-development of indi-
vidual and collective identity. The activities of the workshops can
thus be seen as an attempt, negotiated between Zdravo Da Ste and the
participants, to undo the bloody tapestry created by the war in former
Yugoslavia and create new relationships with history, culture, memory,
and experience. In this way the workshops facilitated a ‘symbolic trans-
formation of experiences’ (Langer, 1951, p. 52). Inherent within these
new relationships was a questioning of meaning and a discovery and
acknowledgement of resources already contained within the individuals
and communities. There was a sense of building a new future from the
ashes of the past.
I conclude that the processes of embodiment and the experience,
recognition, and manifestation of embodied images created new frames
of meaning that helped to facilitate a process of narrativization of the
self within a post-structuralist and Jungian notion of individual and
collective identity. This in turn acted as a vehicle for the re-framing of
individual, social and cultural identity in the context of forced displace-
ment and resettlement following war.
Notes
1. Please see Laban, 1971, p. 91.
2. A criticism of a reflexive approach to ethnography is that the primary focus
can become the researcher and the finished ethnography can ‘lose sight
altogether of the culturally different Other’ (Rosaldo, 1993, p. 7). A reflexive
approach is not just concerned with the ethnographer and their perspec-
tive of and influence on the research. It is primarily concerned with making
visible the interactions and the effects of the interactions between the inform-
ants, the activity being studied, and the researcher.
3. A process-oriented approach to therapeutic interactions is attributed to the
work of physicist and Jungian psychotherapist Arnold Mindell (Mindell and
Mindell, 2004). Mindell’s ideas in turn were influenced by Jung and the
physicist David Bohm (1992), in particular Bohm’s notion of flux which sug-
gests that all physical reality is in a constant state of movement and change.
4. Jung’s concept of individuation is a process of development by which a
person becomes whole; within this process there is an integration of the con-
scious and unconscious (Jung, 2002). Individuation is considered an impor-
tant process for the attainment of adulthood.
5. Jung identified two levels of the unconscious, the personal, and the collective.
The personal unconscious lies beneath consciousness, its contents not far
from consciousness, but for individual reasons unable to surface to conscious-
ness because of being repressed or unripe (Jung, 1953b, p. 65). The collective
unconscious is, ‘a deeper layer of the unconscious where the primordial
images common to humanity lie sleeping […] I have called these images or
motifs, archetypes’ (Jung, 1953b, pp. 64–5). The personal unconscious, the
collective unconscious, and consciousness are in constant interaction.
6. Play therapist David Le Vay suggests that children have a ‘narrative identity’
which they ‘carry within them’ (2002, p. 36) as a way of understanding their
experiences and the world in which they live.
7. Vesna identified a link between the work of Jung and Vygotsky, although she
said very few professionals she had met agreed with this relationship. Both
Jung and Vygotksy believed in an inherent potential within human beings
that could be activated, though Jung’s ideas arose from his belief in the
unconscious.
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8
Sounding Contestation, Silent
Suppression: Cosmopolitics and
Gender in Japanese Flamenco
Yolanda van Ede
Introduction
Sensuous analysis of Spanish flamenco as learned and taught in Japan

reveals that dance genres in the global flow lead to the emergence of
localized, distinct styles. During the past few decades flamenco in Japan
has become Japanese flamenco, because Japanese dancers and instruc-
tors apply a different sensory model in their modes of transmission
from Spanish flamencos. This difference relates particularly to the qual-
ity of sound, of volume over musicality in stomping; not to the down-
playing of sound in favour of sight, as could be expected in a culture in
which visuality can be taken as the hegemonic sense. The reason for this
divergence in Japanese flamenco displays the very reason for flamenco’s
immense popularity in Japan, especially among women. Flamenco is
offering them a stage for resisting local Japanese norms concerning
proper female behaviour that is not only as invisible but also as inaudi-
ble as possible. Japanese flamenco is foremost loud. However, whereas
‘Japamenco’ as a flamenco style can be interpreted as an act of resist-
ance against Japanese patriarchal society, of female cosmopolitanism
against male traditionalism, its learning and performance practices do
accommodate the Japanese tight hierarchical, organizational structure.
Dance studios are closed institutions, run as a family, with the dance
instructor/owner as a matriarch at its apex. It is she who, in the end,
decides which dancers are loyal, trustworthy, and good enough to
sound, on stage, and thus deserve a cosmopolitan identity, and those
who are to remain silent, although visible, for the time being. It is she
who, by shifting sensory emphases, dominates gender politics in and
through flamenco dancing: outward to male society, as well as within,
among her women apprentices.
154
Sounding Contestation in Japanese Flamenco 155
Silenced feet
The Mielparque Hall in Tokyo’s centre was packed. All of the approxi-
mately 350 apprentices of one of Japan’s most renowned flamenco
studios had managed to sell their obligatory 20 tickets each to family
and friends. These now awaited, with smothered chit-chat, the studio’s
yearly presentation, in Japanese, their happiokai (show), which to my
initial surprise was translated on flyers and posters as concierto. Amazed
once again how such a huge Japanese crowd could make so little noise,
I searched for my row and seat, apologizing continuously for my rude-
ness to all those who had to get up out of their comfortable, red-velvet
chairs to let me pass. When finally seated, I looked at the programme.
From the almost daily rehearsals during the past few weeks I had already
understood that the evening would follow the levels of the classes, from
the folkloric sevillanas by beginners, to the garrotin and caracoles by
lower intermediates, to a saeta and bulerías by the ‘Mrs-class’, tientos and
soleá by the advanced.1 The group dancing was to be interspersed by
solos and cuadros (quartets) from all levels. It was, however, the staged
performance of the Mrs-class, the group of so-called housewives that
I looked forward to with special interest. Squeezed in the corner of their
basement studio on a simple stool, like a fly on the wall, I had been
observing them intently, from January till June 2009 during my first
months of research on flamenco in Tokyo, in preparation for this event.
Whereas the evening classes would rush in after a day’s work and hurry
back to train stations after practice, the Mrs-group, being scheduled in
the daytime when the children were at school, offered me opportunity
for socializing with them at after-class coffees and lunches.
In preparation for this investigation into flamenco’s immense popu-
larity in Japan (van Ede, 2010), I assumed I would find an outstanding
example of how, in the process of globalization, flamenco in Japan has
gained a heightened emphasis on its visual attractiveness rather than
on its rhythmic aesthetic essence, as many a purist laments. Japanese
culture, being foremost visually oriented (Bradsley and Miller, 2011;
Hahn, 2007; Kondo, 1997, 2005a, 2005b), would surely show fla-
menco’s change from a concierto into more of a spectacle; its popularity
among mostly Japanese women dancers to be explained by its costume
and accessories, its movements and postures, perfect for a particular
display of femininity. Comparison with Tomie Hahn’s sensory analysis
of nihon buyo (2007), a Japanese classical dance, which shows once again
the importance of sight and of imitation, confirmed my assumption of
finding a similar visual emphasis in flamenco’s processes of learning,
teaching, and performance in Japan. However, from the very first day
I sat on that stool in the corner, the noise these Japanese women pro-
duced with their feet took me aback. Flamenco may be a sound-based
dance, but it had never struck me as deafening in either Spain or the
Netherlands as it did in the Tokyo studios. Of course, there was a lot
of attention to hand and arm movements, head and hip positions, and
rhythmic variations, but the level of sound produced by the footwork
was astounding. It forced me to rethink my sensory hypothesis. The
optical aspects of flamenco dancing were definitely important; this
aural aspect, however, was even more so – and in an entirely different
way than I had anticipated. With time I came to know more about the
sensitivity to sound and silence in Tokyo society, and its moral values
concerning proper female behaviour. Herein, it turned out, lay Japanese
women’s attraction to flamenco. With time, my growing understand-
ing allowed my ears to adjust to the loud sounds. Until an awkward
silence fell.
A guitar introduction signalled the beginning of the happiokai. The
stage curtains opened, displaying three guitarists, one Japanese and two
Spanish – the programme read – and one Spanish singer. The Japanese
guitarist was playing solo, accompanied by the Spaniards clapping
rhythm (palmas). A beginners’ class and their instructor, a member of
the studio’s semi-professional dance group, appeared on stage. While
the dancers took positions for their sevillanas, their instructor joined the
clapping musicians. Like most people in the audience, I suppose, I soon
forgot about her and the musicians, all in black against a black back-
drop. My eyes were drawn towards the colourful dancers, the astonish-
ing synchronicity of their movements, and their stern smiles. I leaned
back in my red-velvet chair and surrendered to an amazing succession
of swirling bright skirts and waving fans, mantillas, and hats, group
after group, until the Mrs-class was next, and I repositioned myself to
the edge of my seat. I watched their changing formations, looked for
my friends and those who had been bound to step out of line during
rehearsals now and again, when suddenly I came to my (other) senses.
I did not and could not hear their feet! My gaze, wandering around the
stage, detected three floor microphones, taped close to the stage edge,
but as much as I strained my ears I was not able to hear their stomping
steps. Then my gaze went to the musicians, and against the black back-
drop I suddenly discovered a long row of people, clapping. The entire
crew of the studio’s dance group was standing there, acting as a sound-
ing décor of palmas. The rhythmic sound I had been hearing was theirs
in front of stand mikes, drowning out 48 feet. The floor mikes must
have been switched off. These Mrs’s had been stomping their hearts out
for months, to be silenced during their few minutes of fame and glory.
I felt an emphatic, vicarious rage bubbling up.
For the rest of this four-hour show I struggled to turn a blind eye
to the spectacle and to focus on the sound. Whose feet were allowed
to express the rhythm by themselves, and when did semi-pro’s show
up to take over the sound by palmas? Why? Pondering on the sensory
distinction between the learning and rehearsing in the studio, and this
performance, Goffman’s backstage/frontstage (1959) sprang to mind.
This dramatic metaphor, back to source, not only evoked questions
about the presentation of self, but also of a supposedly internal order
in presentation of the ‘self’. Evidently, the leading role in this hierarchy
was reserved for the main dance instructor cum studio owner. Not only
has she accomplished, through flamenco, what her apprentices in dif-
fering degrees have been striving for, that is, a cosmopolitan/transna-
tional lifestyle; but also her studio’s reputation – and her personal one – is
at stake, particularly during happiokai. Her decisions evidently relate to
this cosmopolitanism that is embedded in Japanese society.
Cosmopolitan selves
The immense popularity of flamenco in Japan, which in 2004 accounted

for some 80,000 registered aficionados, over 500 dance studios, glossy
magazines on flamenco dance, several tablaõs in each major city, and
numerous festivals and competitions (Otani-Martin, 2004, 2005), came
in two waves. The first was Carlos Saura’s filmed flamenco adaption of
Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ in 1983 that drew thousands of young women in par-
ticular, from all over the globe including Japan, to Spain in their dream
to dance flamenco, as the two leading female dancers, Laura del Sol and
Cristina Hoyos, did. A decade later, the same Christina Hoyos created a
second wave when she danced at the opening ceremony of the Olympic
Games at Barcelona, in 1992.
The two impetuses are clearly reflected in two cohorts of apprentices at
the eight flamenco dance settings I surveyed. The first cohort had taken
up flamenco dance between 1983 and 1988, and was at the time of my
fieldwork in 2009 and 2010 between 45 and 55 years of age; thus in their
twenties when they started. As I discovered during our conversations at
coffee bars and private settings, many of these now elder apprentices
had been studying or working in the United States or Europe at the time.
They had gone to see Saura’s film, went to live flamenco shows, and
decided to join flamenco classes in London, Chicago, or Los Angeles.
None of the apprentices belonging to this cohort that I met had been
to Madrid to take classes at the famous Amor de Dios studio (where
I had met several Japanese girls in class; van Ede, 2010), or in Andalucía,
however. Others only started to dance flamenco on their return home,
in Tokyo. They combined their new leisure activity with newly found
jobs in ‘intercommunications’ at some international firm or as language
teachers in English or Spanish, until they got married and started a
family. Evidently, these women belonged to Karen Kelsky’s Women on
the Verge (2001; see also 1999); that first generation of Japanese women
who, in the 1980s, were enabled to pursue higher education but saw
themselves restricted by Japanese gender norms and social values. This
first cohort turned out to be exemplary for those who had been look-
ing towards ‘the West’ – to summarize Kelsky’s conclusions (2001) – to
assert a ‘new self’, to find an international space of self-expression and
liberation, for personal discovery and romantic freedom. Flamenco
offered them strong and independent female role models, a global stage
as a classificatory ‘world music and dance’, a format to express a sense of
being modern women of the world, and (at least) a romantic imaginary
of gypsy men and life (see Kelsky, 2001, pp. 13–14; van Ede, 2012).
The second cohort, who emerged shortly after the film’s impetus had
dried up, stood apart not only in referring to the 1992 Olympics as their
source of inspiration; it clearly denoted a next generation. Firstly, being
in their late teens and early twenties, these young Japanese women
had been notably younger when taking up flamenco dance. Secondly,
only a few among them had felt the urge to leave Japan in pursuit of
their dreams of independence. On the whole, their level of education
seemed lower, compared to the degrees of the first cohort. Thirdly, and
most importantly, most of them were still single in 2010. Living with
their parents or in a shared apartment with friends, they were post-
poning marriage and motherhood, and held jobs in administration,
education, catering, or factories. One ran a small workshop, specializing
in flamenco dresses, another was a freelance interpreter for business
people. While the first cohort eventually all married, this generation
clearly belonged to Nancy Rosenberger’s ‘Selves Centered on Self’, a
group of long-term singles who grew into adulthood during the 1990s
(Rosenberger, 2007), and ‘experimented with expanding their sense
of freedom and individuality through leisure and work’ (Rosenberger,
2001, p. 211; 2007). What both cohorts did share, then, was their felt
need for ‘developing “self” (jibun)’ (Rosenberger, 2007) and a cosmo-
politan identity (Rosenberger, 2001, p. 130); and sought both through
flamenco dance. During the intervening years, numerous studios had
mushroomed in Tokyo. The first cohort had already set a very particular
flamenco format that soothed their quest for self-expression.
The loud stomping I witnessed set flamenco dance in Japan apart from
my experience of flamenco in Spain in what I would call a distinct style
(van Ede, 2012), in following Ferguson’s definition of ‘cultural style’
as a ‘performative competence’, a ‘form of practical signifying activ-
ity’ (Ferguson, 1999, p. 96). It is ‘a practical kind of knowledge: more
“knowing how” than “knowing that”’ (Ferguson, 1999, p. 98), which
enables the circumvention of such stereotyping as ‘plain imitation’ or
‘copy’ in processes of cultural adaptation. Hahn’s sensory analysis of
nihon buyo (2007) offers a way of getting a grip on such ‘knowing how’.
In order to disentangle the complexity of kinaesthetic practices, which
can never immediately be learned in its entirety, she suggests focusing
on the methods applied in learning and teaching, and the sequence of
senses emphasized at different stages in the process of transmission. It
was through the comparison of Hahn’s nihon buyo sensory model, fea-
turing sight (Hahn 2007, p. 59), and the model I drew on of my own
experience as a flamenco apprentice of Spanish instructors in Spain and
the Netherlands that I assumed I would encounter a visually oriented
approach in Japan, and thus a flamenco turned into spectacle. It was
through this comparison, however, that sound appeared as dominant in
Tokyo as it was in Spain, albeit in a very different manner. Nevertheless,
this sensory analysis was still needed for interpreting why. It was its
gender context, or rather ‘con-sound’, that rang a bell.
In Spanish flamenco, footwork is an integral part of flamenco as a
musical event. The dancer’s quality is not primarily related to body
movement, but on the ability to step and stomp in harmony with the
melodic and rhythmical variations performed by singers, guitarists, and/
or other musicians. The core significance of musicality is echoed by
the fact that in Spain (and in the Netherlands) dance classes are always
accompanied by a guitar player from the very beginners’ level onwards.
Learning to dance flamenco is foremost a training in listening, adjusting,
and – when advanced enough – in concert with, and therefore subject
to, the musicians. In Japan, however, dancers and studios outnumber
guitarists to such an extent that live accompaniment is impossible.
Some Japanese instructors use CDs instead, but most prefer to sing or
hum a cante while clapping or tapping the rhythm with a cane. By this
method, the many rhythms to the many flamenco cantes are transmitted
well enough; the practice of dancing to live music is, however, a forlorn
hope. The consequent emphasis on knowing the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of
the proper rhythm, performing these abilities convincingly without
the music as corrective, may have created the loudness I found striking.
I observed endless sessions of dancers having to dance individually, to be
jeered at when falling out of step, and forced to do them over and over
again, louder, faster. Those in command of the figures and rhythm were
forced to drown out the clapping and cheering of their mates. To sum-
marize, one might conclude that the gender differences between flamen-
cos in Japan, both in numbers and in roles, have created a circumstance
in which not musicality, but volume came to dominate flamenco dance.
But there is more than the rather logistic-technical explanation, and
that relates to gender differences not within, but outside the studio.
These women’s quest for personal expression and a modern, cosmo-
politan self implies a contestation of traditional notions of woman-
hood in Japanese society (Kelsky, 2001; Rosenberger, 2001). Japanese
notions on femininity expect them to move and behave as invisibly and
inaudibly as possible, in silence and restraint (e.g. Bradsley and Miller,
2011; Miller, 2004; Smith, 1992). In most studies, including the works
of Kelsky and Rosenberger, contestation of, and resistance to, these
notions have merely been investigated through language and discourse,
relying mainly on interviews and textual sources. The dedication to
flamenco, however, shows an embodied, performative contestation.
In its quality of a global and a sound-based dance, it offers the perfect
format to act out a resistance, within the confines of the studio as well
as on theatre stages as big as Mielparque, visual but audible as well.
The feminine strength they so much admired in Spanish dancers like
Christina Hoyos and Laura del Sol, I never saw as clearly exposed as at
a happiokai of another large studio when a group of five girls appeared
on stage, clad in black leather, dancing a martinet with the only sound-
ing being their feet and canes. A Japanese friend sitting next to me
remarked, ‘it’s heroic, don’t you think?’, which immediately brought a
quote from Yamamoto Michiko, a woman activist and journalist, to my
mind. She argues:
for a female ‘warrior discipline’ (musha shugyō) in which women

reject the constricting bonds of Japanese tradition and school them-
selves in self-knowledge on the world stage.
(Kelsky, 2001, p. 98)
Flamenco definitely offered such a world stage; however, not for all. The
black leather girls belonged to the second cohort and a semi-pro crew,
darlings of another studio. They had definitely learned something the
Mrs-classes had not.
Flamenco Japan Inc.
Japanese organizational cultures are (still) firmly rooted in the notion of

the household (the ie) as ‘a fundamental unit of social structure’ which
is ‘linked particularly with feudal moral precepts’ (Nakane, 1970, p. 4).
In schools of art practice, such as described by Hahn, this household
(or family) system, is headed by the iemoto as both the founder (or suc-
cessor) and the main instructor. It is she who regulates its discipline, as
Hahn tells us,
on several levels – on a microscopic level for the transmission of indi-

vidual dance steps, choreography, costuming, music, and so forth;
on a middle level for the negotiation of hierarchical designations
of students and teachers within the school; and for the large-scale
organization of a tradition’s continuity to future generations.
(Hahn, 2007, p. 33)
Surprisingly, flamenco dance studios in Japan are also organized along

very similar lines. Women who seek to liberate themselves from a
society that is ‘oppressive to women […] backward and “feudalis-
tic”’ (Kelsky, 2001, p. 418). I would not expect such a ‘feudalistic’
organizational structure to continue. Similarly, Kelsky’s argument that
‘internationalism always reveals the presence of (a certain kind of)
modernity, inevitably set against the “traditionalism” of the national/
local’ (Kelsky, 2008, p. 87) makes one wonder what kind of modernity
is at work in these studios. My impression is that these distinctions are
far more complex than Kelsky suggests. Internationalism is, I believe,
not ‘inevitably set against’, but even so set within ‘traditionalism’
exactly because of its dependence on locality – a sense of place that
not simply equates the local with the national in opposition to the
international/cosmopolitan/global, as she does. It asks for the focus-
ing lens, the microscopic objective only ethnography can provide,
to detect differences at the most basic strata of embodied practice, at
those spaces where internationalism/cosmopolitanism and tradition-
alism are worked and played out. Here, these practicalities reveal not
only the constraints to which dreams of freedom and independence
are subjected, but also the powers at play as to who is allowed to make
these dreams come true, when, and where. These power relations
interconnect the three levels that regulate the discipline Hahn is refer-
ring to, and eventually lead to the emergence of a distinct Japanese
flamenco style.
Although the apprentices I met denied that they ever used terms
like ie and iemoto (as mentioned above), they did, however, apply
maternal terms to denote their relationship with the main instructor,
even when being of the same age or older, like the ‘Mrs’s’. Particularly,
semi-pro company members, as the core and pride of the studio,
called themselves children, babies, of the teacher they revered and
were depending on. Whether belonging to its core or its margins, the
studio was definitely perceived as a family, ritualized by gift givings
on festival days, and formalized by a shared responsibility for the
studio’s cleanliness and up-keep. This was carried out through the
cleaning of floor, mirrors, sanitation, and changing room after each
class, as well as by a required facility fee (€30–50 a month) for air con-
ditioning and repairs. In addition, all studios ask for an admission fee
(€50–70), which must work as a disincentive to trying out different
studios or schools – or to shop around for different instructors spe-
cialized in a particular palo (flamenco ‘genre’) as is common practice
in Spain. Moreover, each apprentice signing up for a studio’s classes
is treated as a total beginner (like a crawling baby), regardless of her
former experience at another studio with a different instructor. It is
only from the second year onwards that she will be allowed to step
into any class (€80–120 per month) she thinks she is up to. Indeed, it
is not the head instructor who decides upon an apprentice’s level of
competence; it is her class and the semi-pro’s who act as instructor-
assistants, through their collective jeering and cheering during the
rhythmic exercises. The shame of falling out of step or the sense of
relief and (modest) pride that comes with succeeding are enough
for an apprentice to know her class. Regardless of her level as such,
it will also give her the confidence to ask for a solo at a happiokai,
which the head instructor will never deny. It is true that dancing a
solo is a very expensive affair, for the apprentice has to pay for the
choreography and its teaching, her extra costume (up to €2000), and
an extra fee for the musicians who are to accompany her at the per-
formance (some €200), but it does show the ‘mother’ her dedication
and ambition. For the latter, each solo means additional income as
well as additional esteem at the happiokai. She will know how to make
the less advanced dancer look good on stage; when she still doubts a
woman’s rhythmic steadiness, she has another option – as I found out
at Mielparque.
An advanced dancer doing well at a solo, however, may be asked to
join the semi-professional dance company of the studio. This is, in fact,
the only hierarchical designation conducted by the head instructor,

albeit the most important one. Its significance is not related to being
a step-up to a professional career, which not all members of her com-
pany necessarily intend to pursue, for earning a living as a flamenco
dancer in Japan is fairly impossible and the setting up of a studio an
expensive and arduous enterprise. What does count, obviously, are the
opportunities it offers to perform on national stages all over Japan, as
well as becoming tied to flamenco’s recognized international stage. The
latter might be real or imagined, depending on the head instructor’s
transnational connections, with Spain in particular. These often origi-
nated in the 1980s when she, unlike her peers who now take her classes,
did spend several years in Madrid or Andalusia to learn the art. If she
managed to keep her Spanish acquaintances by mutual visits over time,
they have come to play a major part in her studio’s happiokai. Partly as a
consequence of insufficiently experienced Japanese flamenco musicians
available at those peak months of studio presentations, she has to rely
on her Spanish friends, singers, and musicians, to add musical quality
to her yearly teaching endeavours. On the other hand, having Spanish
artists at her happiokai increases her reputation. They are the visiting card
of her transnationalism, connecting her to flamenco’s source. Whatever
their reputation in Spain, in Japan they are generally favoured over the
best of Japanese singers or guitarists. To meet the expenses, these Spanish
performers are also asked to provide so-called master classes at her stu-
dio,2 for all apprentices to attend for an extra fee. Such sessions tend to
end up as a fiesta or peña3 at a local bar around the corner. In fact, these
relocated events resembling classes and nights in Jerez or Madrid lure all
studio adherents into flamenco’s global world. It is at these occasions
when transnational ties are reconfirmed and the studio’s dance company
may be invited to go and perform in Spain. It is here where the most
ambitious and daring dancers may take the floor to receive the cheering
attention of the Spanish troupe, and cherish their dreams of following
them to Spain to take classes with some renowned dancer or to audition
for a Spanish dance company.4 It is these opportunities and dreams that
make all the efforts and expenses of solos worthwhile.
What makes apprentices opt for a particular studio is not the amount
of fees and costs as such, but what can be got from them. What that
would be depends (apart from her dance qualities) on her willingness
and ability to invest the necessary time in flamenco. Not only does each
class take 90 minutes, studios are also seldom around the corner. As
Megumi Pearson, one of the participants in the Mrs-class, who started
dancing flamenco in London and returned to Japan with her English

husband, writes:
It takes me one hour forty minutes each way to get to the studio in
Central Tokyo, but it’s worth it. I leave my house at 9am to attend
the 11am session and then rush straight home eating rice balls on
the street. This is not done in Japan, especially by someone like me,
but it’s the only way to get home before my son comes back from
school. Six months after I found the lesson, I performed Solea and
Alegrias in a big theatre in Tokyo and really enjoyed it.
(Pearson, 2006, p. 20)
Each class, then, took her close to five hours a day. What she does not
mention is that each runs for two sessions a week, which amounts to
ten hours a week. Furthermore, dancing two palos, namely solea and
alegrías, implies two separate classes, which add up to another three
hours at the least. It is already surprising that she managed this sched-
ule, but in addition she found time three years later, when she felt
her son was old enough to take care of himself, to take also private
classes. In 2010, she performed alegrías solo at the same Mielparque.
The amount of practice had turned her into a very steadfast dancer. Her
feet, I found out, were to be heard alright. Two weeks later she confessed
to me she had felt ‘so great, so strong. I want to be independent and
keep this feeling’.
Flamenco in Japan may be tough on apprentices, but so too is it for
the head instructor and studio owner. Running a flamenco studio is a
highly competitive business. In order to keep the studio sustainable,
she has to attract enough pupils. Her attraction lies in her ability to
keep up her transnational connections to Spain. To display this net-
work is to have Spanish singers and musicians at her yearly studio
presentation, and preferably also during her company’s performances.
Keeping up this reputation costs, in a field of hundreds of flamenco
dance studios in Tokyo alone. To prevent her apprentices from run-
ning off to cheaper but respectable schools, she simply has to combine
both the local, traditional ‘feudalistic’ structure (Kelsky, 2011, p. 418),
enforcing familial bonding, while simultaneously responding to her
apprentices’ quest for an international stage on which they can express
their cosmopolitan selves. The local and the global are here inherently
intertwined if flamenco is to be secured of continuation locally, while
holding onto the very style that is attracting those who want to be
modern and cosmopolitan.5
The happiokai is her visiting card. Having Spanish musicians on stage,

and a full house of the potentially interested and aficionados evaluating
her presentation in comparison to those of her colleagues, she has to
make sure hers will be flawless. They may find an individual dancer’s
moving out of the chorus line excusable, convinced the instructor and
her classmates will deal with her afterwards. Stomping out of beat,
however, is even audible to an audience unacquainted with flamenco.
It sounds; worse, it might discredit her flamenco expertise. She will not
take that risk, so rather silences those who have not convinced her yet
of their dedication and confidence.
Understandably from the head instructor’s point of view, then, the
floor mikes were turned off during the performance of the Mrs-class,
for some of the mostly older women indeed were not always able to
keep up the pace of the rhythm. Also, the inconsistent performance of
a second-year beginners group made their silencing understandable as
too many of them had shown little feel for even a rhythmic easy palo
like tangos. Still, in my opinion, the freedom of self-expression they
had wished to transfer into flamenco dancing was taken away from
them. Whether ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, their quest ‘to be heard’ was set back
in favour of their visual appearance; a setting back into the dominant
Japanese sensory mode. However, when I enquired whether they knew
about the microphones, nobody seemed to object. ‘What does it mat-
ter?’ many asked me in return, then silencing me.
The importance of unisono when danced loud and clear revealed
another undertone, however, when one lady in her late fifties confided
to me as I walked her to the train station:
You know, it’s quite simple. We are married and have a family of our
own. We don’t have the same spirit as those youngsters. She respects
our love of flamenco, but calls us old-fashioned all the same.
The implication of her words came back to me even more, when

the only soloist whose sounding feet had been, to my astonishment,
replaced by palmas by the company members too, told me over a coffee:
Someone told her I will get married soon. He’s Japanese, a well-off
businessman, but not so square. In fact, he paid for all my solo
expenses. I quit my job, so I could spend more time on flamenco.
But I think she’s angry with me. She knows I’ve longed to join the
company already for so long, but I’m not worthy of it any longer.
This is her final answer.
Behind all the rationalized qualifications that go to securing the head

instructor’s reputation, then, there was a hidden, unspoken notion of
who were allowed to fully express themselves on stage. Being married
as such was not the problem, since many of the semi-pro’s were mar-
ried, but the fact remained that the Mrs’s and this solo girl have been,
and will be, depending on men for most of their lives. In everyday life
they were no longer the strong and independent women that had once
taken up flamenco dancing to express just that. And, thus, they were
denied entrance onto an international stage or even a display of cosmo-
politanism on a national/local one. The only place for expressing their
contestation for the very ‘traditional’ values they adhered to outside
flamenco was behind the closed doors of the studio. On stage, they were
allowed to perform within what is traditionally Japan’s dominant sensu-
ous frame, sight; not by what they perceived flamenco to be, modern
and cosmopolitan, sound. They consented.
Cosmopolitics backstage
Cosmopolitan openness corresponds subjectively to a capacity for

revising the order of the cosmos in accordance with how things
now are for the self: but the heightened sense of extraterritoriality
provoked by this revision takes on meaning against the ground of
former commitments.
(Wardle, 2010, p. 385)
These commitments, Huon Wardle continues (2010, p. 385; see also
Hannerz, 1990) imply a bypassing of ‘habitual rules governing experience’
through techniques and routines. In the context of Japanese women and
flamenco, these rules can be interpreted on two levels; that is, as social
rules on womanhood, and as bodily techniques that break with socially
desirable routines. It is this combination that shows how individuals
are able to surpass socio-cultural circumstances, but can simultaneously
be restricted in their endeavour. In the case of Japanese flamenco, these
restrictions evolve from the very ‘ground of former commitments’; that
is, the local culture into which a global phenomenon has been adapted.
While on one hand bodily techniques on the ‘microscopic level for the
transmission of individual dance steps’ (Hahn, 2007, p. 33) are revised
towards local meanings, on the organizational level the newly emerged
discipline has to be embedded in local structures in order to be accepted
and survive. Between those two levels ‘the negotiation of hierarchical des-
ignations of students and teachers within the school’ (Hahn, 2007, p. 33)
becomes inextricably linked with Wardle’s ‘heightened sense of extrater-

ritoriality’ (Wardle, 2010, p. 385). The restrictions imposed within this
hierarchization questions his ‘cosmopolitan openness’, and invokes Bruno
Latour’s ‘Whose cosmos, which cosmopolitics?’ (Latour, 2004).
The three categories of actors presented here – the head instructors
and studio owners, the semi-pro’s, the Mrs-class – seemed to rely on
different cosmoses. The head instructor and studio owner’s cosmos, or
cosmopolitanism, is in practice not so much international or global
as it is transnational; that is, between Japan and Spain.6 This transna-
tional cosmos of an assumed common (global) ground called flamenco,
however, shows a difference in style, through a differing method (how,
not necessarily what) arising from local needs and routines. For the
second cohort, to which the semi-pro’s of the studio’s dance company
and younger apprentices belonged, the studio is their cosmos, in a
similar vein to a traditional Japanese family or household. The local
and national stages serve as an extension of the studio’s, and thus their
‘mother’s’ reputation, but offer them a place where they can develop
the liberation and personal expression they seek, literally front stage.
For the first cohort, the Mrs-class, and others who seem to have given
up contesting the ‘old-fashioned’ Japanese values of womanhood, fla-
menco and the cosmopolitanism it represents is forced backstage. They
are silenced; from the outsider’s perspective, suppressed. From their own
stance, the dream they once pursued is still enacted but within the con-
fines of the studio, through the bodily experience of stomping loud and
vast at each and every class they take part in. No doubt their backstage
practice gives them a sense of empowerment with which they can face
their role in society.
Their consent, implied by the initial avoidance of my question and
seeming acquiescence of their head instructor’s decision, should not,
however, be taken as a mere surrender to a ‘feudal’, hierarchical struc-
ture within the studio. Jane Bachnik (1992, 1998; see also Rosenberger,
2001) asserts that self and society in Japan are two ‘faces’, equivalent to
Goffman’s distinction (1959), presented as omote (front stage) and ura
(backstage). She writes that
[…] Japanese have associated cultural aspects of self and social order,
so that aspects of self cluster toward ‘inside’ and aspects of social
order toward ‘outside’ poles. Consequently, personal expression
(spontaneity) can be inversely related to social constraints (disci-
pline) along the same inside/outside axis.
(Bachnik, 1992, p. 8)
These two faces between which Japanese individuals have to manoeuvre

is in fact, then, not restricted to the Mrs’s. As has been shown, the head
instructors also have to shift back and forth between the transnational
front stage and national/local backstage.
The internationalism or cosmopolitanism Kelsky sets against a national
or local ‘traditionalism’ (Kelsky, 2008, p. 87), I argue, are presented as too
blunt an opposition. This may to a certain degree be applicable to the
young women she interviewed, who were still in a position to loosen their
ties with the society within which they grew up, in their ‘extraterritorial’
quest, as the young and ambitious Japanese flamencos of the 1980s. On
return, however, they all had to balance the international, cosmopolitan
with the local, ‘traditional’ in accordance with their social positions and
the status achieved.
To conclude, social identities – here presented as ‘selves’ following
cosmopolitan dreams – need to be explored over an extended period
of time, as they ‘are signalled, formed, and negotiated’ historically and
geographically (Desmond, 1997, p. 29). They are put into practice at dif-
ferent levels, thereby creating different cosmoses depending on where
and from what (changed) social position. A practice orientation implies
that these dreams of contestation can be understood not only through
words and verbal accounts, but also have to include ‘bodily “texts”’
such as dance (Desmond, 1997, p. 29) in its various degrees of embodi-
ment and performance. In addition, by showing how these dreams have
been developing through time, social structures appear that transcend
the mere gender ‘differences between’ women contesting a patriarchal
society, but also show the differences within, that is, among women
(Moore, 1993). They have to be investigated ethnographically, if we are
to follow Susan A. Reed to:
challenge conventions, undermining entrenched dualisms […] criti-

quing evolutionary, colonial, and nationalist typologies […] expos-
ing the limits of conceptual categories […] and revealing dimensions
of dance experience […] that often have been neglected in scholarly
inquiry.
(Reed, 1998, p. 527)
The glimpse into the flamenco dance world in Japan offered here may
reveal already the challenging complexities that Reed’s call implies.
Its main intention, however, has been to render visible these women’s
strength, dreams, and flesh and blood dedication. In the end, they were
all Carmen’s to me.
Notes
1. Flamenco consists of some thirty or more ‘genres’ of songs and dances,
called palos. Their names refer to a place of origin (sevillanas from Sevilla), an
affective mode (alegrías, joy; soleá, loneliness), tools which inspired a certain
rhythm (martinete, smith’s hammer; garrotin, stick), or combinations (tangos
de Málaga, fandangos de Huelva).
2. Singers may not be performing dancers, but they often enough know how
to dance, for instance, on a bulería to live music, played by their Spanish
colleague on guitar. In fact, these sessions are the only ones in which Japanese
apprentices are invited to listen and dance to music.
3. A peña is a social gathering in which all present may partake in the act of mak-
ing music, singing, and dancing, and show their skills, regardless of name,
fame, age, or background.
4. Of course, such dreams seldom come true; certainly not on the initiative of
the Spanish. Only two head instructors I came to know in Tokyo have been
sending individual dancers to Spain for additional training and experience,
knowing they were able to support themselves financially but nevertheless
would come back to contribute to the studio’s esteem.
5. Some head instructors already manage a tree structure of subsidiaries, run by
former students (the next generation) of the mother studio, like a true Japan
Inc. These mother studios, however, like Yoko Komatsubaru’s, predate Saura’s
‘Carmen’ and were able to take advantage of the flamenco boom during the
1980s. For the studios that started thereafter, the competition makes such
an industrial-like expansion not impossible, but hard. Some head instruc-
tors, however, dream of heading such a ‘dance firm’ that will represent their
‘family’ tradition in much the same way as Hahn’s nihon buyo iemoto (2007)
with national fame. For a starter, they send their most dedicated semi-pro’s to
Cultural Centres to give flamenco dance classes at lower rates, which at least
extends the studio’s name and relational network.
6. In fact, I encountered a condescending disbelief, or curiosity at best, with
some head instructors for being a Dutch flamenco dancer and aficionado, as if
only Japanese would be able to understand and perform flamenco. On telling
them of flamenco’s global popularity, they professed being unaware of it.
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9
Embodiment of Cultural
Knowledge: An Ethnographic
Analysis of Okinawan Dance
Chi-fang Chao
In the last two decades, dance scholars involved in cross-cultural study

or ethnographic practice have witnessed an expansion in scope, in both
geological and disciplinary aspects. They also contribute to the estab-
lishment of the field-denominated dance anthropology or ethnochore-
ology, as examplified by the collective display of achievements in both
theoretic and practical dimensions (Buckland, 1999; Gore and Grau,
2005). The writings accentuate dance ethnography as a revelation of
cultural knowledge that is ‘grounded in the body and the body’s experi-
ence of moving’ (Sklar, 1991, p. 6).
Contemporary dance ethnography is also well situated in the contin-
uous ‘body craze’ (Davis, 1997, p. 4) that marked an enormous upsurge
of interdisciplinary interest in the body: the body has been seen as ‘the
vehicle par excellence for the modern individual to achieve a glamorous
life-style’, ‘a carrier for the “self”’, ‘the primary site for the operation
of modern forms of power’, and ‘the site par excellence for exploring
the construction of different subjectivities or the myriad workings of
disciplinary power’ (Davis, 1997, pp. 2–4). Davis also notes that as this
continuous pursuit of the meaning and practice of the body spread into
the era of post-modernism, scholars seem to have adopted a dual per-
spective that ‘alternately propose the body as secure ground for claims
of morality, knowledge or truth and as undeniable proof for the validity
of radical constructionism’ (Davis, 1997, p. 4, italics original).
Seen from another angle, this duality may be rooted in dynamic mod-
els of human substance not as material, but as structures of powers. As
anthropologist Brenda Farnell has argued:
Since powers are grounded in social life and therefore belong to the
person, the organism is thus transformed into the body viewed as
172
Okinawan Dance 173
a bio-cultural entity. Embodiment, the cultural fact of the body, is

therefore the result of the social construction and empowerment of
the person.
(1995, p. 17)
Indeed, it is the reconciliation, but not breach, between these two

propositions that has become a main concern for other scholars. For
instance, anthropologist Thomas J. Csordas has tried to bring together
Merleau-Ponty’s usage of perception as constituent of cultural objects,
and Bourdieu’s ideas of habitus and the socially informed body, to ‘elab-
orate a non-dualistic paradigm of embodiment for the study of culture’
(1990: 12). His analysis of embodiment
offers to cultural analysis the open-ended human process of taking

up and inhabiting the cultural world, in which our existence tran-
scends but remains grounded in de facto situation.
(Csordas, 1990, p. 10)
Concentrating on exploring the process in which the ‘transcend-

ing but still grounded’ existence inhabits the cultural world, in this
chapter I will investigate the embodiment of dancing in Taketomi,
an island in southern Okinawa in Japan. Its specific cultural world,
however, brings up other complicated dimensions of ethnographic
writing that can be characterized as a regional practice (Fardon, 1990),
and a specific intertextualized form of knowledge between movement
and language.
Ever since Clifford Geertz (1973) re-defined the task of ethnography in
the early 1970s, metaphorically expressed with his famous kinaesthetic
signifier of winking, writing ethnography or making other equivalent
texts of cultural knowledge (such as films) has shifted scholars’ atten-
tion to debates on the nature of the discipline and the character of text
making. The globalized era of post-modernism and post-colonialism has
caused human sciences to face ‘a crisis of representation’ (Marcus and
Fischer, 1986), and hence impacted the task of ethnography. As Clifford
has also suggested:
Ethnography is actively situated between powerful systems of mean-

ing. It poses its questions at the boundaries of civilizations, cultures,
classes, races, and genders. Ethnography decodes and recodes, tell-
ing the grounds of collective order and diversity, inclusion and
exclusion. It describes the processes of innovation and structuration,

and is itself a part of these processes.
(1986, p. 2, italics original)
While writing on dance ethnography has been accepted as an endeav-

our of producing a new text of cultural knowledge, dance ethnographers
usually focus on body experience and movement, rather than in ‘texts,
artifacts and abstractions’ (Sklar, 1991, p. 6). Still, many ethnographic
studies in dance are more in tune with traditional anthropologists’
interests in small-scale communities that do not have their own original
written representations. But it is clear that, after a globalized history of
colonialism, even dance traditions of originally non-literate societies
may find records written by the colonizing others. Encountering the
texts left previously, the revelation of cultural knowledge through
analysis of dance indeed involves more than grounded experiences
of the moving body. As dance historian and ethnographer Theresa J.
Buckland has also reflected, disciplines such as anthropology and
history both ‘owe their existence to textualizing practices’ which con-
cern people moving in the present or the past (Buckland, 2006, p. 12).
I shall argue, using the following example of Okinawan dance, that the
production of cultural knowledge through writing on dance is never
a straightforward journey from experience to text, since the present
manifestation of Okinawa dance as realized by the practitioners can-
not be easily separated from its past, mostly recorded with different
aims in different languages. Debates on the origin and continuity of
dance, which are not limited to academics, can be referred to historical
resources as well as contemporary exegeses, which are intertextualized
through words and movements that contribute to the formulation of
cultural knowledge.
Dancing at the cultural boundary: classic Okinawan dance

in the Chinese historical sources
In Okinawa, boundary is never a static issue. Geographically, Okinawa

is part of the Ryukyuan archipelagos that are located between China,
Japan, and Taiwan on the western rim of the Pacific Ocean. They are
further grouped into four sub-regions: Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and
Ya’eyama from north to south. Except for the Amami Islands, which
were annexed by Japan in 1609 and later became a part of Kagoshima
prefecture of Kyushyu, the other three island groups have formed the
Okinawan Dance 175
current Okinawa prefecture since 1879 when the Meiji government

fully dominated Okinawa.
Historically, Okinawa had been through several critical stages that not
only defined the political reigns, but also the forms of its performing
arts including music and dance. The current Okinawa prefecture was
transformed from an autonomous Ryukyu Kingdom dated 1429–1879.
Before the Kingdom was established, however, especially on the main
Island of Okinawa, society was composed of chiefdom-like communities
that featured parallel sovereignty – the male political leader (aji) and
the female religious priestess (nuru or noro). In addition to archaeologi-
cal evidence, pre-Kingdom life can be better known through a precious
anthology of ancient songs called Omoro Sōshi, which contains clear
traces of religious dance and will be discussed later.
Ever since the first possible Chinese document referring to Okinawa was
written at the beginning of the seventh century, the description of dance
movement was recorded. More specific and important resources were
left by the Chinese officials who went to the Kingdom of Liu-Chiu (the
Chinese pronunciation of the same characters as Ryukyu in Japanese) to
give recognition to the crowned emperors. This formal diplomatic occa-
sion that occurred because of the political relationship of subordination
built between the Chinese dynasties and the Kingdom in Okinawa main
island. Whenever the old king passed away and the new one inherited
the crown, the emperor in China would send a group of ambassadors,
which numbered about 400 people to undertake the formal diplomatic
recognition. The ships were named Ukwanshin (The Honorific Crowning
Ship). The Chinese team usually took advantage of the monsoon in the
South Sea to sail southward in May or June and left Okinawa in October.
The classic performing arts were developed in Okinawa to entertain the
Chinese ambassadors and officials of such a big group from the ‘Heaven
Dynasty’ (the respectful form to address for the Chinese imperial dynas-
ties). It included a classical style of dance specifically performed for dip-
lomatic occasions which has been called Ukwanshin Udui (The Dance for
the [ambassadors who arrive in the] Honorific Crowning Ship).
A unique genre of the classical performing arts is Kumi Udui (The Suite
Dance), which was invented by the talented royal artist Tamagusuku
Chōgun (1684–1734). Since 1709 he had been a member of the tribute-
paying team to the Tokugawa Samurai of Japan because of his outstand-
ing skill in performing and creating. While he was in Edo (the old name
for Tokyo), he absorbed influences from Japanese Noh and Kabuki. After
returning to Okinawa, he started to create unique works embracing
narratives, samisen1 playing, song lyrics, and dance movements into the
new form of Kumi Udui. The new invention was noticed by one of the
most famous Chinese ambassadors on Okinawa, Hsu Pao-Kuang (1721).
As a diligent ambassador, Hsu took advantage of his eight-month-long
stay to visit different places in Okinawa. Without restricting himself to
the palace and maintaining a sense of cultural superiority, he described
the location, environment, customs, and normal peoples’ way of living
in detail that can feature as an early realist ethnography. He was also the
only Chinese official who ever documented the newly invented form of
the classic dance suite.
Among all the Chinese historical documents, Hsu’s detailed descrip-
tion, with such a realistic approach, has stood out and been treated as a
reliable first-hand resource by both the European explorers (Yamaguchi,
2007, pp. 50–1, 64) and contemporary Okinawa dance historians
(Yano, 1988). His account was even translated by the French Catholic
mission in Beijing and sent back to the headquarters in Paris in 1758.
It then became a reference for the famous British explorer Basil Hall,
whose visit to Loo Choo2 resulted in one of the most important English
accounts of expeditions to Okinawa. Hsu’s account also provides a sig-
nificant resource for constructing Japanese scholars’ knowledge. After
more than two centuries, Yano and other historians of Okinawan dance
emphasize the continuity of Okinawan classical dance as if this genre
of practice has gone on without change, despite the turmoil happen-
ing in society. The intertextuality that occurred among these records in
different languages reveals a positivist, but romantic view that empha-
sized the empirical evidence. Words from the past about the dance and
movements seen in the present are mutually supportive in witnessing
the authenticity and continuity of a dance tradition, and hence become
indispensable components in its cultural reproduction.
Searching for the indigenous Okinawan knowledge

of dance: Omoro Sōshi and Kumi Udui
Carrying clear Japanese influences, however, Kumi Udui (The Dance Suit)
was distinctively Okinawan, especially viewed from its language. The
language used in Kumi Udui was the archaic vernacular, preserved in old
songs and especially in the most important song collection of Omoro
Sōshi. This was a voluminous anthology of archaic Okinawan songs,
which was compiled by the Kingdom between 1531 and 1623. One of
the great values of Omoro Sōshi is that it recorded many precious ritual-
istic practices and songs in the villages. Hence the collection itself traces
Okinawan Dance 177
back to the village life of a native Okinawan epoch of Omoro. The epoch,
however, ended shortly after Satsuma’s invasion of the Kingdom in
1609. From an emic point of view, the collection was the most precious
archive of Okinawan history and culture which included the myths of
origin, belief and ritual practices, social organization, songs and dances,
all in the archaic vernacular.
Therefore, when Tamagusuku created Kumi Udui, his deliberate usage
of archaic vernacular has been seen as a reversion to the trend of cul-
tural assimilation brought into Okinawa after Satsuma’s invasion (Yano,
1988) from southern Kyushyu in Japan. Kumu Udui, which carried the
acceptable form in the eyes of Japanese and even Chinese domina-
tors, but conveyed the meaning in indigenous Okinawan voice, can
be viewed as a euphemism for the ingenuous Okinawan identity while
struggling between the neighbouring super powers. Invention and
development of the classic genre of Kumi Udui hence served as the token
for cultural compatibility.
This political tone through Kumi Udui, or the classic performing
arts as a whole, has resonated in contemporary Okinawan society. For
instance, in the 1993 NHK (Nihon Hōsō Kyoku, the Japan Broadcasting
Corporation) drama series, Ryukyu no Kaze (The Wind of Ryukyu), which
had taken the upheaval period around Satsuma’s invasion as the theme,
the form and performance of classic Ryukyuan dance was given a
highly symbolic interpretation. It featured the main character of the
male royal artist Keizan (whose character was created after Tamagusuku
Chōgun). In one of his arguments with his brother Keitai, a politician
who dreamed of building the Ryukyuan Kingdom as a strong country
with the help of Yamatu,3 they argued for the future of the country and
the identity of the dance:
Keizan: If we Ryukyuans work [too hard], it will only empower the

Satsuma… In the past our ancestors only worked whenever it was
necessary. At night everyone played and danced together, drinking
awamori, playing sanshin and singing. People danced together and
that was fine.
Keitai: If that’s the way, the country will never be prosperous. The poor
country must become extinct.
Keizan: Then let it be that way and be extinct.
Keitai: It cannot be! Human beings cannot exist alone, neither can
nations. We cannot survive if we do not co-operate with each other.
Just like Keizan’s newly invented dance. Was it not created because
you watched the dances of Yamatu?
Keizan: That was not true! The dance […] was different! The dance was
created after I left Yamatu and turned back to Okinawa!
(Hara, 2000, p. 178)
Although created as a drama, the lines clearly indicate the continuous

debates on the autonomous status of Okinawan politics and culture,
and its relationship to Japan. This long-standing concern is not only
a provocative subject in the Okinawan islands, but also spreads out
to the overseas diasporic communities, such as the recently formed
Honolulu-based group called Ukwanshin Kabudan (The Dance and
Song Company of Ukwanshin). After a whole century of migration
and settlement in Hawaii, the group of third- and fourth-generation
of Okinawan origin reimpose the name on their troupe of performing
arts to reconnect to their past of an autonomous Kingdom, which was
weak in political power but substantial in cultural traits, especially seen
in songs and dances. The group has created two dramas, Loochoo nu
Kwa (Children of Loochoo, 2008) and Danju Kariyushi (Songs of Kariyushi,
2010), which merged the contemporary narratives contextualized in
the history of immigration and searching for cultural roots, along with
vivid Okinawan music, songs, and dances that the immigrant commu-
nity still persistently practice.
Okinawan folk dance as the cultural archetype:

the Japanese accounts
While Kumi Udui, the representative genre, was rooted in the elite
culture of the upper ranks in the Kingdom period, the folk dance style
flourished after the Japanese dominance when the aristocratic class
dispersed into the general public and could not help but transmit their
skills to make a living. As a result, the first public theatre was established
in 1892, and a new genre of zō odori (miscellaneous dances) was formed
to adapt to the public’s taste: faster tempo and various themes depict-
ing peoples’ life styles. The loosening of social hierarchy accelerated the
spread of newly formed folk styles of music and dance to some remote
areas such as Sakishima (the Fore Islands), which includes the Miyako
and Ya’eyama regions.
Searching for the Japanese cultural archetype, the earliest Japanese
folklorists enthusiastically explored this newly gained remote area of
Sakishima and promoted the first theatrical performance of Ya’eyama
dance and music in Tokyo. The occasion was ‘the Gala of Native
Dances and Folk Songs’, which first occurred in 1925. The performances
Okinawan Dance 179
continued until 1936, and became the ground on which the revitalization
of folk art and its study was promoted (Kumada, 2011, p. 316). Parallel to
this was a journal called Minzoku Gējitsu (Ethnic Art), founded by the father
of Japanese Folklore Study, Yanagita Kunnio. Both provided the chance for
the Okinawan folk songs and dances to be exposed to Japanese intellectu-
als and the public. With regard to the intention to invite the people from
Sakishima, Yanagita mentioned: ‘The life of Sakishima almost cannot find
its equivalence around the world. I would like to introduce its beauty to
the Central [Japan]’ (quoted in Kumada, 2011, p. 318).
The famous Japanese pioneering ethnomusicologist Tanabe Hisa’o
wrote about Ya’eyama dance, ‘The dance […] was not like watching
the things in Okinawa which were disciplined. It was joyful – a dance
from the inner heart. That was the first time I could sense what the
dance of a natural ethnic group looks like’ (quoted in Yano, 1988,
p. 179). After watching the performance of Ya’eyama music and dance
in 1928, the stage director in Tokyo, Kodera Yōkichi, commented on the
performance:
Upon seeing the dance, an almost unexpected sense of happiness

happened to me. What can we say of this, which has almost disap-
peared in the inner Japan that revealed the various images of ancient
Japanese dances?
(quoted in Kumada, 2011, p. 329; Yano, 1988, pp. 194–5)
Japanese ethnomusicologist Kumada Susumu has criticized the Japanese

folklorists’ ideal image of ancient Japanese dance that eventually ‘buried
the historic Other’ (Kumada, 2011, p. 327). Similarly, folklore scholars
of Okinawan performing arts also diminished the cultural Other that
Okinawa stood for, by allocating the classification of songs, dances, and
drama performances to a model based on Japanese chronology, but not
that of Okinawans themselves (Honda, 1988; Kumada, 2011, p. 20). As
far as the Ya’eyama region is concerned, the sensitivity and nuances
of the regional variations in terms of dances and songs has close ties
to self-identity, as a contrast to Kingdom domination on the Okinawa
mainland, which had imposed many severe state policies on this area
for a long time. The pioneer scholar and promoter of Ya’eyama folklore,
Kishyaba Eijun, has depicted the nuances of folk culture:
What cannot be forgotten is the broad marginal zone of folk art to

be explored and introduced to the world. Its purity and elegance car-
ries a high value of art. What can be boasted of is not transmitted
completely by artists, but by non-professional people. In the strong

fragrance of the soil and the thick line of the general people, there
is the richness of pure local colour in the ancient public art that can
be introduced.
(quoted in Kumada, 2011, p. 322)
Not only Kishyaba, but cultural elites in Ya’eyama nowadays still ques-
tion the essence of Ya’eyama presentational dance except for the imita-
tion of the Ryukyuan style. Their common solution is to turn to the root
of dances and songs in ritual, which brings in another archetypal view
of dance from southern Okinawa.
Ya’eyama dance has been different from the Okinawan mainland

in that the latter was for the human audience and the former was
for the gods. The movements are different accordingly. In classic
Ryukyuan dance, the upper body bent a little to keep it seemingly
humble. The torso and the face of the dancers were usually in differ-
ent directions to please as many people as possible. In Ya’eyama it
was simpler. The dance was an offering to the gods. The body did not
bend and the dancers just faced the front and walked straight ahead.
The purposes were different from the very beginning.
(Ishigaki, 2011, interview)
The comment above reinforces the pre-Kingdom archaism. No matter the

ideal of Ya’eyama as the left-unchanged ancient Japan, or the Ya’eyama
people’s self-identification with a pre-Kingdom appeal for spiritual sim-
plicity, it is clear that the dance and its imagery have created a space
for the Other and the Self to search for cultural archetypes, under the
rubric of academic nostalgia and the knowledge framework of Japanese
nationalistic folklore study. Under this trend of identifying Self and
Other through the performance of dance, some sub-regional communi-
ties have been keen to preserve its uniqueness, such as the example of
Taketomi.
From ritual to stage: the Taketomian dances
Whether they are Chinese historic documents or express the Japanese

folklorist ideal, the descriptions are writings imposed upon Okinawans
from culturally foreign groups. As discussed above, they had been
absorbed into the discursive practices that aroused debates, self-
articulation, and reconstruction of the form and essence of the Okinawa
Okinawan Dance 181
dance as a whole or the regional styles of Ya’eyama specifically. As

embodied practice, on the other hand, dancing involves the gradual
process of comprehension that can only be achieved through the multi-
sensory embodiment in which understanding of tradition and history
can be accumulated to advance cultural knowledge. This is the human-
istic process of cultural being (Chao, 2009). In the following sections,
I shall analyse the process with my own ethnographic study (Chao,
2009) on the Taketomi Isle in Ya’eyama, southern Okinawa, especially
the dances in its biggest annual ritual, Tanadui.
Taketomi is a small island of less than six square kilometres. It is the
nearest island from the capital island of Ishigaki in Ya’eyama. The lim-
ited land and the close proximity both contributed to the continuous
outflow of migration. With a population of less than 350, however, the
island has boasted of its preservation of traditional buildings and the
rich repertoires including songs, dances, and dramas, which are per-
formed collectively and publicly in the climax of the ritual of Tanadui,
‘getting the seed’. In the past, the farmers had to immerse the seeds in
water for a certain period of time (usually 49 days) before planting. They
would choose an auspicious day to take the seeds out of the water and
plant them in the soil. The date had become ritualized and featured
worship for a good harvest.
Surviving through epochs of all the different regimes, Taketomians
believe that the ritual of Tanadui has remained unchanged for over
600 years, when six clan ancestors moved in from different islands in
northern Okinawa. The ritual date and form was negotiated and settled
after competition among these earliest leaders. Later, the six groups
of clansmen merged and redivided themselves into two main villages,
Naji and Hazama, and the latter further divided into Ainota and Innota.
This triple structure is essential in the process of the whole ritual. In
the offertory performance in the ritual, three villages present their own
representational dances and dramas.
Tanadui is held according to the lunar calendar that Okinawans
learned from the Chinese. After welcoming the visiting god of Nilan,
who is believed to bring the seeds to Taketomi in the eighth day of
the eighth month, the ritual formally starts after seven or more weeks,
based on the Chinese zodiac system of calculating auspicious dates. The
ritual of Tanadui itself lasts nine days and is structured in the follow-
ing process: tying wishes with gods (turukki), gathering a specific kind
of fish (suru) from the ocean, planting the picked seeds of millet (awa)
and wishing for growth, honouring female relatives, restraining oneself
from noise and strong flavours in drink and food. Nowadays, the most
important event has become that of offertory performing arts on the

seventh and eighth days, since more villagers work in the tourism busi-
ness than in the fields.
In the very early morning of the seventh day, the male leaders and
elders gather in front of a special temple, which accommodates another
visiting God, Miruku. Miruku is a masked deity that is also seen in China
and has supposedly been imported to Ya’eyama from its subordinated
state of Vietnam. In Ya’eyama, Miruku gained its popularity because of its
connection with fertility (visualized through the children around it) and
harvest. A song called Mirukubushi, which means ‘the Verse of Miruku’
has been composed to praise the deity’s character and his promise of
harvest. Although Miruku is seen elsewhere in Ya’eyama and Okinawa,
in Taketomi it has been considered a powerful deity. Accessibility to its
mask, robes, and rituals is limited to specific families that used to govern
the island. It is highly imbricated in the micro-politics and hence makes
the relevant events taboo. The necessary presence of Miruku in Tanadui,
however, is emotionally provocative through the singing and the perfor-
mance on stage. Whenever it is presented on stage and the song sung, the
local villagers, especially the elders, also sing out the verse.
Except for events related with Miruku, the other parts of Tanadui are
processed under the female priestesses’ leadership. Female superior-
ity in religion, along with the animistic and ancestral belief in utaki
(the sacred groves) forms the core of Okinawan indigenous religion.
Priestesses, kantsukasa, which literally means ‘the officer used by dei-
ties’, are the guardians of communities, just as sisters or female relatives
are the guardians of individual males. Theoretically, in Taketomi there
are six priestesses chosen from the six mutuya (the original houses of
[clans]). According to local specialists, priestesses in Taketomi were the
earliest devotional dancers (U’eseto, 1976), whose contemporary prac-
tices provide a Taketomian proof of the archaic records of Omoro Sōshi.
Nowadays, once a priestess is designated and takes up her office, she
will no longer dance in the ritual but concentrates on serving the dei-
ties. Their role, however, has also been transformed from a merely reli-
gious specialist to a special kind of cultural performer: they nowadays
wear the hairpin that used to be only worn by the performers. During
the Tanadui, when the female villagers from Innota perform the dance
ritual of subudui, which mimics priestesses’ ritualistic movements, they
became performers (in terms of ritual) and viewers (in terms of dance)
at the same time. The movement as the ritualistic practices of priest-
esses and the movement as performed in the dance by villagers become
the best evidence of intertextualization. The kinaesthetic and spiritual
Okinawan Dance 183
efficacy of dance movements and ritual practices are mutually referable

to its ‘authenticity’. It is also an extreme example of extracting the ritu-
alistic movement to prove the cultural archetype for dance.
Female empowerment in movement
Until the last decade of the twentieth century when I first visited
Ya’eyama, females mainly monopolized the staging of presentational
dance all over Okinawa, a fact that only occurred after the end of the
Second World War and the US mandate. The US mandate had certainly
brought the ideological change of Western individualism and impacted
the status of women and their visibility on stage. Female exclusion from
the performing arts, and even the broader public space, had certainly
been noticed in the previous Chinese or early European explorers’
accounts (Guillemard, 1886; Hall, 1818). Even in Japanese folklorists’
writing, female performers were not highlighted and the writings on
dance were all by males. In the original society of female religious
superiority, the decline in female status happened first in the sixteenth
century. Due to the famous King of Shō Shin’s imported Confucianism,
female agency, which had been more prevailing and powerful in the pre-
Kingdom Okinawan society, was reduced and restrained. Even the task
of priestesses in the palace of dancing and singing in front of the deities
was handed over to male ritual officials. The decline in female status
and deprivation of their access to the classic performing arts was the
result of the switch of control and transmission of knowledge from
the religious females to the political males (Bell, 1984, pp. 124–5; Kerr,
1958, p. 42).
Dance masters in Taketomi recalled that in the regime of the
Ryukyuan Kingdom, decent females were not allowed to dance in pub-
lic. Sometimes they hid themselves in the forest and danced, then went
home without revealing a word. Even till half a century ago, only very
few good-looking and talented females could be chosen to learn from
the male masters, by giving a large amount of delicate food as tuition
payment. It was also in this process of assimilation into the elite-based
court performing arts that the mixed repertoire of devotional dances
and dramas had been formed in the ritual of Tanadui, which included a
local folk genre and classic style.
After the end of the Second World War, females in Taketomi eventually
started to participate in the performance in Tanadui, because as an inform-
ant explained, the males could not handle all the programmes in time.
How did they claim back the control and transmission of certain forms
of knowledge through their embodiment of dance that had been denied

them for a long time? In the process of my own ethnographic research
as a female, I constantly stayed closer with females due to the still clear
gender segregation in the society. They included the elders, independent
mature women who were unmarried or divorced and without dependents
around them, young mothers, and housewives who mostly ran guest-
houses, restaurants, gift-shops, or other tourism-related business at the
same time. No matter whether they were born on the island or married in
from elsewhere, learning and participating in dance for Tanadui has been
a necessary mission for the villagers. This became especially critical after
the ritual was designated as a National Intangible Cultural Asset by the
Japanese government in 1975. Maintaining its reputation on a national
level further enhanced the preservation of tradition. As a result, women’s
status has been promoted in Taketomi, in addition to their contribution
to the family economy through tourism-related business.
Embodiment of cultural knowledge
In Okinawa, embodying the dance is itself an example of evolutionary

progress in terms of style. There are four categories of presentational
dance: wakashu odori-dance for the young, nise odori-dance for two
men, onna odori-dance for women, and rojin odori-dance for elders. The
character-based genres of Okinawan presentational dance prepare the
dancers for a gradual refinement in terms of sense of musicality and
control of the body. For instance, dancers of wakashu odori learn how to
maintain the basic posture while manipulating the props (mostly fans)
steadily. The movement is undertaken in regular beats. For the nise odori,
however, the speed of music is usually faster with the drum beat giving
additional punctuation. The variation of props also entails more sophisti-
cated skills in hand movements. Onna odori could be seen as the climax in
terms of performance technique because it is usually accompanied with
music of a slower tempo, which demands better body control in order
to show the elegance and beauty of the idealized female images. Rojin
odori, the least performed among the four categories, manifests itself with
special make-up such as a long white beard, and respectful posture.
In most of the dance practices for Tanadui, which are usually started
one month ahead of the ritual, gatherings of female villagers condense
their collective experience into a form of symbolic community which
undertakes the transmission of cultural knowledge, involving language,
music, movement, costumes, props, and so on. Senior members who
used to dance the same character pass their experience on to juniors.
Okinawan Dance 185
Mothers give tips to the daughters who take over the same dance years
later. As for the young married-in mothers from other regions, who did
not know Taketomian culture enough and felt trapped by their new-
born babies, they would watch on the sidelines and sometimes go to
private studios to prepare themselves (Chao, 2001).
The symbolic community that vitalizes the cultural knowledge of
dancing, and is built upon close ties in social relationships, has under-
gone a qualitative change due to the fact that more new wives have
come not only from other parts of Okinawa, but also Japan and knew
nothing before they were exposed to the local repertoire. Junko and
Na’omi married to two brothers from the Mishito family at about the
same time in the spring of 1999. Junko was from Osaka and Na’omi
from Hokaido. They both met their husbands on their trips to Taketomi,
which had become popular for a while. Several couples around that
period got married in Taketomi and the marriages were named as
‘affinity through tourism’. Both Junko and Na’omi were never exposed
to Okinawan music and dance before they visited Taketomi. But they
were both attracted to it and became diligent learners, even when they
had just given birth to their babies. On Sundays, with the approval of
their mother-in-law who used to be a master, they took the babies with
them to the studio in Ishigaki and learned the beginner’s piece. Their
babies were either laid down or held by the teacher, who not only gave
comments to the movements but sometimes to the appearance of the
babies, a general topic exchanged among relatives of the family. After
Junko and Na’omi gave birth to their third and fourth child respec-
tively, they dedicated themselves more often to the stage performance
in the ritual. Nowadays, their performances are considered representa-
tive of the Mishito family. Even though they still sometimes perform
the same beginner’s piece, their refinement of movement and the uni-
fication with the live music shows a great advancement compared with
their performances a decade ago.
Let’s take the beginning piece of Akamma (the red horse), as an
example. The beginners have to be accustomed to the posture of
koshioroshi, the Japanese term that indicates lowering the waist. This is
the most basic and essential posture of Ya’eyama, and even the whole
Okinawan, classical dance. This posture is stylistic but physically chal-
lenging. The Taketomian dance masters usually relate it to the conven-
tional movement of farmers who lower their centre of gravity in order
to move faster. The theory of social originality, nevertheless, becomes
a difficult and ‘unnatural’ task for most women, who are mostly no
longer farmers. Immigrating wives such as Junko and Na’omi have
to pay more attention to the different gravity used in the dances.

Their second task is to memorize the lyrics of songs, which not only
characterize the feeling of dance but also become an index for move-
ment sequences. The instructors, who include their gurus or female
relatives, always remind them that the movements are in accordance
with the words. Hence, in the long-term embodying process of danc-
ing, they learn through both somatic and semiotic approaches of
understanding (Sklar, 2006).
The example of Junko and Na’omi is not unusual. The small popula-
tion and the continuous outflow of migration both contribute to the
bridal immigration. In most cases, they go through a process of cultural
learning, in which dancing in Tanadui provides the forum for a female
to inhabit the culture, while empowering herself through embodiment.
Although dance has become a shared experience among the villagers,
the authority and transmission of dance as a form of cultural knowl-
edge is still not equally distributed. At present, the dance masters in
the three villages are island-born, which implies, by now, the criteria
for authority of knowledge. One critical reason for this is knowledge
of the native dialect. As embodied practice, Okinawan dance is never
solely an abstract form with movement. The first step that the dancers
have to embody is with the music, which is set within traditional tunes
and words. When Junko and Na’omi went to practise in the studio, the
dance teacher always emphasized a particular saying to them while they
practised dance as beginners: the first time, listen to the music. The
dialect used in the songs is also strange to most non-native inhabitants,
or even the new generation who learns standardized Japanese at school,
rather than shimakutuba (the island tongue).
The masters’ authority is composed of: a full mastery of different sen-
sory imageries, and articulation of the history of the island; unshakable
expertise concerning the songs, costumes, and make-up; enlivening
the memory of past performances; narrating the themes underlying the
dances; and certainly of impeccable authority in the accuracy of move-
ment. Beyond all of these, furthermore, is the capability to connect the
kinaesthetic perception of movement to a broader world of cultural
practices:
The movement of kneading [koneri] itself represents work. No matter

what we do, making rice balls or mixing the flour, all labour is related
to the gesture of kneading. Squeezing the towel is also one of the
kinds. Therefore all manual labours are related to kneading.
(U’eseto, 2009, interview)
Okinawan Dance 187
As quoted above, one of the dance masters explained to me the essence

of the movement of koneri te, an elementary hand motif in all Okinawan
dance. What is striking in the description is that although koneri te has
been recorded as footnotes by the male performers to the priestesses’ rit-
ualistic songs in the ancient resource of Omoro Sōshi and has been treated
as the archetype of Okinawan dance (Yano, 1988), contemporary female
dance masters give it a new reference that ordinary women are able to
realize in their everyday life. In this way, dance empowers female villagers,
who can interpret the essence of dance better with their specialized
skills gained through labours that they constantly engage with in their
everyday female social lives, without equipping themselves with multi-
layered historic resources. From the practical movement of kneading,
the whole dance can be gradually built up to maintain the recognizable
form but be displayed in the unique spirit that differentiates the dancers
from their predecessors. While women in Taketomi are still domesticated
by the social convention of engendered labour division, they embody
the practical knowledge of movement, which they have access to and
present in their personal and unique style on both the contemporary
stage of the home or in ritual.
Conclusion
This chapter began with an inquiry into the contemporary practice of

dance ethnography through exploration of the idea of embodiment.
The example of analysing Okinawan dance as the embodiment of cul-
tural knowledge reveals the social process that brings multi-sensory per-
ception, social interaction, and the meaning of movement together and
weaves them into the cultural world where the dancer’s existence ‘tran-
scends but remains grounded’. As shown above, writings on Okinawan
dance have proved themselves to be a resourceful field and set the back-
ground as a form of authorized knowledge in the historical exegesis and
cultural reproduction. The historic accounts written in Chinese focused
on the presentation of classic Okinawan dance as a formal interaction of
differentiated political entities, and recorded the strong elite nature and
character of the refinement of dance through exclusive social classifica-
tion. The earliest Japanese folklorists, on the other hand, concentrated
on searching for the ancient roots of a broader Japaneseness that could
only exist in remote Okinawa. Their romantic intellectual interests
emphasize searching for the essence of spirituality and acknowledged
regional styles, such as the dance of Ya’eyama, and their simplicity. Both
Chinese and Japanese writings also demonstrate the close relationship
between written texts and knowledge, even with regard to the represen-
tation of dance. They become a powerful resource when issues such as
the choice between continuity or archetypes from the past that cannot
be danced at present come into play.
Taking Taketomi Island as the example, I then explored how females,
who used to be excluded from the production and practice of dance
knowledge, are nowadays not only able to perform on stage, but are able
to claim back their agency through the embodiment of engendered daily
movement, and a whole series of progressive repertories of dance. Dance
masters have used a habitus-based approach, which does not limit the
body to the fixed image of the past, but offers an open-ended imagery
of the present world that the body lives in. By way of the traditional
ritual of Tanadui, performed year after year, the dancers, born inside or
outside the static locus of the island, advance their cultural knowledge
in the process of dancing, which provides the shared base for the over-
all social interaction and cultural practices found in the aesthetically
refined body.
Notes
1. Samisen, or sanshin, is the three-string lute, which was imported to Okinawa by
a group of earliest immigrants from southern China no later than the sixteenth
century. From Okinawa, it was then transmitted to Japan. The Okinawan
samisen is distinct through its use of snakeskin to cover the main body. Samisen
has been so deeply merged into the musical life of the Okinawan people that
one of my informants once described it as a ‘voice from the heart’.
2. The first European ship arrived in Okinawa around 1549. Due to the Japanese
policy of isolation, Europeans seldom reached this part of the world in the
seventeenth century. The contacts increased from late eighteenth to early
nineteenth century. By the early twentieth century, more than 62 ways of
spelling Okinawa had appeared in European accounts (Leavenworth, 1905).
3. Yamatu is the old, customary name for Japan.
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Index
actors, 90–1, 118, 122, 124, 125, Bharatanatyam, 18, 30

128–9, 167 Bisaya, 44–5, 48, 50, 52, 54
advertising, 122, 129 blackness, 51
Aires Sollerics, 96, 99, 100, 105 body, 8, 16, 25–6, 30, 32, 39, 44–5,
Al Mayurka, 103–6, 108 49, 51, 63, 71, 100, 135, 137–8,
anthropology, 2–4, 7, 43, 91, 172, 174 172–4, 180, 184, 188
anthropologist, 1, 3, 7, 8, 14, 21, Bolero/s, 97, 99, 101, 105–6
66, 72, 77, 89, 91, 137, 147, Bollywood, 4, 14
172–4 Bollywood film/s, 18, 29–33
apprentice/s, 157–8, 162–4, 167 British Hindu Gujarati practice, 4, 14
arati, 22, 27 Buckland, Theresa, J., 1, 2, 79, 85, 91,
archaic-vernacular, 7, 176–7 137, 172, 174
artistic standards, 127 Bula/s, 2, 5, 77, 81–6, 88, 91–2
Asociaciones de Vecinos bulerias, 155
(Neighbourhood Associations), 99 Bullanguera, 102, 105
Ati-atihan festival, 4, 37–40, 46–8 Bullwang, 43–4, 46–8, 52, 54–5
Atis, 2, 4, 37–55
audiences, 31–2, 104, 106, 126 cante/s, 159
authentic, 4, 40–1, 54, 99, 104–5, 122 caracoles, 155
authenticity, 4, 30, 41, 43, 89, 105, carnival, 37, 77–81, 84, 88, 90
176, 183 castanyoles, 95, 105–6
caste, 4–5, 17, 20, 22–3, 29, 64–6
babuletan, 117 Castellano, 107
backstage/frontstage, 157 Catalan language, 108
Baile popular, 97 Catalan nationalists, 106–7
Balearic Islands, 96, 107 Catalan-Mallorqui, 98, 107
Bali, 2, 116–22 Catholic Mass, 41
Balik Ati, 38–9 Ceebujën, 63
Balinese choreographers, 127 chain dance, 79–81
Balinese culture, 122, 125 Chinese Dynasties, 175
Ball de bot, 97–9, 104, 110 Chinese historic/al documents,
Ballada, 2, 5, 95–106, 108–11 176, 180
bands, 39, 62, 96, 103–5, 109, choreographer/s, 3, 46, 126–8
111, 122 choreography, 25–6, 30, 54, 99, 110,
banjar, 118–19 126–7, 161–2
Barter of Panay, 42, 45 choreo-musical, 70
Barzilai-Nahon, 6 circle formations, 13, 25, 102
beautiful masks, 79–81, 84, 90 classic performing arts, 175
Belgrade, 136, 145 classic Ryukyuan dance, 177, 180
Belgrave Baheno Peepul Centre, 17 classical dance, 14, 30–1, 155,
belief/s, 14, 20, 31–2, 83, 91, 107, 176, 185
177, 182 clinical practice, 138
bhangra, 29–30 cognitive, 137
191
192 Index
collages, 145–7 deities, 27, 183

collective, 97–8, 102, 110–12, 118 desa, 118–19
Collective Centres (refugee camps), 136 devotional, 22, 24, 182–3
collective unconscious, 140 diaspora, 14, 21, 23, 30, 32, 54
colonialism, 37, 64, 174 dodhiu, 26
commodity, 122, 128 Dolac, 81
communitas, 109–10 drummers, 5, 58, 60–5, 69–70
communities, 2, 4, 6, 16–18, 20,
40, 88, 97, 139, 148–50, 174–5, East African, 17–19
178, 182 embodied knowledge, 111, 147
community, 5, 6, 13, 16–23, 29, 43, embodied participation, 16, 112
45, 77–8, 80, 82, 83–4, 87–91, embodied practice, 7, 26, 96, 161,
97–9, 107–8, 110–13, 116, 118, 181, 186
147–9, 184–5 embodiment, 1, 2, 6–7, 43, 55, 58,
competition, 23, 29–30, 38–40, 42–3, 110–11, 135, 137–40, 143–4, 150,
46–7, 50–3, 70–1, 157 173, 181, 184, 186–8
Confucianism, 183 embodying, 6, 7, 26, 67, 95, 98,
conscious and unconscious, 140 103, 107, 143, 184, 186–8
contestation, 160, 166, 168 emic interpretation, 5, 77, 83, 177
cosmopolitan identity, 154 empirical evidence, 176
cosmopolitan-transnational Enseñat Estrany, Bartome, 98
lifestyle, 157 English Morris dance, 25
cosmopolitanism, 157, 167–8 Escola de Música i Danses de Mallorca,
costumes, 13, 24, 38, 51–2, 117, 162 96, 98–101, 104, 107, 110
craft forms, 143 ethnochoreological texts, 79
Croatia, 2, 80 ethnochoreologists, 78, 85, 87
Croatian, 78, 88 ethnochoreology, 2, 78
cultural archetype, 178, 183 ethnographer, 1, 5, 8, 26, 41, 84, 87,
cultural heritage, 29, 55, 98–9 90, 112, 136–7, 147, 174
cultural identity, 6, 21, 31, 96, 112 ethnographic fieldwork, 1, 3–4, 7, 27,
cultural knowledge, 59, 72, 173–4, 59, 96
184, 187–8 Ethnographic Museum, 145–6
cultural practices, 1, 4, 16, 30, 97 ethnographic practice/s, 3
cultural tourism, 121 ethnographic research, 1, 14, 184
ethnographic text, 89
dance anthropology, 172 ethnographies, 77
dance ethnographers, 174 ethnography, 1, 4, 7, 43, 112, 137,
dance ethnography, 1–3, 5, 8, 59, 161, 173, 176, 187
96, 136, 172, 174, 187 ethno-linguistic, 5, 42, 96–7, 112
dance ethnologists, 112 ethnologist, 59, 77, 78–9, 83, 85, 87,
dance event/s, 5, 58–61, 65–7, 72–3, 89, 112
78, 87–8, 90 ethnomusicology, 4
dance masters, 183, 185–8 ethnomusicologist/s, 26, 85, 179
Dance Movement Psychotherapy, 6, etic interpretation, 77, 83
135–7 etno (folk arts), 136, 139, 143–4,
dance practices, 2, 4, 14, 16, 23, 110, 146–7, 149
112, 184
dance studios, 154, 157, 161, 164 family lineage, 64
dandiya, 24, 30–1 female agency, 183
Index 193
female beautiful masks, 70–81, 84, 90 Hindu temples, 17, 20–1, 27

female identity, 84–5 historian, 19, 65, 77, 174, 176
female priestesses, 182 historical exegesis, 187
female role/s, 32, 81, 84–5, 158 history, 1, 8, 14, 40, 59, 79, 81, 104,
female villagers, 182, 184 108, 140, 143, 146–7, 150, 174,
femininity, 23, 155, 160 177–8, 181, 186
festival/s, 4, 14–15, 18, 20–1, 37–9, holiday packages, 120
43, 109, 157 housewives, 99, 155, 184
fieldwork, 1–5, 7–8, 27, 39, 43,
59, 136 identity/ies, 1, 4–5, 23, 29, 31–2, 40,
flamenco, 2, 6, 154–68 54, 58–9, 66–7, 73, 78, 88, 90,
folk art, 136, 143, 179 96–7, 108–9, 111–12, 143,
folk dance/s, 13–14, 16, 22, 24, 149, 168
29–31, 51, 99, 105, 178 Filipino identity, 37
folklore, 2–3, 87, 179–80 Gujarati identity, 29
folklorist, 98, 178–80, 183, 187 Okinawan identity, 177
forced displacement, 6, 135–6, 150 transient identities, 40
Franco, 98, 103–5, 108, 112 iemoto, 161–2
immigrant/s, 17–18, 21, 23, 40, 47,
gamelan, 117, 119 54–5, 178
garba, 2, 4, 13–16, 22, 24–7, 29–32 improvisation, 5, 39, 68, 96, 101,
gated actor, 122 103, 110–11
gatekeeper/s, 116, 122, 124, 126, indigenous, 4, 37–40, 54–5, 176–7, 182
128–9 indigenous ethnographer, 41
gatekeeping, 6, 122 indigenous modernity, 40
gender, 6–7, 23, 58, 64, 66, 77–8, 80, informant, 29, 81, 84, 88, 91,
84–5, 102, 108, 133, 154, 158–60, 137, 144
168, 173, 184 insider/outsider debate, 41
géwël caste, 5, 64–5 inter-caste marriages, 65
global, 2–3, 32, 160–1, 163–4, 166–7 internally displaced people, 136
global flow, 154 internationalism, 161, 168
global stage, 158 intertextualized, 173–4
globalization, 32, 54, 108, 155 invisible dancers, 77, 79
Goffman, Erving, 157, 167
guitarists, 105, 156, 159, 163 Japamenco, 154
Grau, Andrée, 60, 89, 172 Japan, 2, 7, 154–61, 163–8
Grossberg, Lawrence, 5, 97–8, 103, Japanese flamenco, 154, 166, 168
108, 111 Java, 117
Gujarati, 2, 4, 13–16, 18–27, 29–32 Jota, 97, 102, 105
Jung, 140, 146
habitus, 32, 112, 173, 188 Jungian frame, 148
Hahn, Tomie, 6, 155, 159, 161, 166
happiokai, 155–7, 160–3, 165 Kaeppler, Adrienne, L., 1, 14
Hastrup, Kirsten, 91, 96 Kalibo, 2, 4, 37–8, 40–7, 49–57
head instructor/s, 162–8 Kathak, 18, 30
heritage, 21, 29, 55, 66, 82, 98–9, kecak, 2, 6, 116–29
107, 146 kecak kreasi, 128
Hindu femininity, 23 kecak ramayana, 117, 129
Hindu goddess, 13 Kepandung Sita, 116, 118, 127
194 Index
kinaesthetic practices, 159 narrative, 16, 42, 98, 135, 138, 176, 178
koshioroshi, 185 narrative identity, 143
Krishna, 25, 30–1 narrativization of the self, 6, 143–4,
Kumi Udi, 175–8 150
National Intangible Cultural Asset, 184
language/s, 2, 7–8, 16, 96, 174, 176 nationalism, 40, 106–7
Lastovo carnival, 77–81, 84, 88, 90 nationalist politics, 97, 111
Leicester, 1, 14, 16–20, 22–3, 25, 27, 29 nationalist sentiment, 148
life-cycle celebrations, 60 nationalist/s, 104, 106–7, 112,
linguistic rights, 108 168, 180
Llaudo, Miquela, 104 Navratri, 4, 13–15, 18, 21–4, 27–9, 32
lowland Filipinos, 40 Ness, Sally Ann, 8, 16, 71, 96, 112
network, 6, 110, 116, 118, 122–31
Mallorquin dance/s, 5, 97, 99–100,
107, 110 offertory performance, 181–2
Mallorqui, 97, 107 Okinawa, 2, 7, 172–85
marginalized, 4, 40, 77–8, 90 Okinawan folk songs, 179
Melanesians, 44 Okinawan indigenous religion, 182
memories, 6, 135, 138 Okinawan politics, 178
mestizas, 52 Omoro Sõshi, 7, 175–6
migrant, 4, 14, 16–17 Onna odori, 184
migration, 30, 45, 78, 178, oral tradition, 5, 64–5
181, 186 Països Catalans, 106–7, 111
Miruku, 182 palo (flamenco genre), 162, 164–5
modernity, 4, 7, 14, 40–1, 43, Partido Popular (popular party), 107
54, 87, 161 pengecak, 117
Montenegro, 136 performative competence, 159
Moreska, 5, 77, 81–6, 88, 91–2 Philippines, 2, 4, 37, 41–3, 47,
movement systems, 2, 13, 15–16 50–1, 54
arm and hand movements, 13, playing garba, 15, 22, 25, 29
24–6, 63, 71, 156 pokladari, 77, 79, 81, 84–5
foot and body movements, 24–6, political ideals, 106
39, 62–3, 100, 102, 117, 156, political power, 178
185–6 politics, 4, 5, 32, 97, 102, 106,
music, 5, 13, 17, 22, 24–6, 30, 32, 53, 108, 111, 154, 178
58, 60, 65, 69, 72, 81, 87, 95–7, polyrhythmic, 69
99–101, 103–6, 109, 111–12, positivist, 176
117–18, 126–7, 130, 143, 149, post-colonial/ism, 27, 40, 173
158–9, 160–1, 175, 178–9, 185–6 post-modernity, 23
Música Nostra, 104–5 post-modernism, 172–3
musical instruments, 39, 40, 50, 53 post-structuralist, 140, 150
music phrase, 64, 101 presentational dance, 180, 183–4
musicality, 154, 159–60, 184 psychosocial support, 139
musicians, 6, 24–5, 27, 40, 59, 61, 64, psychosocial work, 2, 4,
66, 68–9, 73, 96–9, 104, 109–12, 6, 136, 149
127, 156, 159, 162–5 public performance/s, 4, 41, 65–6
public space, 40, 80, 183
Nahachewsky, Andriy, 78, 91 Puri Anom in Batubulan, 119
Naji 181 Puri Ati, 49, 50, 52–5
Index 195
raas, 2, 4, 13–5, 24–7, 29–32 scape theory, 54

raas stick folk dance, 22 Schechner, Richard, 5, 59, 67, 73
racial identity, 45 Sección Femenina, 98–100, 102, 104
Ramayana epic, 116 secular pilgrimage, 109, 111
Ramgarhia Community Centre, 23 sekaha cak, 118–19
reflexive 1, 96, 135, 138–9 self and individuation, 140
reflexivity, 137 semiotic, 146, 186
refugee/s, 6, 17–18, 136, 149 semi-pro, 157, 160, 162, 166–7
refugee people, 144 sendratari, 118, 128
regional identity, 54, 106 Senegal, 5, 58–60, 65
regional styles, 181, 187 sensations, 111, 138
relationship/s, 6, 58–9, 61, 64, 66–7, sensory model, 6, 154, 156, 159
70, 72–3, 87, 135–6, 138–40, 144, Serbia, 2, 6, 136, 139
147–50, 185 settlement, 14, 16, 178
religious females, 183 sevillanas, 155–6
religious festivals, 4, 13, 14, 15 singers, 25, 61, 117, 159, 163–4
religious identity, 31 singularity, 97
religious practice/s, 13, 18, six-beat pattern, 62
20, 32 Sklar, Deidre, 59, 96, 110, 112, 135,
researchers, 2, 19, 67, 77–80, 84, 147, 172, 174, 186
86–7, 91 social anthropologist, 7, 21, 147
resistance, 86, 160 social integration, 137, 139
restitution, 78, 83, 85, 88–9 social network, 6, 116, 118,
revival/s, 5, 96–8, 104, 111 122, 128
rhythm/s, 24–6, 39, 58, 60–4, 68–70, social pathway/s, 95, 108–9, 111
95, 101, 105–6, 111, 143, 156–7, socio-cultural, 4, 20, 22, 58, 97,
159–60, 165 140, 166
rhythmic aesthetic, 155 soleá, 164
rhythmical variations, 156, 159 somatic, 110–11, 147, 186
ritual/s, 15, 20–2, 27, 59, 109–10, sooted and non-sooted bodies, 53
177, 180 sound/s, 30, 39, 42, 53, 142, 145,
ritual practices, 176–7 154, 156–7, 159–61, 165–6
ritual trance dance, 117 Spain, 98, 105–8, 156–7, 159,
ritual Tanadui, 181, 183, 188 162–4, 167
Roig, Toni, 104–7 Spanish, 37, 41, 96, 105–8, 112,
Rojin odori, 184 160, 163, 165
Ryukyu Kingdom, 175, 177, 183 Spanish singers, 164
Ryukyu no Kaze (the wind of spatial, 18, 97, 100, 103, 109, 111
Ryukyu), 177 spectacle, 43, 155, 157, 159
spiritual, 22, 32, 110, 136, 180
sabar, 2, 58 spiritual efficacy, 182
sabar dance events, 5, 58 stage/s, 6, 18, 60, 81, 109–10, 116–19,
sabar drumming, 59–60, 64 123, 125–6, 128–9, 154, 156,
sabaru ngoon, 60 158–9, 162–8, 179, 182–3,
sacred space, 14 185, 187–8
sadsad, 39, 42, 47, 50, 53 standards, 120, 126–8
samisen, 176 Statute of Autonomy, 98, 107
Santo Niño, 37, 41–2 stomping, 154, 156–7, 159, 165, 167
Sari Wisata Budaya stage, 119, 125 stories, 6, 25, 60, 78, 84, 91, 143–4
196 Index
strategic essentializing, 4, 40 traditional dance/s, 1, 3, 8,

street dancing competition, 38, 40, 96, 98, 103
46, 52 traditionalism, 154, 161, 168
Strictly Dandia, 23 transition, 23, 98, 109–10
studio owner/s, 157, 164, 167 transmission, 4, 5, 14, 17–19, 22, 154,
Swaminarayan, 20–1 159, 161, 166, 183–4, 186
sword dances, 77, 80–2 transnational, 30, 45, 55, 157,
symbol/s, 54, 71, 90, 92, 143, 146–9 163–4, 167–8
symbolic community, 184–5 travel agencies, 116, 118–20,
symbolic transformation, 135, 123–6, 128
144, 150 tribal, 38–9, 43, 50–3
Turner, Victor, 109
Tagalog, 37, 42 Typhoon Frank, 47–9
Taiwan, 48, 174
Taketomi, 2, 7, 173, 180–5, 187–8 Ubud, 119, 123, 126
Taketomian culture, 185 Ukwanshin Kabudan, 178
Taketomians, 181 Ukwanshin Udui, 175
Tanadui, 181–4, 186, 188 Uma Dewi stage in Kesiman, 119, 125
tànnëbéer, 72
temple/s, 17, 21–2, 27, 29, 31–2 Vaishnavite, 20, 31
temple worship, 20 visually orientated, 155, 159
temporality, 98 voice, 142, 145, 177
temporary belonging, 109 Vrbica Dan, 144–5, 147
tessera hospitalitas, 146
text/s, 3, 5, 7–8, 78–9, 83–92, 168, war-affected refugee people, 144
173–4, 188 West African, 2, 62, 65
textualizing practices, 174 Wolof, 5, 58, 61, 64
thick description, 16 Wolof culture, 65, 72–3
third sex, 38 womanhood, 166–7
three-fold classification theory of women’s identity, 61, 67
rituals, 109 Workshop/s, 6, 136–7, 139, 141–50
Tokyo, 6, 155–6, 158–9, 164, 178–9 world music and dance, 158
tourism, 2, 4, 5, 7, 38, 42–3, 96, 98–9, writings, 3, 172, 180, 187
119, 120–1, 125, 128–9,
182, 184–5 Ya’eyama dance and music, 178–9
tourists, 2, 5, 6, 37–8, 42–3, 82, Yugoslavia, 80, 143, 148
98–9, 105, 112, 116–27, 129
tradition, 3–7, 14–15, 19–21, 23, 27, Zdravo Da Ste (Hi Neighbour), 136–46,
30, 32, 50, 52, 59–60, 62, 64–5, 148–50
67–70, 72–3, 83, 85, 91, 96, 102, zô odori (miscellaneous dances), 178
107, 111, 116, 119, 128, 160–1, zone of proximal development,
174, 176, 181, 184 140–1, 146

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(Linda E. Dankworth, Ann R. David (Eds.) ) Dance Et

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Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives

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All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this

Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

List of Figures and Tables vii

Introduction: Global Perspectives in Ethnographic Fieldwork,

8 Sounding Contestation, Silent Suppression: Cosmopolitics

1.1 Women playing garba at Navratri, London, October 2001

5.1 The castanyoles percussive rhythm of the bolero

Patrick Alcedo is Associate Professor in the Department of Dance at York

Chi-Fang Chao is Associate Professor in the Department of Dance,

Linda E. Dankworth is an Independent Researcher and was awarded

Ann R. David is Head of Dance and Reader in Dance Studies at the

training is in Bharatanatyam and Kathak, as well as ballet, contempo-

Yolanda van Ede is Assistant Professor in the Sociology and Anthropology

Iva Niemčić is a Research Associate and Assistant Director of the Institute

Elina Seye is a doctoral candidate in Ethnomusicology at the School of

Allison J. Singer is an Independent Researcher. She is a dance anthro-

Kendra Stepputat is Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Ethnomusicology

The editors of this volume propose a selection of dance ethnographies

members of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM)

Knowledge and methodological techniques are passed on from

Seye investigates sabar dance events (a ‘tradition’ of social dancing

the dancers’ and musicians’ cultural identity has a nationalist orienta-

Ethnographic fieldwork and embodied practice/

Embodied ethnography as part of the fieldwork process in dance focuses

Writing up: historical and textual representation

Skinner, J. (2010) ‘Leading Questions and Body Memories: A Case of

Nine o’clock in the evening in a hot, crowded, hired

Setting the scene

in the 1970s after Idi Amin’s mass expulsion of non-African people

In researching and mapping the cultural practices of Gujarati Hindu

Urban cultural life

Leicester, a city approximately two hours north of London, exhibits

Leicester, as a field site for ethnographic work in South Asian dance

during Hindu religious or cultural festivals, dance (mainly folk or film)

The fact that the majority of Leicester’s large Hindu population is of

No longer content with converting disused Christian churches into

The conversion of old buildings into Hindu temples raises problems

The diverse nature of Hinduism is reflected in the huge variety of festival

is the locus for the transmission of Gujarati religious and socio-cultural

Sociologist Avtar Brah’s examination of identity in diaspora notes

an arena for the play of gender and caste-inflected Hindu-Gujarati

These same elements were highlighted in the Tamasha Theatre

Raas and garba

At De Monfort Hall, on our arrival at about 8.30pm, groups of teenagers

imaginative variants. People turned on the spot before hitting sticks,

power to transcend issues of representation, class distinction, hetero-

One of the younger women of the dance teacher’s group at the

Figure 1.2 Garabi – the central shrine at Navratri (credit: A. R. David)

I come only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights as we cannot do the

When I talked with my Gujarati informants, asking them if playing

Influences of garba competitions and of Bollywood film

Dance competitions perform a similar function in constructing and

reified. Similarly as in the United Kingdom, US Gujarati associations

The ascriptions of religious and cultural identity maintained through the

difference, by stressing culture as a property of individuals or groups.

2. Including, of course, participant observation, interviews, questionnaires,

Without fail, the Ati-atihan festival is celebrated in the town of Kalibo in

government’s failure in solving the marginal plight of the indigenous

which the public performance of the Atis as ‘authentic’ Filipinos brought

Philippine studies scholar Fernando Nakpil Zialcita acknowledges the

Meeting the Atis