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Men as Women: Female Dance Symbolism in Walbiri Men's Rituals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Stephen A. Wild
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Extract

Dance in a particular cultural tradition may be analyzed from any of several different perspectives, which may be classified in two categories. In the first, analysis may be structural or stylistic. By structure I mean the set of relationships among discrete movements characteristic of a dance tradition; it is similar to grammar in language (cf. Woodard 1976). Style refers to the general qualities of a dance tradition or classes of the tradition: tempo, energy level, parts of the body used, characteristic number of dancers, smoothness or abruptness of movements, body decorations and objects manipulated in the dance (cf. Lomax 1968:222-273). Although this category is concerned with analysis of dance qua dance, it may justifiably be argued that a kind of meaning inheres in pure structure and style, and therefore that their analysis is an explication of meaning.

Other ways of analyzing dance in a cultural tradition approach meaning in a different way. Meaning is sought in the relationship between structure and style on one hand and other aspects of the culture on the other.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , Fall/Winter 1977 , pp. 14 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1977

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References

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