Nearly twenty years ago, I took a graduate seminar on postcolonial theory with Edward Said in the Department of Comparative Literature at Yale University. It was a heady experience: competitive grad students and young faculty members vied for his imperious (I realize the irony of the word in reference to Said!) attentions. We read novels—potent, searing, difficult novels—alongside some of the theorists of political struggle who would indelibly alter my understanding of what cultural resistance could mean. Said's recent death, which of course coincided with a period of distressing shifts in political tides, has placed pressure on those of us engaged with cultural analysis to probe even more deeply the significance of anticolonial struggle in cultural forms. As a dance scholar, I have found myself reflecting on the ways in which postcolonial theory might inform my understanding of the power of choreography to affect political change—but also on the ways in which dance can inform our readings of postcolonial theory.

The field work for this study was conducted in Pingtung County, Taiwan over a five-month period in 1976 from February to July. The Paiwan tribe is one of the nine existing tribes in Taiwan; most of these people live in Pingtung County in the south (Fig. 1). Of the 300,000 Taiwan aborigines on the island today, approximately 45,000 are Paiwan. The methods employed in the collection of the data were: 1) observing and recording dances roughly in Labanotation, 2) participating in dancing, 3) filming dances, and 4) interviewing informants. Dances were observed in two ways – in their actual context, or especially elicited. Those elicited included some which are still performed today but were demonstrated for me by request apart from their natural context, and some which are no longer performed but were recalled by my informants. After my return from the field, Labanotation was refined and checked against films, and the raw data was then categorized and analysed. The purpose of the categorization was to identify the characteristics of Paiwan dances based on the data collected.

A total of 62 dances were witnessed in 12 villages of the 8 townships visited. Not all dance types were observed in each village (Figure 2). Some informants remember and can reconstruct more than others, so that data collected in each village may not necessarily represent the entire village repertoire of the present or the recent past. In many cases, the same movements were executed in dances of the same or different dance types. It is the associated song and song text rather than the movements that differentiates the dances.

What kind of “symbol making behavior” is “dance”? At this point in history, are most scholars inclined to believe that “dance” is actually many symbol-making behaviors within time? “Dancing,” a human activity, occurs in myriad forms, both now and in the past. This warm-up accents the ramifications of adopting an historical perspective to describe “dance.” As might the Annalist Fernand Braudel, let me propose that dance media “should fit into time which carries life ceaselessly along” (Braudel 1980, 69). By “dance media,” I recognize every “dance” form which is tacitly legitimated within a social group. Every dance medium is a socially particular manner of constructing movement within a social group. There may be a scholar who argues that there is a dance medium which is not socially legitimated, but in turn, what data shows that such a medium exists? “Dance” should give way to dance media, a plural term.

Mary Wigman wanted to develop a new dance form, one that could express her personal perception of the spirit of her era and communicate her innermost feelings. What she created in her early choreographies, despite variations in specific works, was a dance in which one of the most prevalent constituents was mysticism, found in the purpose, process, and content of her choreography. It is by virtue of the element of mysticism that Wigman's artwork can be linked to a major aspect of the German Expressionist movement, which had come to full flower in art and drama during Wigman's artistically formative years.

German Expressionism was the attempt, by several German artists circa 1907-1925, to express the inner reality of a character, situation, or event rather than the external, scientifically verifiable facts, by portraying the essence, by giving form to experience to convey its universal significance. This expression of the artist's vision, which was intensely individual in style and inspiration yet universal in content, was often marked by distortion or non-realistic symbols used to attain a direct communication from soul to soul, that is, to express the essence of their vision so that it could be apprehended on a sensed level rather than on an intellectual level. The German Expressionist artists, as well as Wigman, developed their own, individual styles according to their particular art medium and individual personalities.

This essay reflects on a collaboration between a neuroscientist and a dance scholar that took the form of a scientific study testing the cognitive benefits of Filipino martial arts (FMA). This piece reflects on the collaboration as it raised methodological issues regarding disciplinarity and cross-disciplinary exchange. This discussion extends to an examination of the intellectual underpinnings and assumptions of the sciences and the humanities, signaling where they can meet and why it is not only productive but also imperative that they do so.

In the middle of Mark Morris's ballet Dido and Aeneas, set to the Henry Purcell opera of the same title, a female dancer mimes the story of the Greek goddess Diana and her unfortunate suitor, Actaeon. While hunting in the mountains, Actaeon catches sight of Diana bathing nude, and the fiercely chaste goddess transforms him into a stag; his own well-trained hounds, baying triumphantly, turn on their master. When the word “mountain” is sung, the dancer marks out two jagged peaks over her head with one hand. When the hunter Actaeon is mentioned by name, the dancer mimes a bow being arched and an arrow shot from it. Then, as the line “here, here, Actaeon met his fate,” is being sung, the dancer points one finger down at a spot on the ground, nodding emphatically. It was here, she is saying—right here, where I am pointing, see?

The employment of the scientific process to gain additional insight into a particular problem beyond the ordinary inquiry of the problem is commonly referred to as research. In fact, the term research can be substituted for scientific process. In general, research differs from other scholarly activities in regard to the methods and procedures under which the problem is studied and analyzed. Research further aims to enlarge the fields of knowlege already in existence. The researcher identifies a problem or an issue within his/her field of interest and then systematically undertakes to answer specific questions or hypotheses concerning the problem.

The scientific problem under consideration by the researcher must be a significant, well-defined problem as well as one that the researcher is totally involved in answering. This is a most important aspect of the research process because the identification and the statement of the problem directs all of the later activities of the inquiry. The statement of the problem is a roadmap of the territory under consideration.

Once the statement of the problem has been identified in clear, percise terms the researcher moves into the second phase of the research process, namely the proposal of the hypothesis or hypotheses. An hypothesis is a guess that the researcher makes about the problem and it provides a basis for the research, therefore it is a vital aspect of the entire study regardless of the type of research being undertaken. A hypothesis is generally a statement of expected relationships among the variables. Whether the hypothesis is accepted or rejected should not be the prime objective of the researcher. Statistically significant results are not necessary to add knowledge to our existing knowledge; statistically insignificant results also add to our knowledge. The hypothesis may be viewed as an “if … then …” type of relationship. If certain conditions prevail, then certain other things will result.

The Nāṭyaśāstra is a Sanskrit work on drama, dance, and music of uncertain date, which has acquired the status of Ur-text of Indian classical dance. It was in the twentieth century, through the modernization process of bharatanatyam, that the Nāṭyaśāstra and its related texts came to be regarded as setting out the grammar of Indian dance classicism (Coorlawala 1994; Meduri 1996; O'Shea 2001).

Chapter 4 of the Nāṭyaśāstra deals specifically with dance, here distinct from acting, and describes the 108 dance units—Karaṇas—of the tāṇḍava dance of Śiva and their combinations, dance phrases named aṇgahāras (NS 1988–89, 4, w. 1–245). This particular chapter of the Nāṭyaśāstra has attracted attention ever since Naidu, Naidu, and Pantulu published its translation into English, Tānḍavalakṇaṣam, in 1936. Since then there have been other translations of the Nāṭyaśāstra, among which the two volumes by Manmohan Ghosh, in 1951 and 1956 respectively, and different interpretations of the Karaṇas of chapter 4. Readings have drawn on the iconography of the Karaṇas as found at the temples at Thanjavur, Kumbakonam, and Chidambaram in southern India. The karana reliefs on the walls of Kumbakonam and Chidambaram have been identified by inscriptions found on each karaṇa slab, that give the Sanskrit name of the karaṇa as recorded in the Nāṭyaśāstra.

Bronislava Nijinska arrived in Warsaw during June of 1937 to accept the post of ballet mistress and choreographer for the Polish Ballet. She created a company, premiered five choreographies, and within four months brought the Polish Ballet to acclaim by capturing the Grande Prix award at the 1937 Paris International Exposition of Art and Technology Applied to Modern Life. Although her work for the Polish Ballet was prolific and significant, it had an early and unanticipated finale; Nijinska's three-year contract was prematurely terminated by the company's administration following her first year as artistic director. Little evidence remains to document this year of intense creativity and commitment. Unaware that she would not return to Poland after her first year, she left many of her personal records in Warsaw during the summer of 1938. The 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany resulted in the subsequent destruction of numerous precious source materials, including the choreographic notes, musical scores, and costumes of Nijinska's ballets.

In recent years, dance, in its broadest sense, has been used in many general conditioning and exercise programs. Aerobic dance and, more recently, “jazzercise” have become increasingly popular in programs sponsored by YMCAs and recreation departments. In addition, the more traditional or established forms of dance, such as ballet, modern, square, social, and folk dance continue to provide recreational activity for people of all ages.

Although there is considerable interest in dance in its many forms, little research has been conducted on the physiological effects of participation in various types of dance programs. The energy cost of some dance styles, such as aerobic dance (Igbanugo & Gutin, 1978) and tap dance (Noble & Howley, 1979), have been reported. In addition, the heart rate response of college students enrolled in modern dance classes and the beneficial effect of modern dance on sedentary college females have also been investigated (deGuzman, 1979). Recently reported (Rosentswieg & Tate, 1979) was the volumetric determination of the body composition of female dance majors (25.4% fat), professional dancers (21.4% fat), and dance educators (18.3% fat). Also reported in this study was a breakdown of the percent of fat of the professional dancers by style of dance performed: jazz dancers were 23% fat; modern dancers were 19.8% fat; and ballet dancers were 16.4% fat. Rimmer (1981) reported a mean body density (Db) of 1.0529 and percent fat of 20.13 for a small group of highly trained female dance majors.

In the first decades of the twentieth century Cecil Sharp ushered in a revival of ceremonial dance in England through his own teaching of the dances and through published manuals such as The Morris Book and The Sword Dances of Northern England. Sharp's lead was followed almost immediately by a number of collectors. The demand for dance manuals has never slackened, so that now the literature on how to dance the English ceremonial dances is substantial. Publishing manuals on how to perform these dances has had the obviously salutary effect of preserving them for posterity, but it has also had a deleterious effect on the traditions as living, growing, aesthetic phenomena. At the outset I should stress that I am not naively claiming that “folk process” and “oral transmission” are synonymous phrases, nor am I making the simple assertion that folk materials cease to be “folk” when they are written down. The complex relationship between the broadside ballads and the oral singing tradition in England is well known. Certainly no folklorist today should be so romantic as to assert that writing is the curse of the folk classes. However, the evolution of English dancing has undeniably been radically affected by written manuals.

In 1914, as Europe went to war, Serge Diaghilev launched an artistic revolution that profoundly altered the identity of the Ballets Russes. By and large, historians have dated this artistic shift to Parade. Unveiled in Paris in 1917, three years after Diaghilev's last full-scale season in the French capital, the work served public notice of the switch in his allegiance to the avant-garde. Parade came with impeccable modernist credentials: designs by Pablo Picasso, music by Erik Satie, a libretto by Jean Cocteau, program notes by Guillaume Apollinaire. Only Léonide Massine, the ballet's choreographer, was an unknown quantity, although by the early 1920s, his name, too, would be synonymous with modernism. It is not difficult to understand why historians have identified this work as the cradle of Ballets Russes modernism.

Popular dances encapsulate the aliveness of Africa's young. Radiating an Africanist aesthetic of the cool, these moves enflesh popular music, saturating mass media platforms and everyday spaces with imageries of joyful transcendence. This essay understands scriptive dance fads as textual and choreographic calls for public embodiment. I explore how three Nigerian musicians, and their dances, have wielded scriptive prompts to elicit specific moved responses from dispersed, heterogenous, and transnational publics. Dance fads of this kind productively complicate musicological approaches that insist on divorcing contemporary African music cultures from the dancing bodies that they often conjure. Taken together, these movements enlist popular culture as a domain marked by telling contestations over musical ownership and embodied citizenship.