Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:22:47.842Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bali, the Camera, and Dance: Performance Studies and The Lost Legacy of the Mead/Bateson Collaboration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2008

Sally Ann Ness
Get access

Abstract

Working in Bali in the late 1930s, anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead made an extraordinary advance in the understanding of human performance. They observed bodily practices constituting processes of signification that resembled linguistic communication far more closely than had ever been suspected. The Mead/Bateson theory of human performance prefigured research in performance studies that has only recently begun to challenge poststructural convictions regarding the ephemerality of symbolic action. Essential to Mead and Bateson's achievement was their pioneering use of film. Equally vital, however, was their construction of Bali as a place, phenomenologically speaking. The Bali in which Mead and Bateson lived and worked was a cosmopolitan yet excessively localized product of their own design, to an extent contemporary perspectives find highly problematic. Nonetheless, the actual complexities of Balinese history and culture can be seen to have intervened into their collaborative process in ways that enabled pathbreaking insights.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , November 2008 , pp. 1251 - 1276
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Appadurai, Arjun. 1991. “Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology.” In Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present, ed. Fox, Richard G., 191–210. Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press.Google Scholar
Bandem, I Made, and deBoer, Fredrik Eugene 1995. Balinese Dance in Transition: Kaja and Kelod. 2nd ed. Kuala Lampur: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barnouw, Victor. 1985. “Margaret Mead's from the South Seas.” In Culture and Personality, 4th ed., 94–127. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press.Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory. 1944a. “Cultural Determinants of Personality.” In Personality and the Behavior Disorders, vol. 2, ed. Hunt, Joseph McVicker, 714–35. New York: Ronald Press.Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory. 1944b. “Form and Function of the Dance in Bali.” In The Function of Dance in Human Society, a Seminar Directed by Franziska Boas, ed. Boas, Franziska, 46–52. New York: Boas School.Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory. 1946a. “Arts of the South Seas.” Art Bulletin 28 (2): 119–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, Gregory. 1946b. “Physical Thinking and Social Problems.” Science 103:717–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bateson, Gregory. 1949. “Bali: The Value System of a Steady State.” In Social Structure: Studies Presented to A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, ed. Fortes, Meyer, 35–53. Gloucestershire: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory. 1967a. Review of Person, Time, and Conduct in Bali by Clifford Geertz. American Anthropologist 69:765–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, Gregory. 1967b. “Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art.” Paper presented at the Wenner-Gren Conference on Primitive Art.Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret, Mead. 1942. Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Belo, Jane, ed. 1970. Traditional Balinese Culture: Essays. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birdwhistell, Ray L. 1977. “Some Discussion of Ethnography, Theory, and Method.” In About Bateson: Essays on Gregory Bateson, ed. Brockman, John, 103–44. New York: E. P. Dutton.Google Scholar
Bloom, Peter J., and Hagedorn, Katherine J.. 2004. Essay for Legong: Dance of the Virgins DVD. http://www.gsj.org/docs/bloom_hagedorn_legongDVD.pdf [accessed July 17, 2008].Google Scholar
Boon, James A. 1977. The Anthropological Romance of Bali, 1597–1972: Dynamic Perspectives in Marriage and Caste, Politics, and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bowman-Kruhm, Mary. 2003. Margaret Mead: A Biography. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Coast, John. 2004. Dancing Out of Bali. Singapore: Periplus.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean. 1985. Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Covarrubias, Miguel. 1937. Island of Bali. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Dibya, I Wayan, and Rucina, Ballinger. 2004. Balinese Dance, Drama, and Music: A Guide to the Performing Arts of Bali. Singapore: Periplus.Google Scholar
Drewal, Margaret Thompson. 1992. Yoruba Ritual: Performers, Play, Agency. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
de la Falaise, Henry dir., 1935. Legong: Dance of the Virgins. Bennett Pictures Corporation.Google Scholar
Franko, Mark. 1995. “Mimique.” In Bodies of the Text: Dance as Theory, Literature as Dance, ed. Goellner, Ellen W. and Murphy, Jacqueline Shea, 205–16. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Franko, Mark, ed. 2007. Ritual and Event: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ghosh, Manomohan. 1957. Nandikesvara's Abhinayadarpanam: A Manual of Gesture and Posture Used in Hindu Dance and Drama. Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, Anna. 2001. The Ethnographer's Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hahn, Tomie. 2007. Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Howard, Jane. 1984. Margaret Mead: A Life. New York: Fawcett Columbine.Google Scholar
Hughes, R. W. [1941] 1964. The Gesture Language of the Hindu Dance. New York: B. Xlom.Google Scholar
Jacknis, Ira. 1988. “Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in Bali: Their Use of Photography and Film.” Cultural Anthropology 3 (2): 160–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janiewski, Dolores. 2004. “Woven Lives, Raveled Texts: Benedict, Mead, and Representational Doubleness.” In Reading Benedict Reading Mead: Feminism, Race, and Imperial Visions, ed. Janiewski, Dolores and Banner, Lois W., 3–15. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, Gordon D., and Suryani, Luh Ketut. 1992. The Balinese People: A Reinvestigation of Character. Singapore: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kothari, Sunil. 1979. Parata Nattiyam = Bharata Natyam: Indian Classical Dance Art. Bombay: Marg Publications.Google Scholar
Lepecki, André. 2004. “Inscribing Dance.” In Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory, ed. Lepecki, André, 124–39. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. Lowell. 1992. Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, David. 1982. Gregory Bateson: The Legacy of a Scientist. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret. 1949. “Character Formation and Diachronic Theory.” In Social Structure: Studies Presented to A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, ed. Fortes, Meyer, 18–34. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret. 1956. “Some Uses of Still Photography in Culture and Personality Studies.” In Personal Character and Cultural Milieu, 3rd ed., ed. Haring, Douglas G., 79–105. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret, ed. [1959] 1973. An Anthropologist at Work: Writings of Ruth Benedict. New York: Equinox Books.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret. 1963. “Anthropology and the Camera.” In The Encyclopedia of Photography, ed. Morgan, Willard D., 1:166–84. New York: Greystone Press.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret. 1970. “The Art and Technology of Fieldwork.” In A Handbook of Method in Cultural Anthropology, ed. Naroll, Raoul and Cohen, Ronald, 246–65. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret. 1972. Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years. New York: Pocket Books.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret. 1977a. “End Linkage: A Tool for Cross-Cultural Analysis.” In About Bateson: Essays on Gregory Bateson, ed. Brockman, John, 169–231. New York: E. P. Dutton.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret. 1977b. Letters from the Field, 1925–1975. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Mead, Margaret, and Francis, Cooke Macgregor. 1951. Growth and Culture: A Photographic Study of Balinese Childhood. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.Google Scholar
Ness, Sally Ann. 1996. Dancing in the Field: Notes from Memory. In Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture, and Power, ed. Foster, Susan Leigh, 129–54. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ness, Sally Ann. 2007. “Going Back to Bateson: Toward a Semiotics of (Post-)Ritual Performance.” In Ritual and Event: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Franko, Mark, 13–30. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ness, Sally Ann. 2008. “The Inscription of Gesture: Inward Migrations in Dance.” In Migrations of Gesture, ed. Noland, Carry and Ness, Sally Ann, 1–30. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Noland, Carrie, and Ness, Sally Ann. 2008. Migrations of Gesture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Roy A. 1979. Ecology, Meaning, and Religion. Richmond, CA: North Atlantic Books.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, André, and Armand Denis, prod. 1932. Goona-Goona. No distributor.Google Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 2001. Dancing with the Virgin: Body and Faith in the Fiesta of Tortugas, New Mexico. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stocking, George W. Jr., 1995. After Tylor: British Social Anthropology, 1888–1951. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Stoller, Paul. 1995. Embodying Colonial Memories: Spirit Possession, Power and the Hauka in West Africa. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Gerald. 1999. Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Highland Bali: Fieldwork Photographs of Bayung Gedé, 1936–1939. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, Gerald. 2004. “Of Feys and Culture Planners: Margaret Mead and Purposive Activity as a Value.” In Reading Benedict Reading Mead: Feminism, Race, and Imperial Visions, ed. Janiewski, Dolores and Banner, Lois W, 101–14. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Tambiah, Stanley J. 1979. “A Performative Approach to Ritual.” Proceedings of the British Academy 65:113–69.Google Scholar
Taussig, Michael. 1993. Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Trego, Charles dir., 1932. Isle of Paradise. Castle Films.Google Scholar
Vatsyayan, Kapila. 1974. Indian Classical Dance. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.Google Scholar
Venkataraman, Leela. 2002. Indian Classical Dance: Tradition in Transition. New Delhi: Roli Books.Google Scholar
Wiratini, Ni Made. 1991. Condong and Its Roles in Balinese Dance-Drama. Master's thesis, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar