Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:37:54.113Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Introduction to Dance Aesthetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Advienne L. Kaeppler
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Deriving from the Greek word aisthetikos, which deals with “sense perception”, the term aesthetics is now used in a variety of ways. When brought into English and other European languages in the nineteenth century, “aesthetic” was used to indicate the response to art and was especially concerned with beauty. Although still used in that way, the term “aesthetics” has also taken on the trappings of a philosophical system, often stated as the philosophy of beauty and good taste. A philosophical system is derived from a set of principles, thus a philosophy of aesthetics must be based on aesthetic principles.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 35 , 2003 , pp. 153 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 By The International Council for Traditional Music

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.)

Footnotes

1

The stimulus for this paper goes back to 1986 when I was “Una Lecturer in the Humanities” at the University of California, Berkeley. My series of lectures was “Aesthetics: Evaluative Ways of Thinking” and lecture one (on which this essay is based) was “Art, Aesthetics, Values, and Thought”. I wish to thank the trusties of the Una Lectures Foundation and the institutions that supported my research in Polynesia: the National Institute of Mental Health, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Bishop Museum and the Smithsonian Institution. I also wish to thank the many Polynesians who helped me to understand the data presented in this paper, especially for the Tongan section Sister Malia Tu'ifua and the late Vaisima Hopoate.

References

References Cited

Al Faruqi, Lois Ibsen 1979 Dance as an expression of Islamic culture. Dance Research Journal 10(2): 6–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
1985 Mawlid and malid: Genres of Islamic religious art from the Sultanate of Oman. Paper presented at the International Symposium on the Traditional Music of Oman.Google Scholar
Crowley, Daniel J. 1958 Aesthetic judgment and cultural relativism. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 17: 187–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harddin, Kris L. 1985a Kono aesthetics: Toward the identification of a system. Paper presented at the Midwest Art History Society Conference, Bloomington, Indiana.Google Scholar
1985b Space, dance and the production of aesthetic experience. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association, New Orleans.Google Scholar
Kaeppler, Adrienne L. 1971 Aesthetics of Tongan dance. Ethnomusicology 12: 175–85.Google Scholar
1978 Melody, drone, and decoration: Underlying Structures and surface manifestations in Tongan art and society. In Art in society: Studies in styles, culture and aesthetics, eds Michael Greenhalgh and Vincent Megaw, 261–74. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
1979 Aspects of Polynesian aesthetic traditions. In The art of the Pacific islands, by J. Carter Brown, Douglas Newton, Adrienne L. Kaeppler and Peter Gathercole, 77-95, 105–81. Washington: The National Gallery of Art.Google Scholar
1990 Art, aesthetics, and social structure. In Tongan culture and history, eds Phyllis Herda, Jennifer Terrell and Niel Gunson, 59–71. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
1996 The look of music, the sound of dance, Music as a visual art. Visual Anthropology 8: 133–53.Google Scholar