Synopses & Reviews
Exploring dance from the rural villages of Africa to the stages of Lincoln Center, Judith Lynne Hanna shows that it is as human to dance as it is to learn, to build, or to fight. Dance is human thought and feeling expressed through the body: it is at once organized physical movement, language, and a system of rules appropriate in different social situations. Hanna offers a theory of dance, drawing on work in anthropology, semiotics, sociology, communications, folklore, political science, religion, and psychology as well as the visual and performing arts. A new preface provides commentary on recent developments in dance research and an updated bibliography.
About the Author
Judith Lynne Hanna is Senior Research Scholar in the Deptartments of Dance and Anthropology at the University of Maryland. She is the author of many books including Dance, Sex, and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance, Defiance, and Desire and To Dance is Human: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2. Dance?
3. Psyche and Soma: Some Bases of the Human Phenomenon of Dance
4. Dance Movement and the Communication of Sociocultural Patterns
5. Dance in Religion: Practicality and Transcendentalism
6. Dance Rites in Political Thought and Action
Case A. Dance of Anandaacute;huac: For God or Man in Prehistory?
Case B. Ubakala Dance-Plays: Mediators of Paradox
7. Warrior Dances: Transformations through Time
8. The Urban Ecosystem of Dance
9. Directions for the Future
Appendices
1. Dance Movement Data Categories
2. Ubakala Dance-Play Profiles
3. Dance Representations Classificatory Framework
Notes
References
Index