AFTER THE BALL IS OVER

In 2000, the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia University’s Teachers College was approached by a board of persons knowledgeable about dance and the International Organization for the Transition of Professional Dancers (IOTPD) to provide data about the challenges and realities of dancers’ career transition. This first study of its kind became a coordinated inquiry into the career transition of professional dancers in eleven different countries, culminating in a report written by William Baumol, Joan Jeffri, and David Throsby. The major areas of concern are: information that confirms what the field has always known about career transition, but did not have the numbers to support; and data that surprised the researchers. Our findings show that, in many instances, expectations of current dancers and realities of former dancers sometimes differ widely, providing important information for policy makers, funders and supporters interested in furthering continued employment of artists.     

‘Becoming Beautiful in the Dance’: On the Formation of Ethical Modalities of Being in Yap,Federated States of Micronesia1

ABSTRACT This article examines how the ideals of self‐monitoring, self‐reflexivity, self‐restraint, and self‐governance, as well as assumptions pertaining to the mastery of the body, its movements, and forms of expressivity, lie at the heart of one of Yap's (Federated States of Micronesia) most important aesthetic institutions ‐ the dance. In so doing, it suggests that Yapese dancing and the forms of self‐vigilance that are associated with it can be understood as implicated in the formation of a distinctly Yapese moral modality of being. That is, Yapese dancing ‐ including its performance and appreciation ‐ plays a role in helping individuals craft particular forms of feeling, thinking, appreciating, judging, imagining, and behaving that are consonant with local understandings of the good person, the good life, and right action. A polite and agreeable exterior was maintained at all times to reveal nothing of internal mental states. Yapese frequently played games testing each other's abilities to keep their concentration and sense of restraint. Spectators at a Yapese dance who had forgotten themselves and had become enthralled by a particular dancer were singled out and reminded to chew their wad of betel (mu ko bu'), much to the delight of all present.     

Performing race and gender: the exoticization of Josephine Baker and Anna May Wong

Josephine Baker and Anna May Wong are two exceptions to white hegemony in early show business. They became the first Afro-American and Chinese-American stars in the 1920s and reached international stardom in spite of their ethnicity but also because of it. Their careers and success were based on their exoticization. Baker and Wong's exoticism has much to do with ethnicity, but also with sex and gender. Their exotic dances on stage or on screen can be considered to be forms of erotic shows. This article shows how sex, gender, and race are entangled in their movies and burlesque shows. It also discusses the ways in which the agency and the audience of the performer should be taken into account, and analyzes how these performances were both rooted in Western imaginative geographies and connected to symbolic and material spaces.     

郑州商城出土骨刻文与中国古代的“舞雩”祈雨之祀

殷墟甲骨文中已有关于求雨的"雩祭"了,此后历代相沿,可谓源远流长。早商时期郑州商城遗址出土的两例骨刻文"■■"和"■■"形近而义同,它们可能就是这种雩祭的原型。在郑州商城遗址发现这类祈雨的文字资料,这和郑州商城所在的地理环境及其当时一度干旱缺水的气候条件都有一定的关系。     

Performing identities: music and dance in the Irishcommunities of Coventry and Liverpool

This article will examine how British-born second- and third-generation Irish people use Irish music and dance in the production of an Irish cultural identity. The article draws on research undertaken with members of the Irish communities in the English cities of Coventry and Liverpool. The research was conducted with music and dance practitioners in Liverpool who strongly identify as Irish and also with schoolchildren in Coventry whose parents or grandparents were born in Ireland. The paper first explores the comments of the Liverpool respondents and points to how music and dance can offer a space in which different generations can mark out their affiliation or embody their Irishness. Secondly, the paper considers interview work with schoolchildren in Coventry, concentrating on their responses as listeners to Irish traditional music. Their comments point to the capacity of this music to resonate with multiple, even conflicting, productions of Irishness. The comments of all the respondents raise key debates about authenticity and the construction of identity.     

中国古代马戏考

"胡服骑射"是马戏产生的重要条件,"官马民养"是马戏产生的基础,汉唐帝王对舞乐百戏的大力提倡是马戏迅速发展的主要推动力量.     

Melanesians and Music on the Move: South Sea Island Shipboard and Plantation Performance in Queensland, 1860s–1906

Taking a historical ethnomusicological approach, this article argues that shipboard and plantation music and dance practices cast new light on the ways South Sea Islanders (SSI) acted out agency and asserted new identities as they became tangled up in the dynamics of colonial encounters. Trading ships started to operate in Melanesia in the 1840s and island men were quickly attracted to the nautical life. Contact with the West brought opportunity but also exploitation when in 1863 the recruitment of Islanders for farm and plantation work in Queensland began. As they ventured into the unknown on recruiting ships, Islanders engaged in performance in order to establish cross-societal bonds with villagers from islands other than their own, and also with European sailors and settlers. Experimenting with any and all modes of sound making, SSI looked to music as a source of enjoyment and a means of individual and collective self-advancement. They took instruments, repertoire items, and gramophones back to their home islands as evidence of their familiarity with the wider world, and as creative resources to employ in the changing times ahead of them. Those who remained in Queensland at the beginning of the 20th century faced the challenge of how to integrate and indigenize the new musical ideas, and transform them into life – and community-sustaining expressions.     

中国书画艺术的乐舞精神

通过综合各家学说、考据典、辨析要义,在深入剖析中国“书画”所寓含的深刻人内涵基础上,提出了“乐舞精神”作为其主脉这一独具特色的看法,在一定意义上解决了学术界在此问题上的困惑与长期徘徊的局面。     

Relational creativity and improvisation in contemporary dance

ABSTRACT

In a study combining methodological elements from cognitive psychology and social anthropology, we worked with professional contemporary dancers making choreographic movement material to investigate the effects of working with others during improvisation. Dancers improvised alone, in pairs, and in a trio, they self-reported the number of new movement ideas created within two and four minutes, and self-rated ease, interest, originality, and clarity. Within two minutes, higher ratings were assigned in the unfamiliar pair than the familiar pair condition but there was no effect of group size on the number of ideas created. Within four minutes, more ideas were created in the solo condition than the pair condition with no effect of group size on ratings. Open-ended responses suggested that the quality and relevance of the ideas increased in the duo and the trio conditions. The conclusions point to emergent aspects of relations between persons as fundamental to creativity.