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By Sangita Shresthova
"We live in a society that mistrusts the body. It doubts the connections between the world of the body and the world of thought. But how can we convince people of those connections? How can movement make people think?" (Jill Sigman)
...THROUGH DANCE!
The value of dance as a crucial form of cultural expression has become increasingly recognized by both academic and public organizations.
UNESCO's Intangible Heritage Program recognizes dance as an essential source of identity, deeply rooted in the past.
Unfortunately, the fluid, undocumented form of many traditional dance forms makes them particularly vulnerable in situations of rapid change and socio-political upheaval. It is at these times, that special efforts need to be made to preserve these dance treasures.
Why dance matters:
Dance, whether social, theatrical, or ritually based, is a form of cultural expression. Like visual art, sculpture or architecture, dance encapsulates, reinforces and transmits cultural traditions and values. While dances tend to be thought of as distinctive movements and steps, every dance exists in a complex network of relationships to other dances and other non-dance ways of using the body.
Whether dance training is formal or informal, the parameters...of movement are directly related to culturally specific norms. By asking: "who dances, when and where, in what ways, with whom and to what end?" (Jane Desmond), we learn not only about the culture that practices the dance form but also about the complex relationships that exist between apparently disparate cultures and societies.
Ways of holding the body, gesturing, moving in relation to time, and using space (taking a lot, using a little, moving with large sweeping motions, or small contained ones) differ across various social and cultural groups and through time. For example the decline, subsequent revival, modification and codification of the dance of the temple dancers in South India (today known as Bharat Natyam) was influenced by, and in turn exerted influence over, post colonial cultural identity debates regarding India. Through dance, culture is learned, communicated and preserved.
A living and practiced art, dance is a fluid, constantly evolving tradition. While dance has historically responded to changing cultural conditions, it has recently been strongly influenced by unprecedented, rapid social, political and economic upheaval in many countries. This has disrupted the continued practice of many ritual, community-based dance forms. Rapid population growth, uneven economic development, urbanization, environmental degradation, and changing labor migration patterns are only some of the factors which have brought practice of certain, especially ancient, dance traditions under threat.
Dance Under Threat
Over the last decades, the rural life patterns of Nepalese villagers have undergone fundamental changes in response to the Maoist insurgency, increased pressure to migrate for work, and changing ecological situations. Even a cursory global overview reveals the dances of the Kalahari Bushmen, Tibetan Buddhists, Vietnamese villagers and Australian Aboriginals to be only a fraction of the traditional movement practices undergoing fundamental, and in many situations highly destructive, change. In some cases, dance forms are not only ceasing to exist as fluid expressions of culture; they are on the verge of ceasing to exist altogether.
Once these largely undocumented dances are no longer practiced, they will cease to exist. In the South Asian and Himalayan context, many dances including those practiced since pre-history in remote Nepal are examples of dance traditions in real existential danger.
Why Dance Should Be Saved
Dance is a continually evolving art form. As communities have disappeared, grown or changed over time, so have their dances. A dance dies along with its last practitioner.
One of the significant results of colonialism and globalism is often cultural assimilation. This has been continued as explorers and travelers have pushed into ever more remote locations around the globe. As a result of this integration of cultures traditional art forms, means of expression, and cultural identities are being lost. Overall the world is experiencing an unprecedented decline in diversity; we may be on a steady march towards homogeneity and monoculture.
While dance is an obviously valued component of virtually every society around the world, in the west it is degraded: it is easy to look at it as frivolous, merely a means of entertainment.
Where in an eastern tradition, dance can be regarded as the apotheosis of human knowledge; in the west it is less than 50 years that dance has been recognized as a serious object of study. When communities around the world are suffering from such horrors as disease, malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, and war, why should anybody care about preservation of traditional dances? In addition, it is easy to dismiss the significance of what will be lost if dance forms practiced by relatively few people die away. If these people can't be bothered to teach their heirs the dances then why should anybody else care?
There are many reasons why dance should be documented and then encouraged within a community. The first and most apparent is the real opportunity for such an endeavor to generate valuable resource materials, media and research documents to be used by dance practitioners, connoisseurs and theorists. The next is strictly academic. The dances have inherent value and deserve to be studied and documented in their own right. In addition to the specific learning related directly to the dance movements, dances can teach us practical knowledge about a culture, such as its agricultural traditions or the historical migrations of the people. With every dance that dies, another source of data about the nature of human communities dies with it. Dance is a lens to reveal much about art, religion and higher consciousness.
The next reason gets to the heart of why anyone should care at all about the loss of dances. We should care for the very same reason that we care when an animal or plant becomes extinct: the diversity of our planet is reduced. In the case of dance it is cultural and intellectual diversity, not biological diversity, but the underlying values and principles are the same. A culture's dances are a living repository for its history, values, struggles, hopes, and aspirations. A community's cultural identity is expressed through its dances.
A demonstrable path to a peaceful world is the acceptance and encouragement of cultural diversity. Documenting and encouraging traditional dance forms shows respect and acknowledgment of the beating heart of a culture; it promotes awareness of cultural identities
(even to practitioners themselves ), and plays a part in encouraging cultural understanding. The benefits of this cannot be disparaged, especially in the often hostile world in which we currently exist.
Components Necessary for the Revitalization of Dance
For those where revitalization remains a viable option, there are a number of necessary components. First, the culture of which it's a part must have at least a seminal respect for the dance, and its practitioners must have a certain level of prestige within the community; and sufficient skill to build upon. There needs to be funding to enable documentation and analysis of the dance, and ultimately to assist living transmission of the dances.
In addition, creating opportunities to educate others beyond the community about the dance are important to ensure its survival and galvanize popular awareness.
There are, of course, several inherent challenges in preserving dance: the dynamic nature of dance; finding non-invasive means of documentation; ensuring full credit and benefit is given to local communities; and ensuring that representations of the dances are respectful, authentic and approved by the communities.
Who is helping?
- Core of Culture, documenting and archiving cultural dance www.coreofculture.org
- UNESCO (see below)
- communities like MoonDance - propogating traditional dance with cultural "permission"
- YOU: reading this, learning about dance from other cultures, valuing cultural dance and dance in general
UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage preservation efforts, such as the remarkable restoration of Cambodian classical dance in the past decade, following the destruction of culture by the Khmer Rouge and the diaspora of the so-called 'boat-people'. UNESCO recognizes that for many population groups, the intangible cultural heritage is the essential source of an identity deeply rooted in the past. Unfortunately, a number of its manifestations, such as traditional and popular music, dance, festivals and know-how for craft production, oral traditions and local languages have already disappeared or are in danger of doing so. Recent advances in media technologies open up new, unobtrusive opportunities for dance preservation in culturally sensitive settings. Internet helps sustain long-term connections between dancers, institutions and repositories worldwide.
Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another's uniqueness.
Ola Joseph
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