This dissertation examined how identity was negotiated through dance and how African dance pedagogies challenged colonial legacy and decolonized the body from cultural and political oppression. To explore this topic, I examine two distinct dance contexts, one in Kampala, Uganda (East Africa) and the other in Tucson, Arizona (United States). The Kampala Study focused on the dance practices of a young man named Mugisha Johnson. Johnson was a member and dance teacher for Umbanno, a Rwandese cultural organization that formed as a consequence of the 1990s genocide; they taught Rwandese youth their cultural dances, songs, music, and language in Uganda. The Tucson Study took place in Tucson, Arizona and highlighted the work of the Dambe Project, a nonprofit organization that specialized in African performing arts education. More specifically, it examined the dance program at a local high school and focused on the experiences of the dance students.Four common threads ran through each of the research studies. First, both studies dance pedagogies derived from community-based organizations doing dance education. Second, both organizations served youth populations. Third, the organization both promoted dance expressions that had been historically oppressed. Lastly, my research positionality as a dance student in the Kampala Study and as a dance teacher in the Tucson Study provided a holistic ethnographic picture of an overarching autobiographical narrative about African dance of the diaspora.This research adds to the professional literature an examination of a bodily discourse as emphasized by Desmond (1994); it considers the way dance helps people shed the negative cultural and psychological effects of colonialism.The methodology used was dance ethnography, which looks at the body experiences and "treats dance as a kind of cultural knowledge and body movement as a link to the mental and emotional world of human beings" (Thomas, 2003, p.83). Data was collected through participant- observation, interviews, personal dance study and performance, video recordings, and photography. The research found in two separate ethnographies, dance pedagogies stimulating identity work that challenged colonial power by affirming an indigenous body practice and knowledge.

The interdisciplinary field of Dance Studies as a separate arena focusing on the social, political, cultural, and aesthetic aspects of human movement and dance emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Dance criticism integrated Dance Studies into the academy as critics addressed the social and cultural significance of dance. In particular, Jane Desmond created an integrated approach engaging dance history and cultural studies; in the framework of her findings, dance is read as a primary social text. She emphasizes that movement style is an important mode of distinction between social groups, serving as a marker for the production of gender, racial, ethnic, and national identities. In my work, I examined the ways in which the African American identity articulates and constructs itself through dance. Norman Bryson, an art historian, suggests that approaches from art history, film and comparative literature are as well applicable to the field of dance research. Therefore, as my main critical lens and a theoretical foundation, I adopt the analytical approach developed by Erwin Panofsky, an art historian and a proponent of integrated critical approach, much like the one suggested by Bryson; specifically, his three-tiered method of analysis (iconology). I demonstrate that Erwin Panofsky's iconology, when applied as a research method, can make valuable contributions to the field of Dance Studies. This method was originally developed as a tool to analyze static art pieces; I explore to which extent this method is applicable to doing a close reading of dance by testing the method as an instrument and discovering its limitations. As primary sources, I used Katherine Dunham's original recordings of diaspora dances of the Caribbean and her modern dance choreography titled L'Ag'Ya to look for evidence for the paradigm shift from "primitive" to "diaspora" in representation of Black identity in dance also with the aim of detecting the elements that produce cultural difference in dance.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-11T13:59:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Samya Neves.pdf: 6963911 bytes, checksum: 54624a3b386003f4a01bca9025cd8b17 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-11-19 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This piece of work aims at analysing the Waiwai people dance, who speak languages of caribe family, located at the tribe of Takará on the Trombeta-Mapuera indigenous land. This society has two periods when dance is seen, one in the context of the evangelic cult and the other in the parties that happen during Easter, gatherings and at the end of the year. The concern here is to watch the use of these bodies through the daily movements, to comprehend the elements which are part of their dances. Understanding that the same elements which are present in this art form are inseparable from what can be seen in their daily lives. The dance is able to put under the spotlight essential aspects to understand a culture, as they are elected to be part of such art form. Therefore, the dance under the artisanship light has an important role in the education, in the building of these bodies, and so, is also a place of action / Este trabalho se propõe analisar a dança dos Waiwai, falantes de línguas da família caribe, localizados na aldeia Takará da Terra Indígena Trombeta-Mapuera. Essa sociedade possui dois momentos onde a dança aparece, um no contexto do culto evangélico e o outro nas festas que acontecem na Páscoa, assembleias e no final do ano. A preocupação aqui é observar o uso desses corpos através dos movimentos cotidianos, para compreender os elementos que compõem suas danças. Entendendo que os mesmos elementos que estão presentes nesta arte são inseparáveis dos que aparecem na vida cotidiana. A dança é capaz de colocar em evidência, aspectos indispensáveis para a compreensão de uma cultura, na medida em que, são selecionados para fazer parte de tal arte. Assim, a dança sob a luz da artisticidade passa a ter um importante papel na educação, na construção desses corpos, e, portanto, é também um lugar de ação

This thesis intends to introduce Israeli folk dance from a number of different perspectives. In the first part, based on literature review, the author presents the origins of Israeli folk dances in Israel as well as their roots and the way they further function in a current Israeli society. Special attention is given to the problematic labeling of Israeli folk dance as "folk". The second part of the thesis is based on the author's own field work and describes the ways Israeli folk dances are practiced in the Czech environment. Whereas in Israel these dances are mostly connected with demonstration of Israeli identity, they get different meanings in the Czech environment. Firstly the author attempted to reconstruct the history of spreading of Israeli folk dances in the Czech environment and to map the different groups involved in these dances. Collection of these facts can be further used as an information source for all researchers wishing to conduct studies on Israeli folk dances in the Czech Republic in the future. Secondly the author concentrated on the ways of practicing Israeli folk dances in a Prague group called Besamim. Based on participant observation and interviews with the dancers the author attempted to illustrate the significance of these dances in the lives of people, who practice them...

The thesis examines the phenomenon of nonverbal communication via dance from the perspective of anthropology of dance. The objective of the thesis is to analyze the dance environment of contemporary and ballroom dance, based on the point of view of the dancers as well as of the audience. I determine the differences in the ways these forms of dance communicate through dance performances. I examine how dance functions as a means of language, on which level the communication is processing and what meanings and messages the audience decodes within the dance performance. The phenomenon of dance in its natural environment is studied semiotically, as a form of language in certain context. The fieldwork method is based on participant observation and semistructured interviews with both dancers and audience. The research was conducted in the studio of Nová scéna - Lidé v pohybu in Prague, which teaches contemporary dance, and in the dance club Akcent Dobruška, which focuses on ballroom dance. Keywords: Anthropology of Dance, Nonverbal Communication, Contemporary Dance, Ballroom Dance, Semiology, Performance, Audience, Meaning.