Trance, Music and Dance – Old topics and new interdisciplinary dialogues
Keywords:
music,
trance,
dance,
neurosciences,
kinesthesia,
affect
Abstract
The paper deals with the issue of trance in anthropology, ethnomusicology and dance studies through the problem of the role of music and dance in achieving a trance state. The paper focuses on two important studies of trance. The first among them is the study Music and Trance by French ethnomusicologist Gilbert Rouget. In this study, Rouget examines the connection between trance and certain music and dance practices by discussing the key question: do certain musical instruments necessarily lead to trance? The second study represents the recent work of an ethnomusicologist Judith Becker, called Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion and Trancing, in which Becker explores the synergy between music, emotion, and trance in an intercultural context. Although these two studies have a lot in common with each other, the key difference would be Becker's reliance on recent research in psychology and neuroscience, that led to new research approaches to music and dance. Therefore, although Becker relies on Rouget's pioneering study, almost twenty years of the difference between these studies has led to recent dialogues between anthropological and culturalist approaches on the one hand and psychological and biological research on the other. The paper will present contemporary outcomes of these debates in anthropology through recent approaches to ritual, in dance studies through the question of kinesthesia, in ethnomusicology through the affect theory, and interdisciplinary interactions between them as well.
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References
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Berrol, Cynthia. 2006. Mirror neurons, the therapeutic process and empathy. The Arts in Psychotherapy 33 (4): 302–15.
Becker, Judith. 1994. Music and trance. Leonardo Music Journal 4: 41–51.
—— 2004. Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion and Trancing. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
—— 2006. Rapture: Religious Ecstatics and „Deep Listeners“. Доступно на https://web.stanford.edu/group/brainwaves/2006/Becker-DeepListenersLecture.pdf [Приступљено 3.3.2018]
Blässing, Bettina, Martin Puttke and Thomas Schack, еds. 2010. The Neurocognition of Dance. Mind, Movement and Motor Skills. Howe and New York: Psychology Press.
Buckland, Fiona. 2002. Impossible Dance. Club Culture and Queer World-Making. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Calvo-Merino, Beatriz. 2010. „Neural mechanisms for seeing dance“. In The Neurocognition of Dance. Mind, Movement and Motor Skills, eds. Bettina Bläsing, Martin Puttke and Thomas Schack, 153-176. Howe and New York: Psychology Press.
Campbell, John and Alan Rew, еds. 1999. Identity and Affect: Experiences of Identity in a Globalizing World. London: Pluto Press.
Copeland, Roger. 1983. Postmodern dance postmodern architecture postmodernism. Performing Arts Journal 7 (1): 27–43.
Cross, Emily, Antonia Hamilton and Scott Grafton. 2006. Building a motor simulation de novo: Observation of dance by dancers. Neuroimage 31: 1257–1267.
Espinoza, Edouard. 1976. Ballet – Intermediate Syllabus & Technique of Operating Dancing by Espinoza. London: Hanbury, Tomsett.
Fabius, Jeroen. 2009. „Seeing the body move: Choreographic investigations of kinaesthetics at the end of the twentieth century“. In Contemporary Choreography. A Critical Reader, eds. Jo Butterworth and Liesbeth Wildschut, 331-46. London and New York: Routledge.
Foster, Susan. 2002. Dances that Describe Themselves: The Improvised Choreography of Richard Bull. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Foster, Susan. 2010. Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance. London and New York: Routledge.
Goldingay, Sarah. 2010. „To perform possession and to be possessed in performance: The actor, the medium and an ’Other”’. In Spirit Possession and Trance. New Interdisciplinary Perspectives, eds. Bettina Schmidt and Lucy Huskinson, 205-223. London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Hagendoorn, Ivar. 2011. Dance, Aesthetics and the Brain. Phd Diss., University of Tilburg.
Homann, Kalila. 2010. Embodied concepts of neurobiology in dance/movement therapy practice. American Journal of Dance Therapy 32(2): 80-99.
Kapchan, Deborah. 2008. The promise of sonic translation: Performing the festive sacred in Morocco. American Anthropologist 10 (4): 467–83.
Kapferer, Bruce, ed. 2002. Beyond Rationalism: Rethinking Magic, Witchcraft and Sorcery. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books.
Lowell, Lewis. 1995. Genre and embodiment: From Brazilian Capoeira to the ethnology of human movement. Cultural Anthropology 10 (2): 221–43.
Martin, John. 1965. Introduction to the Dance. New York: Dance Horizons.
Martin, Randy, 2012. A Precarious Dance, A Derivative Sociality. The Drama Review 56(4): 64-79.
Massumi, Brian. 2002. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.
McGarry, Lucy and Frank Russo. 2011. Mirroring in dance/movement therapy: Potential mechanisms behind empathy enhancement. The Arts in Psychotherapy 38 (3): 178–84.
Pashman, Susan. 2014. When the music moves you: Revisiting the classics in the company of neuroscience. Journal of Music and Dance 4(2): 10-24.
Ruže, Žilber. 1994. Muzika i Trans. Nacrt jedne opšte teorije muzike i opsednutosti. Sremski Karlovci: Izdavačka kuća Zorana Stojanovića,
Reynolds, Dee. 2007. Rhythmic Subjects: Uses of Energy in the Dances of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham. Alton, Hants: Dance Books.
Rizzolatti, Giacomo, Luciano Fadiga, Vittorio Gallese, and Leonardo Fogassi. 1996. Premotor cortex and the recognition of motor actions. Brain Research: Cognitive Brain Research 3: 131–141.
Santos Newhall, Mary Anne. 2009. Mary Wigman. London: Routledge.
Schmidt, Bettina and Lucy Huskinson. Eds. 2010. Spirit Possession and Trance. New Interdisciplinary Perspectives. London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Silverstein, Brian. 2007. “Sufism and modernity in Turkey: From the authenticity of experience to the practice of discipline”. In Sufism and the ‘Modern’ in Islam, eds. Julia D. Howell and Martin van Bruinessen, 39-61. London: I.B. Tauris and Co Ltd.
St John, Graham. ed. 2004. “Introduction”. In Rave Culture and Religion, ed. Graham St John, 1-17. London: Routledge.
Thrift, Nigel. 2004. Intensities of feeling: Towards a spatial politics of affect. Geografiska Annaler. Series B. Human Geography 86 (1): 57–78.
—— 2007. Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics. Affect, London: Routledge.
Thompson, James. 2009. Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Werbner, Pnina and Helene Basu. 1998. „The Embodiment of Charisma“. In Embodying Charisma: Modernity, Locality, and the Performance of Emotion in Sufi Cults, eds. Pnina Werbner and Helene Basu, 3-29. London: Routledge.
Winters, Allison. 2008. Emotion, Embodiment and Mirror Neurons in Dance/Movement Therapy. American Journal of Dance Therapy 30(2): 84-105.
Published
2018-12-29
How to Cite
Njaradi, D. (2018). Trance, Music and Dance – Old topics and new interdisciplinary dialogues. Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology, 13(4), 987–1005. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v13i4.5
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