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Books > Arts & Architecture > Performing arts > Dance > Folk dancing
*The accompanying CD / downloadable album can also be purchased
from the Mike Ruff Music website and from The Endless Bookcase
website. This book looks at the practicalities of maypole dancing.
Designed for teachers with little or no experience of teaching
dance, the traditional dances are laid out in a clear and easy to
use format with photos, diagrams and a Dance at a Glance feature.
Maypole dancing is constantly changing and growing, and so a number
of modern dances are also included, graded from simple to
challenging. Issues of inclusivity, creativity and cross-curricular
work are addressed in detail, along with non-ribbon dances from the
Victorian and Tudor periods which are great for bringing history to
life. A website and lively CD complete the package. "Easy to use
manual, even for a novice" - Folkestone Primary Academy "This is an
excellent, clearly presented maypole teaching resource which is
attractively and thoughtfully presented, user-friendly and modern
in its outlook. I am very happy to recommend this for anyone
wanting the essential information on how to lead maypole dancing
with young people and adults alike." - Rachel Elliott, Education
Director, English Folk Dance and Song Society "This is the answer
to our prayers! A really well written book and entertaining music
CD to get people of all ages maypole dancing" - Paul James,
Formally Halsway Manor, National Centre for the Folk Arts *The
accompanying Maypole Manual Music album can be purchased as a CD or
as a download, or as single track downloads.
Koreans have been immigrating to the United States via Hawaii for
over a hundred years, although the greatest influx to the mainland
began after 1965, making Koreans one of the most recent ethnic
groups in the United States. The intimate socio-political links
between the United States and the Korean peninsula after World War
II also contributes to the ideas and ideals of what it means to be
Korean in the United States. As with many people with immigrant
background, young people of Korean descent residing in the United
States try to understand their ethnic identities through their
families, peers, and communities, and many of these journeys
involve participating in cultural activities that include
traditional dance, song, and other such performance activities.
This study is the culmination of a four-year ethnographic research
project on the cultural practices of a group of Koreans in the
United States pursuing the traditional Korean cultural art form of
pungmul in exploring their ethnic identities. Through the accesses
and opportunities afforded to the members of Mae-ari Korean
Cultural Troupe by the national and transnational networks with
other people of Korean descent, these young people begin to
understand themselves as "Korean" while teaching and learning
traditional Korean cultural practices in performances, workshops,
and everyday interactions with each other. Most studies about Asian
Americans focus on the immigration challenges, or the conflicts and
differences between generations. While these are important issues
that affect the lives of Asian Americans, it is also valuable to
focus on how new cultural identities are formed in the attempt to
hold on to the traditions of theimmigrant homeland . This research
pays close attention to how young people understand their
identities through cultural practices, regardless of generational
differences. The focus is on collective meaning-making about ethnic
identity across immigration statuses and generations. In
investigating their ways of being, author Sonya Gwak pays close
attention to the semiotic processes within the group that aid in
creating and cultivating notions of ethnic identity, especially in
the ways in which the notion of culture becomes indelibly linked
with "things" within and across the sites. Dr. Gwak also explores
the pedagogical processes within the group regarding how cultures
are objectified and transformed into tools of teaching and
learning. Finally, the study also reveals how people understand
their ethnic identities through direct and active engagement with,
experience of, and expression of "cultural objects." By looking at
the multiple forms of expressing ethnic identity, this study shows
how the young people in Mae-ari locate themselves within the time
and space of Korean history, Korean American history, activism,
performing arts, and tradition. This study argues that ethnic
identity formation is a process that is rooted in cultural
practices contextualized in social, political, and cultural
histories. This book advances the field of ethnic and immigrant
studies by offering a new framework for understanding the multiple
ways in which young people make sense of their identities.
Be(com)ing Korean in the United States is an important book for all
collections in Asian American studies, as well as ethnic and
immigrant studies.
Considering the concept of power in capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian
ritual art form, Varela describes ethnographically the importance
that capoeira leaders (mestres) have in the social configuration of
a style called Angola in Bahia, Brazil. He analyzes how individual
power is essential for an understanding of the modern history of
capoeira, and for the themes of embodiment, play, cosmology, and
ritual action. The book also emphasizes the great significance that
creativity and aesthetic expression have for capoeira's practice
and performance.
This book provides the first critical and contextual study of
contemporary and historical dance theatre in Ireland. Since the
arrival of the traditional dance spectacular Riverdance in 1994,
Irish dance has not only become a topic of global interest, but
also a subject of heated debate. The emergence of companies such as
CoisCeim Dance Theatre and Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre in the
mid-1990s marked an important turning point in Irish dance practice
that once again provoked a re-thinking of the perception of the
dancing body and its position within Irish performance culture.
McGrath's study examines how groundbreaking dance theatre works
have tackled some of the most urgent and difficult socio-political
and cultural questions in Ireland, and how in doing so they have
re-imagined seemingly hermetic narratives of oppression and
limiting definitions of 'Irish' corporeality. This study provides a
timely reading of these revolutionary moves.
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