Ethnomusicology

History, Definitions, and Scope: A Core Collection of Scholarly Articles

Kay Kaufman Shelemay

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136509728
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

This anthology of 25 scholarly articles offers a broad historical overview of the history, definition, and scope of ethnomusicology. The essays range from early summaries of the field's subject matter and state of research to later, comprehensive discussions spanning the discipline at large, its intellectual history, and future prospects. Ethnomusicology surveys the field, its methods, philosophy, and goals, and is well-suited for use as an introductory text.
SPECIAL FEATURES
The study of non-Western, or world music, which is the subject of this anthology, is currently one of the hottest areas in music education *
Covers key historical, methodological, and theoretical topics from the early part of the century to the mid-1980s, providing a scholarly overview to research topics. *
Collects in a single volume articles that come from a wide variety of sources.
Suitable for Courses in
Ethnomusicology/Multiculturalism in Music, Introduction to Music, Music History, World Music, Cultural and Social Anthropology, Folk Music, and Folklore and Myth.

Panorama of Dance Ethnology

by Gertrude Prokosch Kurath

APPROACH

DANCE as a reaction to life has a long tradition that encircles the globe. Dance ethnology, however, has come into being only within the last few decades. Though studies of dances are to date still individualistic and experimental, the literature as a whole is comprehensive enough so that the time is ripe for a co-ordination of the many different approaches.

COVERAGE AND GAPS

In the course of time, dances from probably every corner of the globe, as well as relevant customs now long vanished, have found their way into literature, for the most part in travelogues or sociological works. The literature of accurate description or analysis falls almost entirely within the last fifty years, and is now also respectable in quantity.

European dance ethnology received impetus from the research of Cecil Sharp in England, early in the twentieth century. Today all European countries can boast large, and sometimes systematic, government-sponsored collections of folk dances, particularly England and the Balkans. The names of the scholars who are most prominent in this work will appear often in the following pages. Wolfram further cites for Austria the work, of Ilka Peter, Herbert Lager, and, as the “grand old man,” Raimund Zoder; Hans von der Au and Felix Hoerburger, in Germany; Bianca Maria Galanti, in Italy; and Joan Amades and Aurelio Capmany in Catalonia.¹

While the huge territory of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had seemed to be represented only by scattered reports of popular dances in anthologies, the ethnologist, I.I. Potekhin, sent (Dec. 12, 1958) a list of 139 bibliographical items which starts with the year 1848 and reaches to the present time. It includes anonymous surveys dealing with the dances of the U.S.S.R. (Tantsi Narodov SSSR), and many items containing choreographies and music of special regions, for instance, Azerbaijan (Almasadze 1930) and Moldavia (Onegina 1938). Accounts of Russian dances have been published in Berlin (Moiseyev 1951), Sophia (Okuneva 1951), Prague (Berdychova 1951), and Yakutsk, Siberia (Zhornitzkaya 1956). Further titles and an appraisal will appear in a 1960 issue of Ethnomusicology.

Labanotation, a technique of dance notation described below, under “Second Circuit,” is in full swing in Europe. According to Knust, who terms it “Kinetography Laban,”

CERTRUDE PROKOSCH KURATH is Co-ordinator of the Dance Research Center in Ann Arbor. Michigan, U.S.A. She was born in 1903 and educated at Bryn Mawr College (M.A., 1928. History of Art) and at the Yale University School of Drama (1929–30) in the U.S. She also received extensive training in music practice and theory, and in several systems of art dance as well as folk dancing, in Germany and the U.S. From 1923 to 1946, she was active as teacher of Modern Dance, as concert performer, and as producer of pageants and dance dramas. Some of her choreographic compositions were based on research in European dances of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and in American Indian and jazz dance. Since 1946, KURATH has contrated on dance ethnology and ethnomusicology. Her research has included field work among the Aztec, Otomí. Tarascan, and Yaqui Indians of Mexico, and the Iroquois, Cherokee, Ottawa, Chippewa, Menomini, Fox, Tewa, and Kcresan Indians of North America. Among her many articles and coauthored books, she wrote the dance entries for the Dictionary of folklore, Mythology and Legend, and articles on dance for the Encyclopedia Americana and the Encyclopaedia Britannica; she is also dance consultant for Webster’s New International Dictionary.

In June of 1958, KURATH accepted a suggestion from the editor that she write a survey of dance ethnology for CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY. To supplement her data on certain parts of the world, she embarked on eighteen months of correspondence with scholars in various countries. She received answers, information, ideas, manuscripts, reprints, or illustrations from the following correspondents: Renato Almeida, Henry R. Baldrey, Franziska Boas, Donald Brown, Richard L. Castner, Nadia Chilkovsky, Dance Notation Bureau of New York, Edward Dozier, Blanche Evan, William N. Fenton, Josefina Garcia, Erna Gunther, William Holm, Katrine A. Hooper. James H. Howard, Shirley W. Kaplan, Maud Karpeles, Joann Kealiinohomoku, Juana de Laban, Portia Mansfield, Samuel Martí, David P. McAllester, George P. Murdock, I.I. Potekhin, Curt Sachs, Ted Shawn, Estelle Titiev, Frank Turley, K. P. Wachsmann, and Richard Wolfram. Wolfram’s contributions were especially substantial.

The first version of this survey, submitted on September 30. 1958, took the form of a symposium among correspondents. By July, 1959, at the suggestion of the Editor, it had taken the present form of an essay, which was then sent for additional CA☆ treatment to eight scholars of whom the following returned comments: Erna Gunther, Fred Eggan, James H. Howard, T.F.S. McFeat, Ted Shawn, and Richard Wolfram. Only contributions of these final commentators are identified by a star. The author and editors wish to express their thanks to the many correspondents and commentators who collaborated on this manuscript.

The exchange of books of Hungarian folk dances containing motifs and whole dances written in Kinetography, against copies of my book and the scores of dances published by my Institute in Essen, is continuing…. We have received orders from both Eastern and Western Germany, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Holland, Sweden [for] scores of national and historic dances [1956a].

In Yugoslavia, the Laban system was introduced by Prof. Pino Mlakar … the Yugoslav folklore institute has accepted Kinetography as the official method of notation. The first collection of Yugoslav dance scores written in the Laban system has been published.

In Hungary, due to the energetic work of Emma Lugossy and Maria Szentpal … the Corpus Musicae Popularis Hungaricae contains a large section in Kinetography, and several folk dance collections containing scores have recently been published. In Poland, Prof. Stanislaw Glowacki advanced the cause of Kinetography in the thirties, and recently a Kinetography group has been formed under the leadership of folklorist Roderyck Lange of Thorn … teachers of Kinetography have been trained at the Kinetographisches Institut, Diana Baddeley from Great Britain, Helmut Kluge from West Germany, and Ingeborg Baier from East Germany [1958a].

According to Juana de Laban (letter, Sept. 19, 1958), the Surrey Laban Art of Movement Centre has published national dances of Yugoslavia, Israel, and Austria.²

In Asia it is the dances of India which have received most study, especially the art forms, although lately the folk dances have been described as well. In other parts of Asia, save in Bali, theater dances rather than remote folk forms have drawn attention. Dances of Oceania need systematic study, except for the hula. Australian aboriginal dance has been reported only in ethnographic studies; a team of trained dancers produced a ballet and travel book about Australia instead of a much-needed analysis (Dean and Carell 1955).

The spectacular dances of Africa have been studied piecemeal, in connection with research on music. K. P. Wachsmann, a leading musicologist, is optimistic that his new role as Scientific Officer of Anthropology at the Wellcome House, London, will lead to an integration of music and dance study, at any rate in Uganda (letter, Oct. 20, 1958).

In the Americas, most publications use verbal description only. But there are centers of Labanotation in Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile (Solari 1958), and in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and other cities of the United States. Andrew Pearse is trying to elevate the prevailing approach toward Caribbean dance from sensational journalism to serious folklore study. In South American countries, folklorists are feverishly collecting and interpreting not only popular dances but also acculturated and indigenous rites expressed in dance. Especially in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia, they have been aided both in research and in publication by government agencies. Remote tribes, however, are generally left to ethnologists, missionaries, and adventurers. In Mexico, research has progressed spasmodically, depending on Government attitudes, since a boom in 1922. A recent bibliography of Latin American dances includes a detailed account of research activities and sponsors (Lekis 1958).

The bulk of the dance publications in the United States deal with European folk dances or European derivatives such as squares and longways, and some favorites appear repeatedly. But Latin American dances are now popular in dancing schools, and jazz dance, until recently relegated to collections of ballroom dances, is rising to the status of subject for serious research. Dances of the American Indian have been included in a number of ethnographic accounts, though, unfortunately, choreographers were not engaged by the dance-enthusiast Speck, or by the great teams that studied the Plains Sun Dance and Societies, under Clark Wissler and Robert H. Lowie. Further, Mason (1944) and others initiated a great vogue for distorted Indian dances among countless groups of Boy Scouts and interpretive dancers.

In Canada, the disparate British, French, and Indian traditions have been discussed together in popular 1ectures by Barbeau. Also, there is a miniature manual of French quadrilles (Lambert n.d.) and a book of children’s rounds (Barbeau et al. 1958). Other anthropologists have investigated some of the native tribes in the vast interior expanses of the country. Some repeatedly beat a trail through Six Nations Reserve, and a choreographer followed in their wake (e.g., Speck 1949; Kurath 1951, 1954, MSc, d). On the West Coast. William Holm is justifying Erna Gunthers encouragement in the reconstruction of Kwakiutl dances. Despite picturesque accounts by ethnographers, choreographers have not ventured into the Eskimo’s bleak habitat. As the shamanistic ceremonies and mimetic festivals retreat before the white man’s ways, chances for comparisons with the also unstudied dances of the Arctic fade, and chances for the analysis of Eskimo square dances improve.

OBJECTIVES OF DANCE ETHNOLOGY

Notwithstanding the energetic collecting of folk dances within the last fifty years, we have but now arrived at a point where we can begin to define lot dance ethnology the subject matter, the scope, and the procedures of this emerging discipline. So far, the views of its devotees are characterized by diversity and much disagreement.

The first question that requires discussion is: What is the subject matter of dance ethnology?

Ethnology deals with a great variety of kinetic activities, many of them expressive, rhythmical, and esthetically pleasing. Would choreology, the study of dance, include all types of motor behavior or only restricted categories? If the latter, what identifies “dance.” which uses the same physical equipment and follows the same laws of weight, balance, and dynamics as do walking, working, playing, emotional expression, or communication? The border line has not been precisely drawn. Out of ordinary motor activities dance selects, heightens of subdues, juggles gestures and steps to achieve a pattern, and does this with a purpose transcending utility. When walking attains a pattern, it becomes a processional, which is treated as dance by Wolfram (1951: 54–56). Kennedy (1949: 84–90), and others. A utilitarian activity like...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Acknowledgments
• Copyright
• Introduction
• Contents
• The Science of Exotic Music
• The Study of Indian Music in the Nineteenth Century
• Study of Native Music in America
• Systematic Musicology: Viewpoints, Orientations, and Methods
• Toward a Definition of Ethnomusicology
• Historical Aspects of Ethnomusicology
• Whither Ethnomusicology?
• Ethnomusicology, Discussion and Definition of the Field
• Panorama of Dance Ethnology
• Contribution de l’ethnomusicologie à l’histoire de la musique
• Ethnomusicology, the Field, and the Society
• Preface to the Critique of Music
• Ethnomusicology and the History of Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Two Paradigms for Music: A Short History of Ideas in Ethnomusicology
• Ethnomusicological Research and Anthropology
• Ethnomusicology Today
• The State of Research in Ethnomusicology, and Recent Developments
• Ethnomusicology and Visual Communication
• Should Ethnomusicology Be Abolished?
• Definitions of ‘Comparative Musicology’ and ‘Ethnomusicology’: An Historical-Theoretical Perspective
• Probleme, Methoden und Ziele der Ethnomusikologie
• Ethnic Music, the Urban Area, and Ethnomusicology
• Ethnomusicology: A Discipline Defined
• Preserving World Musics: Perspectives from New Zealand and Oceania
• Acknowledgments