Moreška, is a traditional sword dance originating from Korčula, a town on the Croatian island of the same name in the Adriatic. This centuries-old performance features two groups of dancers engaged in a choreographed battle over the destiny of a veiled young woman. Initially reserved for special events, the Moreška is now performed weekly for tourists. The dance historically depicted a conflict between Moors and Christians, reminiscent of the Spanish Reconquista battles during the Middle Ages. However, in the 19th century, the sides in Korčula transitioned to Croats versus Moors, or simply identified as "White" and "Black," with the non-Moor faction emerging as the victor. History: The Moreška in Korčula can be traced back to at least the mid-17th century, with its origins rooted in the Middle Ages and the prolonged clashes between Muslims and Christians (Moros y cristianos) in Spain. Catalonia, in particular, has a traditional dance known as La Morisca de Gerri de la Sal, which dates back to the Reconquista era. Numerous European festivals and events have their foundations in this historical period. By the 16th century, the concept of mock battles with a conquest theme spread to the Americas and other regions under Spanish influence. The rendition performed in Korčula is unique in modern times for its use of soldiers (Moreškanti) wielding two swords each during the elaborate dance battles.
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Dance isn't for just entertainment or for pleasing Gods. It's a powerful way to communicate when communication by other means is restricted. Throughout history, dancers have indeed been known to use their art form as a means of covert communication. Dance was used to convey messages during our struggle for independence too. Telugu folks can relate to Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy film. Here are a few instances where dancers may have conveyed secrets in plain sight: 1. Native American Ghost Dance: While not exactly in front of enemies, this late 19th-century spiritual dance was sometimes performed to secretly communicate and unite tribes against European American expansion. 2. Cuban Rumba: During the era of slavery in Cuba, enslaved Africans would use rumba dancing to communicate messages and plans for escape, often right under the noses of their captors. 3. Brazilian Capoeira: Originally developed by enslaved Africans in Brazil, capoeira combined martial arts with dance and music to disguise fighting techniques as harmless entertainment. 4. Flamenco in Spain: During the Spanish Inquisition, some believe that persecuted groups used elements of flamenco to communicate secretly. 5. Medieval court dances: There are stories of courtiers using intricate dance steps and hand gestures to convey political messages during formal balls. 6. World War II swing dancing: Some accounts suggest that resistance members used swing dancing to pass information in occupied territories. 7. Traditional Filipino dances: Some Filipino dances are said to have been used to convey messages of resistance during Spanish colonial rule.
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" Dance Of Thousand - Hand Guan Yin " Thousand Hand Guan Yin is a dance created by Chinese choreographer Zhang Jigang. This dance describes the legend that Bodhisattva Guan Yin has one thousand hands. Thousand Hand Guan Yin dance became one of the most popular Chinese dance in the world. Guan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion, revered by Buddhists as the Goddess of Mercy. The name Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin which means "Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World". She is also sometimes referred to as Guanyin Pusa. The thousand hands of this bodhisattva represent Guan Yin's many abilities to render assistance. There are a thousand eyes on these hands which give Guan Yin great powers to observe the world.
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China traditional customs,“Lion Dance” Lion Dance is a traditional art form that incorporates physical training commonly associated with martial arts and ascetic expressionsIt is a folk show performed by one or two persons wrapped around with lion skin costume. Like the dragon lantern dance, lion dance is usually performed during the Chinese New Year and other Chinese traditional, cultural and religious festivals. It may also be performed at important occasions such as business opening events, special celebrations or wedding ceremonies, or may be used to entertain special guests by the Chinese communities. The Chinese lion dance is often mistakenly referred to asdragon dance. An easy way to tell the differences is that a lion is normally operated by one or two dancers, while a dragon neednany people. Alsoin a lion dance, the performers facase only seen occasionally, since they are inside the lion. In a dragon dance, the performers faces can be easily seen since the dragon is held on poles.
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African traditional Dance In African societies, dance serves a complex diversity of social purposes. Within an indigenous dance tradition, each performance usually has a principal as well as a number of subsidiary purposes, which may express or reflect the communal values and social relationships of the people. In order to distinguish between the variety of dance styles, therefore, it is necessary to establish the purpose for which each dance is performed.
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Professional Dancer | Dancemaker & Director | Entertainer & Erotic Artist | Facilitator | Thought Leader
How often do you think about what is going on under the ground? Once I started, I couldn't stop! I'm delighted to announce that I am now developing a dance work around this theme. I'm currently here in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada doing a research residency as part of Young Lungs Dance Exchange 2024 Serpentine Whispers artist in residence program - "The Research Residency is designed to support the kinesthetic and choreographic inquiries of artists from all disciplines engaging in dance and/or movement-based research, providing resources such as artists’ fees, studio space, and public presentation opportunities." If you'd like to receive indepth updates about the artistic process and a free, one-on-one zoom session with me, please show your support for the process via tax-deductible donation: https://lnkd.in/gbr7Hv-m While here in Winnipeg, I will be working on creating choreography, based on research and the pre-existing dance film we created. The provocation: What is a ritual? It is how we prevent death. It is how we become aware of the experience of life. Rituals connect us directly to other living beings, in particular plants. Our most basic rituals are the simple and profound acts that we repeat everyday. We empty our lungs. We release our bladders and bowels. We sweat from our pores. We cut our nails and style our hair. We exfoliate our skin and clean our teeth. We rent our face. All are mundane, all are elevated moments of spirituality. Each gesture delays our decay and creates the nourishment for the rhizome. Our rituals produce co2, water, and fertilizers for the rhizome. The rhizome graciously receives these offerings. What does the process of the receipt sound like? What likely unperceivable to us movements does the rhizome make, each and every root, depending on what it is receiving? Can we even begin to perceive the depth of its way of sensing, sounding and dancing? And what of the beings who knowingly and unknowingly, willingly and unwillingly transport the discarded parts of our being?
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Retired Personnel Director at Los Angeles Unified School District | Founder/CEO of Saved2Serve Ministries
🌟💃 Elevate Your Dance Ministry with Expert Consultations! 💃🌟 Are you ready to take your dance ministry to new heights? Our Dance Ministry Consultations are designed to help you unlock the full potential of your ministry and create impactful and inspiring experiences for your community. With our tailored guidance, Dr. Janalyn Glymph will work closely with you to understand your unique goals, vision, and challenges. Together, we'll develop personalized strategies to enhance the impact and effectiveness of your dance ministry. Whether you're seeking assistance with choreography, staging, or overall artistic direction, our consultations provide valuable insights and techniques to help you elevate your performances and create captivating visual experiences that leave a lasting impression. At Saved2Serve Ministries, we believe that dance is a powerful medium to express faith and spirituality. We will help you infuse your ministry with a deeper sense of spiritual connection, ensuring that every movement portrays the message of God's love and grace. But it doesn't stop there! We understand that thriving ministries engage and inspire their community. Our consultations equip you with innovative ideas and strategies to connect with your audience, create meaningful outreach programs, and foster a sense of unity and belonging. Let's elevate your ministry together! Book a Dance Ministry Consultation today and let us help you create impactful and transformative experiences through the power of dance. ✨ Visit our website and click the link in our bio to learn more and schedule your consultation. Together, let's dance with purpose and spread the joy of faith through movement! ✨ #DanceMinistryConsultations #DanceWithPurpose #ElevateYourMinistry #Saved2ServeMinistries
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🌟💃 Elevate Your Dance Ministry with Expert Consultations! 💃🌟 Are you ready to take your dance ministry to new heights? Our Dance Ministry Consultations are designed to help you unlock the full potential of your ministry and create impactful and inspiring experiences for your community. With our tailored guidance, Dr. Janalyn Glymph will work closely with you to understand your unique goals, vision, and challenges. Together, we'll develop personalized strategies to enhance the impact and effectiveness of your dance ministry. Whether you're seeking assistance with choreography, staging, or overall artistic direction, our consultations provide valuable insights and techniques to help you elevate your performances and create captivating visual experiences that leave a lasting impression. At Saved2Serve Ministries, we believe that dance is a powerful medium to express faith and spirituality. We will help you infuse your ministry with a deeper sense of spiritual connection, ensuring that every movement portrays the message of God's love and grace. But it doesn't stop there! We understand that thriving ministries engage and inspire their community. Our consultations equip you with innovative ideas and strategies to connect with your audience, create meaningful outreach programs, and foster a sense of unity and belonging. Let's elevate your ministry together! Book a Dance Ministry Consultation today and let us help you create impactful and transformative experiences through the power of dance. ✨ Visit our website and click the link in our bio to learn more and schedule your consultation. Together, let's dance with purpose and spread the joy of faith through movement! ✨ #DanceMinistryConsultations #DanceWithPurpose #ElevateYourMinistry #Saved2ServeMinistries
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‘The variety of dance items and movement patterns within today’s Kathak are witness to its syncreticism - this is not an art form that can be traced to a single origin but a recent and ongoing fusion of a number of north Indian performance traditions.’ - Margaret Walker #SahaPerformingArts | Kathak is commonly regarded as one of the eight state-recognised classical dances of India. Although it is commonly accepted that Kathak originated in the temples of ancient India, one finds evidence of dance and music forms that, in some aspects, resemble modern-day Kathak in 16th–17th century paintings, murals and miniature paintings. Today, Kathak enjoys immense popularity locally as well as globally, and the range that it covers—from dance dramas to theme-based compositions—is very vast and versatile. Siddhi Goel explores the aesthetics, history and evolution of the dance form: https://lnkd.in/dqVGirye #India #IncredibleIndia #Kathak #Dance #IndianDances #ClassicalDance #Culture
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Hey Connections 😄 I am happy to share my Article about DANCE. #snsinstitution #snsdesignthinkers #snsdesignthinking Dance, the movement of the body in a rhythmic way, usually to music and within a given space, for the purpose of expressing an idea or emotion, releasing energy, or simply taking delight in the movement itself. Dance is a powerful impulse, but the art of dance is that impulse channeled by skillful performers into something that becomes intensely expressive and that may delight spectators who feel no wish to dance themselves. These two concepts of the art of dance—dance as a powerful impulse and dance as a skillfully choreographed art practiced largely by a professional few—are the two most important connecting ideas running through any consideration of the subject. In dance, the connection between the two concepts is stronger than in some other arts, and neither can exist without the other Although the above broad definition covers all forms of the art, philosophers and critics throughout history have suggested different definitions of dance that have amounted to little more than descriptions of the kind of dance with which each writer was most familiar. Thus, Aristotle’s statement in the Poetics that dance is rhythmic movement whose purpose is “to represent men’s characters as well as what they do and suffer” refers to the central role that dance played in classical Greek theatre, where the chorus through its movements reenacted the themes of the drama during lyric interludes. The aesthetics of dance Basic motives: self-expression and physical release One of the most basic motives of dance is the expression and communication of emotion. People—and even certain animals—often dance as a way of releasing powerful feelings, such as sudden accesses of high spirits, joy, impatience, or anger. These motive forces can be seen not only in the spontaneous skipping, stamping, and jumping movements often performed in moments of intense emotion, but also in the more formalized movements of “set” dances, such as tribal war dances or festive folk dances. Here the dance helps to generate emotions as well as release them.
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