Unanesthetized rats with chronic venous catheters show a diurnal increase in plasma corticosteroid levels at 5 pm over those noted at 9 and 10 am and 3 pm. At 10 am, 1 hour after the injection of morphine via the catheter, a 390% increase in plasma corticosteroid levels was noted. Eight hours after injection of morphine these levels were depressed 51% when compared with saline-injected controls. Results indicate morphine initially elicits a hypersecretion of ACTH by direct activation of the pituitary-adrenal axis and not via sensory stimulation accompanying the stress of intravenous injection of the drug. A secondary effect of morphine, inhibitory in action, appears exerted on neurogenic factors regulating diurnal variation in plasma corticosteroid levels.

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Listening to the work presented at the 2001 meeting of the Congress on Research in Dance, “Transmigratory Moves,” one could not help noticing that both established and emerging dance scholars were in the process of attempting to find a fuller and more accurate way of understanding the relationship between global political and economic forces and movement praxis. The following articles (all extended versions of work presented at the conference) exemplify different aspects of these new initiatives in our field. As Shanti Pillai points out in her piece, the term “globalization” has tended to provoke two kinds of responses: either panic over the global imposition of American corporate culture, or else celebration of cultural hybridity and the resilience of indigenous forms. Both of these responses can often present a reductive view of what are, in fact, highly complex phenomena. All three of the articles presented here attempt a more nuanced narrative of the effects of traveling choreographic and movement practices.

Nearly twenty years ago, I took a graduate seminar on postcolonial theory with Edward Said in the Department of Comparative Literature at Yale University. It was a heady experience: competitive grad students and young faculty members vied for his imperious (I realize the irony of the word in reference to Said!) attentions. We read novels—potent, searing, difficult novels—alongside some of the theorists of political struggle who would indelibly alter my understanding of what cultural resistance could mean. Said's recent death, which of course coincided with a period of distressing shifts in political tides, has placed pressure on those of us engaged with cultural analysis to probe even more deeply the significance of anticolonial struggle in cultural forms. As a dance scholar, I have found myself reflecting on the ways in which postcolonial theory might inform my understanding of the power of choreography to affect political change—but also on the ways in which dance can inform our readings of postcolonial theory.

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