A Meeting of Nations: Trans-Indigenous and Intercultural Interventions in Contemporary Indigenous Dance

Swain, Rachael

doi:10.1353/tj.2015.0093

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…9.There has been an exciting bustle of publication on Indigenous performance of late, including Graham and Penny (2014), especially Hokowhitu (2014), and the recent Theatre Journal special issue on “Trans-Indigenous Performance,” which also includes powerful work on Indigenous dance: see especially Swain (2015) and Shaka (2015). Swain discusses several performance practices engaged by choreographers in the Intercultural Indigenous Choreographic Laboratories that the company she co-directs, Marrugeku, have been involved with.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Editor's Note: Doing Indigenous Dance Today

Murphy¹

2016

Dance Res. J.

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To even begin to talk about "Indigenous Dance Today" trips the tongue before the mouth opens. What is Indigenous, 1 and how do we discuss it (whatever it is) in attentive awareness to complex and ongoing histories of location and dislocation, of seizing and selling, of invisibilization and incorporation, of trashing and taking, of treaties and translations and no treaties and no translations, of desire and disdain? What kinds of "Indigenous dance," and where? When is "today," and how is what's happening "today" in relation to "Indigenous" histories (in which colonizing violence first constituted "Indigenous" in the first place 2) and futurities? These are all old and new questions, in constant shift. Who is asking, and who is answering? Who is listening to the questions and answers, and who is not? How to begin, and to continue, without shutting up or shutting down? This journal issue has been taking shape over the past two years, in dance studios and board meetings and airports, around conference tables and coffee tables and dinner tables, on walks through gardens and up mountains in the Riverside region, in conversations and back-and-forths over email and Skype and phone. It is a delight to present it, and with its multiple voices and various kinds of contributions, to the field of dance studies. I have been working in the field of Indigenous dance studies for nearly two decades now, first focusing on the history of Indigenous dance in relation to modern dance history (Shea Murphy, 2007), and then for the past decade focusing an academic lens more intently on choreography being created and staged by Indigenous choreographers. That work is clearly ongoing. Along the way, I have seen the need for more scholarship, particularly by Indigenous scholars, on the topic of "Indigenous dance." That need is what sparked this issue. It was also sparked by a desire to support a focus on Indigenous dance as vibrantly alive today-not lost (despite narratives of loss), not absent (despite narratives of erasure), not colonized (despite narratives of colonization), but moving through, with, and beyond these narratives and also activating in layers outside of them: to cite Karyn Recollet, "jumping scale" out of them into other realms (and you'll have to read her essay, "Gesturing Futurities: 'Jumping Scale' through the Remix," herein, to find out more about what "jumping scale" can mean). So a desire to focus on Indigenous dance "today," not (only) as something that happened in the past (with the recognition that "today" and "the past," and notions of time in them, have their own reverberations: as Tanya Lukin Linklater writes in her Statement in this issue, "time can operate simultaneously in Indigenous ways of being-that past, present and future operate simultaneously"), propelled the issue as well. As one of my favorite writers, Leslie Marmon Silko (who seems to appear every time I sit down to say something about this all), writes, "That is the way it was back then, because it is the same even now." 3

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Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Editor's Note: Doing Indigenous Dance Today

Murphy¹

2016

Dance Res. J.

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Enveloping the Nonhuman: Australian Aboriginal Performance

Tait¹

2019

Theatre Journal

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Taera, Awenga: Sexuality, Power

Hamilton¹

2016

tekaharoa

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A Māori-Pasifika dance crew called Torotoro was formed in 2000 to help create a song and dance show called Mika HAKA.[1] The dancers were in their teenage years and early twenties. The show sought to amplify, for British stages, the burlesque performance of takataapui (gay Māori) identity, through which Mika (then aged 38) had carved out a unique niche for himself in the UK fringe festival circuit. I was his international collaborator, supporting creation, development and touring of Mika HAKA. On the surface, Mika HAKA was a flirtatious, sexualised, glamorous and just-about family-friendly reworking of the concert party show format that is the core of touristic renderings of Māori culture. At the same time, it integrated hip-hop and other contemporary pop references. This reflected Mika’s commitment to the juxtaposition of Māori-Pasifika performance with aesthetics and forms circulating globally as an expression of the complexities of (his) urban Māori identity. [1] Mika HAKA debuted 25 January 2001 at the Maidment Theatre, Auckland (New Zealand). Its international premiere was 1August 2002 at Dance Base – National Centre for Dance, Edinburgh (Scotland). The production toured widely in New Zealand, and in 2003 visited Adelaide (Australia), and revisited Edinburgh.

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A Meeting of Nations: Trans-Indigenous and Intercultural Interventions in Contemporary Indigenous Dance

Cited by 3 publications

References 4 publications

Editor's Note: Doing Indigenous Dance Today

Editor's Note: Doing Indigenous Dance Today

Enveloping the Nonhuman: Australian Aboriginal Performance

Taera, Awenga: Sexuality, Power

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