• Thursday, 19th May,
Dr.Marie-Pierre Gibert, University Lumière Lyon 2 (France)
“Display, Preserve, Attract:Performance logics in some Yemenite dance troupes in Israel”
Time/Space: 6pm-7.30pm, Froebel campus, Grove House, at Terrace Room (GH004)
Created in the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called “Ethnic dance troupes” (lehakot etniot) intend to exhibit the rich cultural heritage (music, dance, costumes) of some of the many groups composing the Israeli society: Jews from Yemen, Morocco, Kurdistan, Libya, Iraq, or India, but also Palestinians, Druzes or Circassians. By displaying elements of their culture to a wide audience (in Israel and beyond), these troupes have participated to an important political claim of the 1970s in Israel: to be recognized and treated as equal to other parts of the population (Jews from Europe in particular) of this multicultural State.
My research, conducted in Israel for the last twenty years, have focused on the dance repertoires of Jews coming (or whose parents/grandparents came) from Yemen during the 20th century. This presentation intends to show how the repertoires they brought from Yemen have been used to construct the various performances of some Yemenite Ethnic dance troupes within this political framework of cultural recognition, and later, preservation. The modes of stage exhibition each Ethnic dance troupe has developed seem in tension between two antagonist poles: (1) keep everything identical to what was done (or supposedly so) in Yemen; (2) present the elements to satisfy an audience. Hence, they have created dances (or scenes) following two logics that I have named “pedagogical” and “aesthetic”. More recently (2010s), a third parameter has become important as well: the need to attract young dancers to participate to the shows. Hence, turning their gaze towards the future of the dance troupe, dancers and leaders are proceeding to some transformation of the show performed on stage.
Biography:
Dr. Marie-Pierre Gibert is Assistant Professor in Social Anthropology at the University Lumière Lyon 2 (France) and the coordinator of the European joint Master in Anthropology “Cultural Differences and Transnational Processes” (CREOLE) at this University. She is a member of the research Centre Environment-Ville-Société - EVS (UMR 5600 - CNRS). Her doctoral research (EHESS Paris 2004) addressed the role of dance in constructing identities, in the specific context of the creation of a Nation-State (Israel). As a postdoctoral Research fellow, she embarked in a UK-based project exploring transnational networks of musicians between Africa and Europe (TNMundi – U. of Southampton/AHRC, UK). Working on the articulation between the use of dance and music practices on one hand, and contexts of nationalism, transnational mobility, collective mobilisation, and/or tourism on the other hand, she became interested in the questions of Work and Professional Identities that emerged from these various research projects. Her publications on the topic of her talk include: Gibert, M.-P. 2020. « Danse », Anthropen.org, Paris: Éditions des archives contemporaines. (DOI : https://doi.org/10.47854/IHBQ4396); « Façonner le corps, régénérer l’individu et danser la Nation » (Parcours Anthropologiques, n°9, 2014) ; « The intricacies of being Israeli and Yemenite. An Ethnographic Study of Yemenite “Ethnic” Dance Companies in Israel » (Qualitative Sociology Review. III/ 3, December 2007).
Should you have any questions, please contact the organiser: Dr. Chi-fang Chao (Dance, [log in to unmask])
On behalf of CRACE,
Dr. Tamara Tomić-Vajagić
Senior Lecturer in Dance and Visual Culture
CRACE Research Centre Events and Communications Co-coordinator
Pure research profile: https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/tamara-tomic-vajagic
School of Arts, University of Roehampton
David Bell Building 030, Digby Stuart College
London | SW15 15PH | www.roehampton.ac.uk
[log in to unmask]
she/her
########################################################################
To unsubscribe from the DANCEHE list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=DANCEHE&A=1
This message was issued to members of www.jiscmail.ac.uk/DANCEHE, a mailing list hosted by www.jiscmail.ac.uk, terms & conditions are available at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/
|