The intricacies of Being Israeli and Yemenite. An Ethnographic Study of Yemenite “Ethnic” Dance Companies in Israel
Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: Focusing on the work of Yemenite “ethnic” dance companies in Israel, this article aims to understand how issues such as a shift in collective representations come to be invested into dance practices. In other words, it discusses how artistic creation and identity reconfigurations happen to associate in a dance form, and how an ethnographic study of dance practices and their contexts of performance may be a valuable way of accessing the dynamics of self-positioning of a group within the surrounding society. Linking together “classical” ethnography, analysis of dance products, and socio-political contextualisation, the present analysis shows that the articulation of two apparently contradictory ways of building these companies’ repertoire allows Yemenite dancers, choreographers, and also internal audience, to assume in one single dance form a sense of “being Yemenite” whilst not giving up the national dimension of their Israeli identity.
Source: Qualitative Sociology Review
Author: Marie-Pierre Gibert
Institution: University of Southampton
Language: English
Topic: Arts and Performance Studies
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4206249000