Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The first in-depth analysis of state-sponsored, professional dance ensembles.

Winner of the Congress on Research in Dance's (CORD) Outstanding Publication Award (2003)

Over the past fifty years national dance companies from Turkey, Egypt, Mexico, Greece, the former USSR and Croatia have dominated concert stages throughout the world. Anthony Shay makes coherent sense of these national programs, which have previously received scant academic attention. Specifically, he looks at the ways through which these companies spread political, ethnic and cultural messages by accruing symbolic and cultural capital for their respective nation-states. In his analysis, Shay draws on cultural studies, political science and anthropology to create a work that cuts across disciplines.

As the first book to address the topic of state-sponsored folk dance ensembles and their structures, Choreographic Politics examines the repertoires, performances and choreographic strategies of these companies within the political, social, gendered and ethnic contexts in which each company was created. In addition, Shay's study includes a look at music, costumes, and various artistic directors and choreographers.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Ethnicity and Nationalism
• Parallel Traditions: State Folk Dance Ensembles and Folk Dance in the Field
• Anatomy of a Dance Company
• The Moiseyev Dance Company: Ancestor of the Genre
• Bballet Folklorico: Viva Mexico!
• LADO, Ensemble of Folk Dances and Songs of Croatia: Proper Peasants
• Egypt: Bazaar of Dance
• Greece: Dora Stratou Greek Dances Theatre, A Living Museum
• Turkish State Folk Dance Ensemble: The Last of the Great Ensembles
• Conclusion: The Power of Representation
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

For this welcome addition to the literature on folk dance ensembles Shay (also author of Choreophobia: Solo Improvised Dance in the Iranian World, 1999) draws on his 40-plus-year association as choreographer, performer, and researcher working with such groups. Using studies of six state folk dance ensembles, the author analyzes how performances reveal issues of representation. Specifically, he explores how choreographic strategies represent ethnic groups and nation-states, demonstrating how these danced representations reveal and forward class, ethnic, political, and social issues germane to national discourses. Discussions of the ways that groups have been stereotyped or excluded to achieve political imperatives are also included. Two chapters are of special import: one explores the parallel traditions of state folk ensembles and folk dance in the field; the other establishes the framework by which the companies in the study are analyzed. Shay's writing is clear and well documented; his devotion to his subject is evident and engaging. The book will be a useful model, particularly for undergraduate students with an interest in further dance ethnology research. Including articulate notes, an extensive bibliography, and 26 well-chosen black-and-white photographs, it is recommended for upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. S. E. Friedler Swarthmore College