Sitting dance

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Sitting dance is a dance performed while sitting , which can be used for entertainment, or have a ritual or therapeutic function. All seating positions as cross-legged , kneel on the floor or sitting in a chair are possible. The locality, which only allows movements of the upper body, can be compensated for by gestures (a special language with the hands) and facial expressions (e.g. eye movements).

Traditional seated dance

Sitting dance on the Fiji Islands
ʻOtuhaka. Sitting dance in Tonga

Sitting dances are traditionally found in many cultures, they are common in the South Pacific . There are seat dances also in sub-Saharan Africa and in Islamic North Africa.

Sitting dances are possible individually, as a couple or in groups. In group dances, the participants sit in a row, in a circle or in a rectangular formation on the ground and at the same time perform various rhythmic movements with arms, hands and upper body. It is often sung. As in the Vakamalolo group dance in Fiji, the dancers can turn 90 degrees during the performance so that they are facing or facing away from the audience. Examples of sitting dances are:

Pacific islands

  • In the tradition of the hula in Hawai'i there are dances that are performed while sitting and are known as hula noho .
  • In siva , the national dance in Samoa , the dancers sit in a circle around the village maiden who is standing in their midst, who acts as the pre-dancer. Activities such as fishing or rowing are imitated with pantomime movements of the hands and upper body. Group dances are known from the Marshall Islands , which are performed on the knees with the torso swaying to the side and arms straight.
  • On the island of Yap , part of Micronesia , women specialize in a seated dance, while boys and men dance standing with sticks.
  • ʻOtuhaka is a mixed group dance cross-legged on the South Sea island of Tonga . Another sitting dance in Tonga is the ma'ulu'ulu . Both dances are accompanied at certain sections by chants and the large kettle drum nafa .
  • On the Tuvalu islands, onga was a woman's seated dance for happy events, in which men occasionally also took part, while fakanu , on the other hand, mostly men danced for everyone, even on sad occasions. The accompanying choir was rhythmically supported by the slit drum pate , blows of a fan on the flat hand or by clapping hands. Fatele used to be another sitting dance on some islands, which was performed by five to six women sitting or kneeling while other women and men sang in choir. The current form of the fatele is a standing dance and an essential part of the music of Tuvalu , in which a large number of women or girls stand in one or two rows and make synchronous movements with the upper body and hands similar to those in the seated dance. In front of them men and boys sit on the floor and sing Christian texts to European melodies in a choir.

Indonesia

  • In Bali , the kebyar duduk was invented at the beginning of the 20th century ( kebyar a Balinese dance style, duduk , Indonesian “to sit”). Kebyar means "to suddenly flare up", "to burst open", which fits the way the Gamelan Gong Kebyar plays . In 1915 an orchestra is said to have played around an open square for the first time in North Bali. A dancer takes a seat in the middle, transforming the musicians' rhythmically changing clapboard tones into body movements. He uses the entire upper body with quick movements and occasionally makes small jumps. In the individual dance, a young man describes the various moods of an immature adolescent through to adulthood with gestures and eye play. Gegenggongan is performed mainly as a sitting dance by musicians who play the jaw harp genggong , the bamboo flute suling and some percussion instruments in order to imitate frogs musically and artistically.
  • Meuseukat is a female seated dance in the west of the Aceh province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra , which is performed in the city of Meulaboh , among other places . The usually eight Muslim women are dressed in headscarves and long-sleeved blouses. Movements of the arms and upper body take place like clapping hands either synchronously or in opposite directions. The lyrics of her songs contain everyday stories, which are interrupted by religious phrases.
  • Salawek dulang is a seated dance of the Muslim Minangkabau men in western Sumatra. The dancers sing and beat the rhythm on the bronze plate dulang . On Sumatra, meuseukat, salawek dulang and other seated dances are related to today's Islamization movement and have their roots in the 16th and 17th centuries, when Arab traders and Sufi scholars from Yemen , Persia and India adopted Islam together with the plucked gambus and the Frame drum rapai spread. Both instruments are characteristic of the Islamic music of Indonesia.
  • In the seated dance ratéb duek (“liturgy while sitting”) in Aceh, men form a line, sing Muslim songs and click their fingers. Ratéb corresponds to the Arabic rātib , which denotes a series of Dhikr singing exercises practiced by Sufi brotherhoods ( tariqas ) . The kneeling position corresponds to the Islamic prayer position. The corresponding secular dance style is called ratoh duek . It is performed separately by men and women and accompanied by songs about romantic love, seafaring and land cultivation. Religious and national holidays offer opportunities for performance. The most popular dance on the knees is called saman and comes from the Gayo highlands in central Aceh. Because of his quick hand movements, he is touted as the "dance of a thousand hands".

India

  • In the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan , women from the lower caste group Kamad practice the religious seated dance terahtali , in which they are accompanied by a singer with the long-necked lute tandura and a drum player. The women pantomime scenes from household work.

Africa

  • Onkankula is a sitting dance for Oluzimba-speaking men in Namibia , in which they praise and sing about their herds of cattle.
  • The South African Zulu know the umchwayo sitting dance , with the women moving slowly forward on the floor.
  • Akulavye is a dance performed by girls of the Mpyemo ethnic group in the south-west of the Central African Republic and in the neighboring border region in Cameroon while sitting on low chairs. The Bantu-speaking girls belong to a secret society and are "masked" by colored face paint. They vigorously move their legs, torso, and arms. They are hung with strips of fur on their upper arms , which are supposed to represent the clan's totem , the big cat siu . This animal is imitated in dance. Learning to dance is part of initiation .
  • Guedra is a dance on their knees performed by Berber women in the Goulimine region in southern Morocco . Guedra is the name of the clay drum struck to accompany it. The movements with the chest, head and hands are called erotic. At the same time, the guedra includes the tradition of obsessional dances and is thus similar to the derdeba . The irregular breathing can lead to a state of trance .
  • Nakh , also known as “hair dance”, is danced while seated by unmarried young women in front of young men in some regions of Libya , in southern Tunisia and in southern Algeria . Exposing the hair looks seductive. In the past, the dance was popular among nomads at weddings.
  • Takemba is a modern style of music with seated dancing by the Tuareg in Northwest Africa, in which the singing voice is accompanied by the plucked Tahardent .

Therapeutic sitting dance

Sitting dance has been used in Germany as a method in educational, physiotherapeutic and psychotherapeutic work since the 1980s. It started with the work with seniors, but the sitting dance can also be used for the mentally ill, coronal diseases, diabetes, rheumatism, hemiplegia, dementia and other diseases. The dancers usually sit in a circle on chairs, so the body can largely be used in its entirety. Hand tools such as towels, balls, instruments and fronds are used in some dances; Singing, live music or recordings are used to accompany the dance. This method can be learned, among other things, since 1991 through a nationwide certified training course for seated dance instructors at the Malteser Hilfsdienst (professional association at the German Federal Dance Association). The Federal Association of Senior Dance has also been offering training as a dance leader for seated dances since 1993.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CANTERBURY FIJIAN PARISH CONCERT: FIJIAN SITTING DANCE..VAKAMALOLO. Youtube video
  2. ↑ hula noho in Hawaiian Dictionaries
  3. ↑ Hans Zacharias (ed.): The dance of the primitive peoples. Chapter 1 in: History of Dance. Musician stories. From the music. (Books of Music. Vol. 6) Reinhard Welz Vermittlerverlag, Mannheim 2005, p. 27, ISBN 978-3938622346
  4. ↑ PAC0039-19: Women decorated with Hibiscus perform traditional Yapese sitting dance, on Map Island. Yap, Micronesia. photo
  5. ↑ Fatele Nui-'Ti na Mauri'. Youtube video
  6. ↑ Dieter Christensen, Gerd Koch : The music of the Ellice Islands. (New series, 5th section, South Seas II.) Museum of Ethnology, Berlin 1964, p. 16f
  7. ↑ Eberhard Rebling: The dance art of Indonesia. (Heinrichshofen books) Florian Noetzel, Wilhelmshaven 1989, p. 123f
  8. ↑ Margaret J. Kartomi: Meuseukat (II). Monash University, Melbourne
  9. ↑ Rateeb Meuseukat. Youtube video
  10. ↑ Margaret J. Kartomi: The development of the Acehnese sitting song-dances and frame-drum dances as part of religious conversion and continuing piety. In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- and Folklore. 166, No. 1, Leiden 2010, pp. 83-106
  11. ↑ Aceh's Saman Dance to Join Batik as Part Of World's Intangible Heritage: Official. ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Jakarta Globe, October 20, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com
  12. ↑ Rajasthani Folk Dance - Teratali by Kamad Chandri & Party. Youtube video
  13. ^ Minette Mans: Centering on African Practice in Musical Arts Education. African Minds, 2006, p. 36, ISBN 978-1920051495
  14. ↑ Vusabantu Ngema: Symbolism and Implications in the Zulu dance forms: Notions of composition, performance and appreciation of dance among the Zulu. University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa 2007, p. 20. [Accessed December 5, 2018].
  15. ↑ Gerhard Kubik : To understand African music. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2004, Fig. 5; ders .: Makisi nyau mapiko. Mask tradition in Bantu-speaking Africa. Trickster Verlag, Munich 1993, p. 48f
  16. ↑ Viviane Lièvre: The Dances of the Maghreb. Morocco - Algeria - Tunisia. (Translated by Renate Behrens. French original edition: Éditions Karthala, Paris 1987) Otto Lembeck, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 115–118, 143–145, ISBN 978-3-87476-563-3