Kinds Of Ritual Dance

The struggle over the role of gender in dance can be tied to two key concepts: spectacle and sport. For as long as dance retains some level of athleticism, it is acceptable for men to engage in the activity. However, when dance enters the realm of artistic display, the place of men in dance is called into question. Ritual dances are performed for a higher being with the hopes of success in community endeavors such as harvest and war. So it should come as no surprise that one area of dance where men are not questioned is the war dance. Such rituals have been performed to energize troops as well as diffuse aggression.

Maglalatik
The maglalatik is a four part war dance telling a story between a battle between the Muslims and the Christians (completely removing the native people from their own story). Instead of being armed with sticks, the dancers wear a harness of coconut shells on their hands, chest, back, hips, and thighs. The dancers are split into opposing tribes that battle each other by slapping the coconuts on themselves and other dancers. The first half of the dance depicts the preparation and the battle itself. The second half depicts the reconciliation and baptism of the Muslims who technically won the battle.

Capoeira is a martial art that allegedly originated in Angola, but gained notoriety in Brazil. This combat style is said to have become a ritual dance when the enslaved people practiced it with musical accompaniment to disguise its true purpose. A swing step (ginga) was added to make it look more like a dance than fight training. As a very unpredictable combat style, this became the weapon of liberation and a symbol of freedom to the enslaved people of Brazil. The step dances of Ireland and England were born as social competition as dancers tried to outperform each other with fast footwork. This did not change as these dances crossed the Atlantic and set foot on American soil. What changed in America was that dancers from other cultures were exposed to this style and began to emulate the dance while contributing some new steps from their own cultures. The mixing of various step dances from around the world became what we now know as clogging.

During the colonization of Northern Africa, Egyptian dance gained popularity through film and became associated with harems. In and of itself, the word "harem" conjures up a lavish and seductive image in one's mind. In fact, a harem is simply a room in one's home where women can find protection from strangers that may come to the home. The word comes from "haram" meaning forbidden, as men outside of the immediate family were not allowed to enter the room. As for the dance, its flirtatious nature mixed with the growing cultural objectification of the dancer created a stigma that made male dancers less acceptable. It has gotten to the point that men are turned away from dance classes out of an ignorant belief that this style of dance is only to be performed by women. In Austria, a great revolution in social dance occurred with the invent of the waltz. This is known as the birth of couples dancing. Though couples have danced together in group formations, this was the first time that couples connected solely with each other. Couples held each other a little too close for Christian comfort and the church looked upon the dance as a sin. European culture began to place greater value on romantic couples, while many other cultures (like the Hawaiians) still emphasized the greater community. The waltz is both rigid and graceful, where the man is in full control of the woman, mirroring cultural views on

gender roles. As gender roles evolved, so did the relationship between men and women in dance

The men of Ka Pa Hula O Kamehameha stepped through their hula 'auana performance during the final presentations of the 40th annual Merrie Monarch Festival.

Couples dancing experienced a lot of growth in the United States during the 20th century. As Africans in the Americas began to experiment with couple dances, the role of the woman began to change. In the 1930s, the lindy hop was the biggest craze and a new energy had entered couples dance. Instead, of dancing in a tight embrace, partners danced with more space between them. The movement vocabulary now included lifts and even releases where the partners momentarily let go of each other. This new freedom reflected the changing values of society; while men still maintained control, women were displayed more than guarded. It was not until the sexual revolution in the 1960's that women finally broke free of man's control in couples dancing when the twist was born in Georgia. By the end of the century, American culture valued individuality above relationships and community. Dancers danced independently with their partners, in groups, or simply alone.