Sensational Knowledge: Embodying Culture Through Japanese Dance [With DVD]

A compelling ethnography of traditional dance and bodily knowledge

How do music and dance reveal the ways in which a community interacts with the world? How are the senses used in communicating cultural knowledge? In Sensational Knowledge, ethnomusicologist and dancer Tomie Hahn uncovers the process and nuances of learning nihon buyo, a traditional Japanese dance form. She uses case studies of dancers at all levels, as well as her own firsthand experiences, to investigate the complex language of bodies, especially across cultural divides. Paying particular attention to the effect of body-to-body transmission, and how culturally constructed processes of transmission influence our sense of self, Hahn argues that the senses facilitate the construction of boundaries of existence that define our physical and social worlds. In this flowing and personal text, Hahn reveals the ways in which culture shapes our attendance to various sensoria, and how our interpretation of sensory information shapes our individual realities. An included DVD provides visual examples.

Author: Tomie Hahn
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 05/01/2007
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 8.99h x 6.15w x 0.65d
ISBN: 9780819568359

About the Author
TOMIE HAHN is an associate professor in the department of the arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. A performer and student of Japanese dance since the age of four, she has been awarded natori-- the professional stage title of Samie Tachibana--from the Tachibana School in Tokyo.