Christina Sunardi ventures into the regency of Malang in east Java to study and perform with dancers. Through formal interviews and casual conversation, Sunardi learns about their lives and art. Her work shows how performers continually transform dance traditions to negotiate, and renegotiate, the boundaries of gender and sexsometimes reinforcing lines of demarcation, sometimes transgressing them, and sometimes doing both simultaneously. But Sunardi's investigation moves beyond performance. It expands notions of the spiritual power associated with female bodies and feminine behavior, and the ways women, men, and waria (males who dress and live as female) access the magnetic power of femaleness.
A journey into understudied regions and ideas, Stunning Males and Powerful Females reveals how performances seemingly fixed by tradition are instead dynamic environments for cultural negotiation and change surrounding questions of sex and gender.
Christina Sunardi ventures into the regency of Malang in east Java to study and perform with dancers. Through formal interviews and casual conversation, Sunardi learns about their lives and art. Her work shows how performers continually transform dance traditions to negotiate, and renegotiate, the boundaries of gender and sexsometimes reinforcing lines of demarcation, sometimes transgressing them, and sometimes doing both simultaneously. But Sunardi's investigation moves beyond performance. It expands notions of the spiritual power associated with female bodies and feminine behavior, and the ways women, men, and waria (males who dress and live as female) access the magnetic power of femaleness.
A journey into understudied regions and ideas, Stunning Males and Powerful Females reveals how performances seemingly fixed by tradition are instead dynamic environments for cultural negotiation and change surrounding questions of sex and gender.
Stunning Males and Powerful Females: Gender and Tradition in East Javanese Dance
256Stunning Males and Powerful Females: Gender and Tradition in East Javanese Dance
256Paperback(1st Edition)
Related collections and offers
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780252080593 |
---|---|
Publisher: | University of Illinois Press |
Publication date: | 02/03/2015 |
Series: | New Perspectives on Gender in Music |
Edition description: | 1st Edition |
Pages: | 256 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d) |