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Sensational Knowledge
Embodying Culture through Japanese Dance
Series: Music / Culture
Sales Date: 2007-05-07
A compelling ethnography of traditional dance and bodily knowledge
Winner of the 2008 Alan Merriam Prize, given by the Society of Ethnomusicology
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 online companion provides visual examples.
List of Illustrations
A Note on Names and Media
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction—Sensual Orientations
Moving Scenes—History and Social Structure
Unfolding Essence—Energetic Sensibilities and Aesthetics
Revealing Lessons—Modes of Transmission: Visual, Tactile, Oral/Aural, & Media
Transforming sensu—Presence and Orientation
Notes
References
Glossary
Index
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.
"This book is clear, well-organized, and written in a quietly diligent voice Hahn evokes her teachers and fellow students with clarity and obvious respect. She deftly interweaves personal anecdote, examples of lessons observed during fieldwork, socio-historical context, ethnographic theory, and dance theory."
~SanSan Kwan, Dance Research Journal
""Sensational Knowledge is essential reading for dance scholars and for performers studying Japanese art forms and their transmission; it is equally valuable for those interested in how culture is embodied through movement. Simply put, Hahn's Sensational Knowledge is exquisite.""
~Marta Robertson, Dance Chronicle
""Tomie Hahn has produced an extraordinary study of the complex ways in which nihon buyô, a form of traditional Japanese dance, is transmitted and translated between bodies. Hahn mines her lifelong experience as a dancer in the Tachibana school as a means of exploring how culture comes to be embodied, refigured, and passed on through this art form. Her thoughtful analyses build from this lived experience as the ground upon which the cogent, meticulous, narrations that she develops can inform the reader most clearly, and signify with the utmost richness and intensity.""
~Reginald Jackson, Journal of Asian Studies
""This book is clear, well-organized, and written in a quietly diligent voice Hahn evokes her teachers and fellow students with clarity and obvious respect. She deftly interweaves personal anecdote, examples of lessons observed during fieldwork, socio-historical context, ethnographic theory, and dance theory.""
~SanSan Kwan, Dance Research Journal
""Sensational Knowledge is a deft example of contemporary self-reflexive ethnography combining dance and performance studies amongst others notably Asian philosophy and ethnomusicology.""
~Jonathan Zilberg, Leonardo Reviews
"Hahn's focus on the body and somatic knowledge opens up the world of Japanese dance in utterly new ways. The poetry of her writing highlights the dynamic links between sensual experience and ethnographic practice."
~Deborah Wong, author of Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music
"As the Western scholarly literature on Japanese arts continues to burgeon, Tomie Hahn's reflexive approach to transmission is both significant and needed. She offers a window into an important means of communicating culture.""
~Bonnie Wade, professor of music, University of California at Berkeley
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