This book draws on theories of aesthetics, post-colonialism, multiculturalism and transnationalism to explore salient aspects of perpetuating traditional dance customs in diaspora. It is the first book to present a broad-ranging analysis of cultural dance in Australia. Topics include adaptation of dance customs within a post-migration context, multicultural festivals, prominent performers, historiographies and archives, and the relative positionings of cultural and Western theatrical dance genres. The book offers a decolonized appraisal of dance in Australia, critiquing past and present praxes and offering suggestions for the future. Overall, it underscores the highly variegated nature of the Australian dance landscape and advocates for greater recognition of amateur community dance practices. Cultural Dance in Australia makes a substantial contribution to the catalogue of work about immigrants and cultural dance styles that continue to be preserved in Australia. This book will be of interest to scholars of dance, performance studies, migration studies and transnationalism.

This, the fourth book in the series 'Celebrating Dance in Asia and the Pacific', explores the current dance scene in Australia from a wide perspective that mirrors the creative engagement of artists with Australian culture and the landscape. It looks at Indigenous dance, choreography beyond theatre, youth and community dance, Australian dancers’ versatility and risk-taking. The comprehensive essays recount immigrant influences, the legacy of the Ballets Russes and Bodenwieser companies, dance on stage and screen, education and training and the story of Ausdance — the unique nation-wide voice and political advocacy organisation for dance.

Dancing in Shadows explores the power of Indigenous performance pitted against the forces of settler colonisation. Historian Anna Haebich documents how the Nyungar people of Western Australia strategically and courageously adapted their rich performance culture to survive the catastrophe that engulfed them, and continue to generously share their culture, history, and language in theatre. In public corroborees, they performed their sovereignty to the colonists, and in community-only gatherings they danced and sang to bring forth resilience and spiritual healing. Pushed away by the colonists and denied their culture and lands, they continued to live and perform in the shadows over the years in combinations of the old and the new, including indigenised settler songs and dances. Nyungar people survived, and they now number around 40,000 people and constitute the largest Aboriginal nation in the Australian settler state. The ancient family lineages live in city suburbs and country towns, and they continue to perform to celebrate their ancestors and to strengthen community well-being by being together. Dancing in Shadows sheds light on the little-known history of Nyungar performance. [Subject: Theatre Studies, Sociology, History, Australian History, Aboriginal Studies]

“Perhaps,” wrote Ralph Ellison more than seventy years ago, “the zoot suit contains profound political meaning; perhaps the symmetrical frenzy of the Lindy-hop conceals clues to great potential power.” As Ellison noted then, many of our most mundane cultural forms are larger and more important than they appear, taking on great significance and an unexpected depth of meaning. What he saw in the power of the Lindy Hop—the dance that Life magazine once billed as “America’s True National Folk Dance”—would spread from black America to make a lasting impression on white America and offer us a truly compelling means of understanding our culture. But with what hidden implications? In American Allegory, Black Hawk Hancock offers an embedded and embodied ethnography that situates dance within a larger Chicago landscape of segregated social practices. Delving into two Chicago dance worlds, the Lindy and Steppin’, Hancock uses a combination of participant-observation and interviews to bring to the surface the racial tension that surrounds white use of black cultural forms. Focusing on new forms of appropriation in an era of multiculturalism, Hancock underscores the institutionalization of racial disparities and offers wonderful insights into the intersection of race and culture in America.

Deep love of Australia inspires Bronwyn Bancroft's poetry and the richly layered hues of Colours of Australia. Each line speaks a different voice, each image stirs a different mood, and all combine to evoke the miracle of color with which we are surrounded.