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Author
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Comment
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/2/04 5:32 am)
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Looking for dance stories
Last time I asked, I got a great Japanese dance story from folks here.
Now I am looking more specifically for
1. A story to go along with a bellydancing essay. Story could be Egyptian, Beduoin, Arabic etc. But the folktale itself needs to include dancing as an important element.
2. A story to along with a flamenco essay. Story could be Spanish, Romany, Andulusian. But again, the folktale itself needs to include dancing as an important element.
3. A Greek story ditto. I have considered Ariadne's dancing floor (the maze made by Daedalus) but the story is really about Theseus and not dance. I have also considered something about Terpshicore, the muse of the dance, but have found no folk tales starring her. Again, any folktale itself needs to include dancing as an important element
I have used up the St Andrews University library holdings, as well as my personal library both here in Scotland and at home in Massacnhusetts.
Help!
Jane
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selkie
no
Registered User
(8/4/04 3:31 pm)
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Re: Looking for dance stories
The Arabic one should be easy: In most Ali Baba-stories (Arabian Nights) the heroine is Ali Babas servant girl; Morgana or Morgaine. She outsmarts the thieves time after time, and in the end she saves her masters life by placing a dagger in the prince of thieves` chest while dancing. Most certainly bellydancing. The whole tale is not about dancing, but this scene is vital.
Selkie
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/5/04 2:04 am)
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Re: Looking for dance stories
Thank you--I had no memory of any dancing going on in that story, but will immediately research it.
Jane
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/5/04 8:38 am)
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Re: Looking for dance stories
And so I did, all morning, reading at least three versions of the story and rediscovering then what a great story it is: a lively and smart female hero, derring-do, awful deaths, other near-deaths, loyalty, and grand rewards.
Alas, my editor has vetoed it, as she is using it in another volume she is just now editing. Pfui!
Jane
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midori
snyder
Registered User
(8/5/04 9:38 am)
ezSupporter
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Re: Looking for dance stories
Jane--it's also good to remember that Ali Baba is not an original story form the Arabian nights--it's an 18th century forgery by a Frenchman in the "Style" of the Arabian nights,--written first in French, translated into Arabic, "dicsovered" and then retranslated back into French and English--it along with "Aladdin's Lamp."
Let me take a quick look today through the Haddawy
translation of the Arabian Nights...also you might consider
having a look at the work of Anya Royce--who is well known for her
work in the Anthropology of Dance--she may have references that
could help here. (and I am sure St. Andrew's would have some of
her work. She's a classic)
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midori
snyder
Registered User
(8/5/04 10:13 am)
ezSupporter
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Anya Peterson Royce
Ah! I found Anya Royce's academic homepage (she teaches at Indiana University--that bastion of folklore studies!)
www.indiana.edu/~anthro/people/royce.html
She has an email address--and as I recall is a lovely woman. She was a very good friend of my father Emile Snyder (in fact they co-taught a course on dance that was interstitial as all get out--my father although he was a professor of contemporary African literature was a ballet dancer in the Paris Ballet Opera house in the 30's and 40's. ) Do email her, drop my name (after my father's!) and I am sure if any one can come up with some resources she can help you.
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Amal
Registered User
(8/5/04 10:39 am)
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Gasp!
Aladdin's Lamp isn't originally part of the Arabian Nights? Midori, do you know who wrote the forgery? This is kind of shocking -- I feel my folkloric paradigms shifting as I write this!
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selkie
no
Registered User
(8/5/04 12:49 pm)
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Oh please!
Arabian Night is a concept, not a trade mark!
If it`s your belief that forgery is possible within storytelling (I`d call it art...), your conclusion should be that the whole thing is a fake, because I`m pretty sure that Shárhrázade didn`t make up the rest of the tales either. They hardly had much to do with each other before some genious made up the Shárhrázade-story that could include all the other tales. If you look into it you will find that people were quite creative regarding marketing strategies in the past, too.
What`s included in "Arabian Nights" is not regulated by law, but by the tellers/writers/editors preferences. Lots of tales are hardly ever published, and probably not much used as sources for oral tales, because they are regarded as full of sex, violence and racism. However "Ali Baba" and "Aladdin" are during the last centuries made more and more "child friendly", and I must admit that some of this versions feels sort of "fake". But are they really? Who decides when the "truth" is over and the age of "forgery", "revitalization", "folklorisme", or what you like to call it, begins?
Selkie
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/5/04 3:04 pm)
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Re: Oh please!
Selkie--you are shooting the messenger. What Midori is talking about is that Antoine Galland who was a Frenchman, an Orientalist, translated the stories extant in the 1001 Nights into French and then added a few of his own (like Ali Baba and Aladdin) which went back into the Pan Arabic canon eventually. Ali Baba was probably based on both Germanic and Indian (India) sources anyway.
(See--Midori--I already knew that!)
But will try writing to your friend. I am at wits' end on this book anyway.
Jane
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(8/6/04 4:56 am)
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Re: Oh please!
I don't want to hijack this thread, so to discuss this more, we could start a new thread. Also search the archives for more on the Arabian Nights.
Just thought I'd add that, for more information about the Arabian Nights, with specific info. about European collectors adding stories to literary versions and changing stories to "clean them up":
www.endicott-studio.com/forpuzl.html
Also the Haddawy
translation has a great intro.
LauraMc
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midori
snyder
Registered User
(8/6/04 9:57 am)
ezSupporter
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Haddawy Introduction
Selkie,
do treat yourself to the introduction of Husain
Haddawy's excellent translation and edition of The Arabian Nights,
Vol. 1. (although for a quick precis, Greg's article that Laura
mentions above on Endicott Studio is an excellent start). This volume
should be readily available at stores and at libraries. It is really
enlightening about the tales themselves and the long and illustrious
history of the manuscripts. Although there were versions of the
work circulating as early as the 9th century, most of the versions
we have now are from later manuscripts. There are several branches
of the collections--Syrian (among the oldest dating back to the
14th c), Persian, and the Egyptian--which became really prolific,
adding in more stories with each century in a furious effort to
fulfill the promise of the frame story and come up with 1,000 tales.
(the earliest manuscripts have only about forty tales--but they
are like nesting boxes with tales within tales...)
But the history of the early manuscripts is only half of the story--the translations by 19th century European Orientalists is the other--and it is amazing how the stories were altered (savaged sometimes) to reflect the tastes of Western ideas about what the east should be--everything from Galland's reforming of Arab sensibilities (and Haddawy gives some brilliant examples) to Burton's own erotic issues with the Arab world (escaping a sexually repressed England, Burton had in his original translations a 32 page footnote about the size of African male genitalia.) as well as strangling the Arab language by forcing it into an unnaturally " ye olde" version of English that is dreadful to read.
I find the history and the scholarship on the Arabian Nights absolutely fascinating--but not half as wonderful as reading Haddawy's lovely crisp translation of the Mushin Mahdi edition--itself a definitive comparative study by a contemporary Arab scholar of the existing manuscripts and collation of all the available texts. Mahdi's edition is now considered the most reliable and authentic version of the work.
I have no problems with Galland creating "literary" versions of folktales as long as he made it clear that was what he was doing. But I do have a problem when those tales are passed off as part of an authentic historical text and an attempt is made to dupe people into believing in their authenticity. (nevermind issues of cultural appropriation for imperialist reasons)
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Jessica
Unregistered User
(8/6/04 1:37 pm)
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huh!
First of all I have to say thank you for all this (tangential to Jane's quest, alas) great information -- I, like Amal, never even suspected that Aladdin wasn't an original piece of the Arabian Nights, and I find everything that's come of the revelation that it isn't fascinating.
As to dancing stories...
Jane, do you prefer a female dancer? Nothing springs to mind immediately, but I half-remember a Spanish tale about a youth who dances to save his village from a prideful Moorish duke. I don't remember any of the particulars or where I read it, unfortunately!
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/7/04 1:50 am)
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Re: huh!
Male or female are equal in my dancing sight!
Jane
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Erica
Carlson
Registered User
(8/7/04 2:46 pm)
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Re: well, maybe...
I'm not sure how much good this will do, but I think there is a Greek creation myth where Eurynome, born from chaos separates water from sky and dances across the water, creating wind behind her, which she turned into a snake, which then made love to her. Eurynome transformed into a dove and laid the "universal egg" from which the sun, the moon, and the earth emerged.
Eurynome shows up in some encyclopedias but my source for this story is Robert Graves, and I'm not sure how creative he was in shaping his telling of it, but it might be worth a look.
Good luck--this sounds like quite the project!
Erica
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(8/7/04 3:35 pm)
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Re: well, maybe...
Does Orpheus have any dancing involved? Not between him and Eurydice, but perhaps with the maenads?
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/8/04 2:36 am)
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Re: well, maybe...
Since this is a children's books, companion to our ballet book, we have left out dancers like Kali and dances that lead to orgiastic gatherings, etc. I have several books on Greek dances which so far have proved unusable.
Many strictures on this book. Aieeeee.
jane
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Shelly
Rae Clift
Registered User
(8/14/04 10:38 pm)
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Our Lady's Tumbler
Hi Jane,
This is probably not close enough for you but there is the thirteenth century French legend of "our Lady's Tumber" which is collected in Aucassin & Nicolette. The manuscript is from Romania--the collection is legends and fabliau. The story borders on insipid sorry to say--sort of like the little drummer boy--the main character has only his talent for tumbling and dancing to offer to the Virgin Mary. What he doesn't realize is when he has worn himself out performing for her Mary descends from above and wipes his brow herself. His service to her, humble and simple but heartfelt, is the pure devotion that the Virgin recognizes--not the riches and prayers of the other Monks. The tale is probably too religious for your purpose but if one were to think about the multiple roles of Mary it could be interesting.
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janeyolen
Registered User
(8/15/04 2:34 am)
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Re: Our Lady's Tumbler
Thanks, Shelley--but it is--as you have guessed--too religious for this book.
We have nine stories now, looking for a tenth either bellydancing or Flamenco.
Jane
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CrCeres
Unregistered User
(8/16/04 9:20 pm)
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Flamenco
I'm afraid this is a bit far from Spain, but there's a caribbean story that is a variation of the 12 dancing princesses. In this version there is only one princess who goes and dances with demons, and the lad who finds her out decides against marrying her due to her history. Still, there might be another variation of dancing princesses from spain.
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