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(2019) Dance and the quality of life, Dordrecht, Springer.
This chapter discusses the author's experience learning some of the movement elements of the Acehnese seudati, one of the most revered dances of the Aceh region of Indonesia. Seudati is a body percussion form that also includes singing and poetry as well as topical commentary and drumming accompaniment. Drawing on theories of affect and the transmission of affect I discuss how doing and watching seudati opened my senses to a greater awareness and appreciation of birdlife. This occurred not because the dance represents birds but in that it seems to work at the level of rhythmic and energetic patterns promoting a familiarity with them. One of the roles of dance activity may be to entwine human and animal life in this way.
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Full citation:
Gardner, S. (2019)., How Seudati put me in touch with birds, in K. Bond (ed.), Dance and the quality of life, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 155-165.
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