ANTHROPOLOGY OF DANCING
Najwa Adra, Ph.D.
Bara‘ in Al-Ḥuṣn, al-Ahjur. Ṣāliḥ al-Maṭarī, drummer in center rear.
Photo: Najwa Adra 1983
Selected Articles and Papers
For those available in pdf format, click on the title to download pdf.
For details on lectures, conference presentations and reviews, please click curriculum vitae.
In Preparation The Semiotics of Dancing in a Yemeni Highland Community (working title).
2009 Steps to an Ethnography of Dance. In Viewpoints: Visual Anthropologists at Work. Mary Strong and Laena Wilder, eds. Pp. 228-253. Austin: University of Texas Press.
2007 The State of Dancing Traditions in the Arabian Peninsula. Paper presented at the Conference on Music in the World of Islam, Assilah, Morocco, 8-13 August.
2005 Belly Dance: An Urban Folk Genre. In Belly Dance: Orientalism, Transnationalism, and Harem Fantasy. Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young, eds. Pp. 28-50. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers.
2002 Dance in the Arabian Peninsula. In The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 6: The Middle East. Pp. 703-712. New York: Routledge.
1998 Dance and Glance: Visualizing Tribal Identity in Highland Yemen. Visual Anthropology,11:55-102.
1998 Deep Knee Bends: Dancing as a Cultural System. Anthropology Newsletter, 39(2):48-49.
1998 Articles in The International Encyclopedia of Dance.Selma Jeanne Cohen, ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Middle East: An Overview. Volume IV:402-413.
Middle East: Dance Research and Publication. Volume IV:414-417.
Yemen. Volume VI:417-420
Zar. Volume VI:444-445
l993 Tribal Dancing and Yemeni Nationalism: Steps to Unity. Revue du Monde Musulmane et de la Méditerranée, 67(1):l6l-l68. Translated into Arabic in, Al-Yaman Kama Yarah al-Akhar. L. Taminian and A. al-Auj, eds. Sanaa: American Institute for Yemeni Studies (1997).
1989 Locally Appropriate Categories for the Classification of the Dance Archives of the Arab Gulf States Folklore Centre. Unpublished report submitted in English and Arabic to the Folklore Centre, Doha, Qatar.
1984 Achievement and Play: Opposition in Yemeni Tribal Dancing. Proceedings of the Consulting Seminar on the Collecting and Documenting of Traditional Music and Dance. Doha, Qatar: The Arab Gulf States Folklore Centre.
1983 Qabyala: The Tribal Concept in the Central Highlands of the Yemen Arab Republic. Doctoral Dissertation in Anthropology, Temple University. (Chapter 1 includes discussion of theoretical underpinnings for a semiotic of dancing. Chapters 8 and 9 discuss dancing traditions and their cultural significance.)