Dances centered arounddrums are performed in many cultures. Anthropologists sometimes refer to these as "drum dances". Drum dances may have various kinds of spiritual or social significance.
Anthropologist Richard Katz reports on a drum dance that the!Kung people in theKalahari Desert perform. In!Kung, the dance is called !Gwah tsi.[1] The dance takes a few hours. Women dancers form a horseshoe shape around a male drummer. The dancers may experience a spiritual sensation called kia while they dance.[2]
WhenDene drum dances are performed, the performers aim to get their audience to dance. If everyone in the audience gets up, the style of music changes. At some point in the cycle, the drummers stop drumming and the audience and performers sing and dance together.[3]
Slavey perform a drum dance led by a group offrame drum players. The Slavey drum dance has components including the tea dance and round dance.[4]
As of 1985, a drum dance was performed on theSix Nations of the Grand River. It was led by a drum player, who also sang, assisted by ahorn rattle performer.[5] AnthropologistGertrude Prokosch Kurath watched drum dances at the Six Nations reserve and reported that the dance had four major parts: (1) an introduction, (2) the procession of dancers into thelonghouse followed by singing, (3) a set of chants and prayers, and (4) a recapitulation of part 2, the singing phase.[6]
Innu drum dances or circle dances are called innuniminanu. Innuniminanu are performed with only one drummer.[7]
Thedrum dance [fr] andthroat singing are two traditional forms ofInuit music.[7] Inuit drum dance songs, or pisiq,[7] are typically based on a five-notescale.[8] They usually have astrophic form.[9] The drum played during the Inuit drum dance is called aqilaut.[7]Copper Inuit use the drum dance "to honour members of the family, to express gratitude, and to welcome and bid farewell to visitors".[10] Jean-Jacques Nattiez describes a drum dance inIgloolik as an "endurance competition" in which performers are tested on their recall of songs and ability to keep performing as long as possible.[11]
The drum used forOjibwe drum dances, sometimes called the "dream drum", has been considered sacred.[12] It may be treated as a living thing.[13]
A story says that the dance drum was brought by aSioux woman called Tailfeather Woman orTurkey Tailfeather Woman to the Ojibwe.[14] According to the ethnomusicologistThomas Vennum, this story is accurate and the events it describes likely occurred in the 1870s.[12]Elaine Keillor says the date was 1877.[15]
Several anthropologists agree that the Ojibwe drum dance, rooted in this origin story, derives from thegrass dance.[16] Vennum uses the word "society" to describe the groups that perform the grass and drum dances.[17] Drum dance societies are composed of a drum owner, singers, and others.[18]
Tłı̨chǫ drum dances, called Eye t'a dagowo, happen at nighttime. Dancers move clockwise, single file, in a circle.[19]
Yup'ik andIñupiat drum dances are composed of repeated musical phrases. The drum played in these dances is called a suayaq or kilaun.[7] Nicole Beaudry, describing a Yup'ik drum dance she saw in Alaska in the late 1980s, says that there were four or five drummers who sat together on a bench, singing, surrounded by dancers. Sometimes, a drummer who wanted to dance would be replaced by one of the surrounding dancers.[20]
AnthropologistNancy Munn describes a drum dance done onGawa Island, one of theMarshall Bennett Islands. The dance is generally held nightly at some point in the year. It is a way for young people to meet potential sexual partners. The dance occurs around a tree called the dabedeba tree; drummers and singers stand there when the dance is going on.[21]
La danse à tambour traditionelle est une épreuve d'endurance dont le fort caractère compétitif peut prendre diverses formes. Chaque chant et chaque exécution font l'objet d'une évaluation, le plus souvent par les hommes présents les plus âgés. Les critères essentiels de qualité semblent être le nombre de chants connus, la longueur du chant et la capacité du compositeur-danseur à 'tenir le coup' le plus longtemps possible.
Alignés sur un banc, quatre ou cinq hommes chantent tout en battant du tambour; les autres hommes du village, regroupés autour des tambourineurs chantent, et, à l'occasion, vont remplacer un tambourineur qui veut danser.