Zapin, Folk Dance of the Malay World

Download or read book Zapin, Folk Dance of the Malay World written by Mohd. Anis Md. Nor and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1993 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contrast to the scholarly attention given to the research of dance and music in other South-East Asian countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, Malaysian performance traditions are rarely the focus of academic studies. Indeed, this is the first book to have been published on zapin, a Malaysian performing art which extends to Singapore and East Sumatra. The syncretic combination of Arab and Malay performance elements in this dance is explained in detail with the extensive use of dance notations and music transcriptions. The book argues that the transposition of zapin from a communal level to a national one involved not only a change in the context in which the dance is performed but also a change in its structure and cultural meaning. Finally, the book traces the historical evolution of the Malay dance form from a participatory art to one that is passively observed, and investigates the music and dance structure of the genre.