World music and dance, part 2-and traditional arts generally

This will be a blog about world music and dance, and traditional arts, created and practiced by numerically small groups.  We like to think that size doesn´t matter when it comes to the beauty or importance of an art form.  But does our behavior always live up to this ideal?

We also want things to be "relevant."  Now, there´s a contradiction inherent in these two ideas.  Things are generally considered more "relevant" if we see a lot of them.  If there are a LOT of people rioting in New York, that´s "relevant."  If 10,000 people are working on a project, that makes the project seem a lot more important and "relevant" than if only 10 are.  And if a LOT of people are singing that song, it´s popular, it´s worthy of imitation, it´s worthy of study and it´s "relevant."

West African masquerade dancer (Ikan).  (dancer=James Esoimeme)

 But wait.  What about an art form--let´s say a traditional art form--that is practiced by only a very few people in the world (small community) or is practiced by only a very few people who we see near us (small representation in our area).  Does the size of the community practicing it or the number of people practicing it near us make it any more, or any less, important?  Any more, or any less, beautiful?

In our series on world music and dance, we look at traditional music and dance.  Some comes from numerically large communities: bharatanatyam, for example, is a major and ancient classical art form that comes from the Hindu community of southern India.  We have another show in the series that looks at traditional music and dance of West Africa, and even another that looks at Mexican traditional, folk music and dance.

Tahitian dance is for men as well as women.  (dancers=from da Island Way)

But what about smaller communities, or communities numerically unimportant in north America?  We believe these are just as worthy as the others.  Our series, then, also looks at Tahitian and at Afro-Peruvian music and dance, and at Thai classical music and dance. Our pilot episode focused on classical Persian music and dance.   There are relatively few people in the world that can be considered to be Tahitian or Afro-Peruvian and almost none of them live in north America.  Not many people are trained in classical Thai music or dance, and Persian classical dance is one of those art forms that is in danger of disappearing because it is prohibited in today's Iran and not widely practiced outside of Iran.

In a nutshell, we believe that the size of a community or the number of practitioners does NOT have a direct relation to the beauty and importance of an art form.  We believe each art form should be appreciated and evaluated on its own merits.  And we hope that you agree.

Shahrzad Khorsandi performing Persian classical dance.

Our NEXT BLOG will be about the hang drum.