Introduction
On a basic level, Buddhism is practice it is something that you do. This book presents dances that are traditional Buddhist practices in Japats, Iniha (Ladak Zanskar, and Himachal Pradesh), Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Mongolia, and Tibet. The book presents dances as traditions, as transformative technologies embodying Baddhat virtues, and as successful transmissions of teashing over the ceritaries. The book introduces Buddhist dance traditions extant today, plus two modern examples of Western dance artists influenced by Buddhism Chinese Shaolin Gongfu, and the astonishing dance depictions in the Mogso Caves are included to paint a more complete context of Buddhist movement practices in the ancient world. In 1999, I was invited by a monastic meditation matter in Ladakh to help his monastery and his order with challenges they were facing regarding their transmitted dance practice. Dance was my introduction to Vajrayana Buddhism. I am an artist and respond to Buddhist dances first as a dancer. I'm asked to assist because of my dance and directorial skills, which conduct and inform documentation so that it is useful to them. As a dancer, I understand what their priorities are and what they value about their dances. I see the problems they see. As a scholar and researcher, I can design projects with them that advance their goal of a more stable dance transmission into the future. Our research results help sustain these traditions and offer posterity accurate records of a cultural wonder of the worlds: the ancient dances of Buddhism. Afterwards, as now, I write so I can share what I learned through my experiences. This book treats the reality of dance in Buddhist practice, lay and robed, and proceeds by example. The youngest Asian dance presented in this book is at least 400 years old. The oldest dances, which claims roots reaching back to before the Common Era, are more than 2000 years old. What makes dance traditional is person-to-person transmission over generations, forming a lineage. What makes a ritual dance is its use in a ritual. What makes a dance "yogic" is the use of dance as a form of meditation, an enlightenment technology. What makes dance monastic is its being practiced only by monks, a part of their complete spiritual training. What makes a dance "lay" is its being performed by uninitiated people, neither monks, nuns, nor priests. Clan families have been appointed and established over the centuries to sustain certain Buddhist dance rituals. These are lay groups. This book introduces monks, nuns, priests, actors, and family clans as the performers of the dances presented. Changes in the organization of traditional groups over time is normal and happening at a fast rate now. Buddhism originated in a culture with a lot of dancing and esteem for dancing: Shakyamuni grew up with dancing, and with empowered gestures called mudra. Buddhism spread into cultures with long traditions of dance and ritual expression and absorbed some of these elements. It is no surprise that dance would continue in dancing cultures. Buddhism did not snuff out dancing in the manner of the Christian Church, which intentionally put an end to dancing by the fourth century CE. Instead, Buddhism absorbed and influenced dances as it spread. This connection - or not to a culture's own ancient dances is a stark difference between East and West. The West lost its living connection to its own ancient dances; Asia did not. There are long consequences resulting from this distinction, especially in regud to how dance in valued Looking into the sources of the five primary dance traditions presented in this book Cham, Charya Nritya, Kandyan dance. Shaolin Gongfu, and Japanese Noh it is essential to examine the proto-forms and ancestors of these movement arts. These are the forms from which Buddhist dances aruse, or from which they were transformed. To look at extant Boddhist dance traditions today often means to see Buddhism added to a dance form that is older, or to see a dance form that is older added to Buddhism. This implies that the dances are older than the advent of Buddhism in their culture. Buddhism appears not only to have transformed older dance practices but even to have insured their longevity This book is offered to encourage future research. Informed appreciation can help keep these dances continuing. Traditional dance and philosophy are inseparable in Indian culture, and also in the Buddhist dances presented in this book. Dance, philosophy, and practice come together. The dances shared in this book are traditionally taught along with philosophical and meditation teachings, combining into a single act. This book presents some of these didactic methods. My academic background is in philosophy: I graduated from St. John's College, in Annapolis, Maryland, and earned a Master of Philosophy in Dance from the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London. The philosophical aspect of the Buddhist dances with which I've worked interests me and is evident in my appreciation of these dances. Buddhism did not annihilate the ancient cultures into which it spread. Rather, it assimilated ancient practices, becoming a living repository of pre-Buddhist elements. The histories of the dance forms presented in this book all recede into archaic legendary history: into a pre-history. This, too, implies the that dances are localized and are older than the Buddhism they eventually embodied. Otherwise, there is the practical choreographic issue of whole dances being invented on the spot, which would be so difficult as to be improbable. This book explores the possible roots, and the implications, of some of the legends of the dances presented. The dances provide the occasion for the retelling of their legendary histories. The legends and the dances are closely connected. Chinese ethnographers have an excellent phrase to describe certain traditions: "handed down since ancient times." It applies well to the dances described in this book. Some dance creators, too, such as Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche), have attained mythic proportions. Their myths and stories can be scrutinized in terms of the transmitted dances associated with the stories. Our research teams have done a good deal of that, especially in Bhutan. Some dances are explained as originating in mystical visions. This takes the nature of some of the dances in this book into another dimension. Introducing these Buddhist dances requires some storytelling, some explanation of mystical mechanisms that produce dances, and some linking of legends to actual dance traditions today.
About The Book
BUDDHIST DANCES Movement & Mind According to the Buddhist monastic code, monks are forbidden to dance. It is even an infraction to watch a peacock dancing. In keeping with their monastic brethren, scholars of Buddhism have thus paid little notice to the fact that Buddhist monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen have been dancing across Asia for centuries. Joseph Houseal reminds us of the importance of this dance, eloquently leading the reader on a tour of the Buddhist world, offering his unique insights, drawn from years of research and practice, at every step along the way.
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