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The tradition & historical record
2 min read · 2 sourcesDances centered around drums are performed in many cultures. Anthropologists sometimes refer to these as "drum dances". Drum dances may have various kinds of spiritual or social significance. 1
Kalahari Desert
Anthropologist Richard Katz reports on a drum dance that the!Kung people in the Kalahari Desert perform. In!Kung, the dance is called!Gwah tsi. 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. 1
Dene and Slavey
When Dene 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. Slavey perform a drum dance led by a group of frame drum players. The Slavey drum dance has components including the tea dance and round dance. 1
Haudenosaunee
As of 1985, a drum dance was performed on the Six Nations of the Grand River. It was led by a drum player, who also sang, assisted by a horn rattle performer. Anthropologist Gertrude 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 the longhouse followed by singing, (3) a set of chants and prayers, and (4) a recapitulation of part 2, the singing phase. 1
Innu
Innu drum dances or circle dances are called innuniminanu. Innuniminanu are performed with only one drummer. 1
Inuit
The drum dance and throat singing are two traditional forms of Inuit music. Inuit drum dance songs, or pisiq, are typically based on a five-note scale. They usually have a strophic form. The drum played during the Inuit drum dance is called a qilaut. Copper Inuit use the drum dance "to honour members of the family, to express gratitude, and to welcome and bid farewell to visitors". Jean-Jacques Nattiez describes a drum dance in Igloolik as an "endurance competition" in which performers are tested on their recall of songs and ability to keep performing as long as possible. 1
The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Drum dance”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. 1
drum dance is dance in which drums play an important role, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. 2