In all cultures, and across time, people have danced. For performers and spectators, the expressive nature of dance opens up spaces where social and political circumstances are creatively negotiated. Grounded in ethnography, this series explores dance, music and bodily movement in cultural contexts at the juncture of history, ritual and performance in an interconnected world.<BR><BR>The book is carefully constructed...we can learn a lot from it [which] may well be due to its robust empiricism.---Social Anthropology<BR><BR>This book attempts a much more comprehensive consideration of dance in its cultural, social, and historical contexts than most and the author should be commended not only for this ambitious approach but also for keeping ethnographic method as the foundation of the research...the world of dance scholarship, anthropology, performance studies, and Indonesian studies are the better for this book which is, in important ways, remarkable.---American Ethnologist<BR><BR>This is a valuable addition to the literature on performance in Southeast Asia, on dance history, and on culture change in general ... a very timely and important work ... the quality of its prose and the depth of research involved make it a unique contribution to dance scholarship.---Helene Bouvier, CNRS, Paris<BR><BR>Court dance in Java has changed from a colonial ceremonial tradition into a national artistic classicism. Central to this general transformation has been dance's role in personal transformation, developing appropriate forms of everyday behaviour and strengthening the powers of persuasion that come from the skillful manipulation of both physical and verbal forms of politeness. This account of dance's significance in performance and in everyday life draws on extensive research, including dance training in Java, and builds on how practitioners interpret and explain the repertoire.