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Whether you are a sophisticated critic or an untrained spectator, when it comes to our experience of dance, we are generally able to appreciate the way a dancer's bodily movements fit the music. Our experience of dance thus lends itself to a range of crossmodal judgments, that is, our perception of dance enables us to make claims that purport to be about how bodily movements which can be visually seen fit together with aspects of the music which can be heard or felt. But we are not determined to perceive every case of fit unproblematically. That it is possible one may fail to initially perceive a fit that others claim ought to be viewable suggests that there is a normative dimension to this phenomenon. In this article, I argue that we can explain the source of this normativity with a multisensory account of dance. More specifically, I argue that dance is a novel feature type, a feature of perceptual experience that is essentially multimodal. The basic perception of dance, which grounds more sophisticated forms of judgment concerning crossmodal fit downstream, is the actualization of a unique multisensory capacity that non-inferentially tracks a real, fundamental connection between music and movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Afrovibes Foundation Festival 2022 held in various venues in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, The Netherlands from October 5–16, 2022, featuring artists from various African countries, the diaspora, and Europe.

Copyright of Revista de Economía Institucional is the property of Universidad Externado de Colombia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

When American troops started to arrive in Britain in 1942 there was concern about British women's potential intimacy with black GIs. To discourage such relationships, British troops, including the women in the ATS, were lectured on the need to keep contact with black GIs to a minimum; soldiers found with black GIs were reported; a whispering campaign hinted at the high rate of VD amongst black Americans; women were prosecuted under DORA for trespass if found with black GIs on military premises. Despite all warnings, many women had relationships with black GIs. Americans generally were attractive due to their relatively high pay. Black GIs were thought to have better manners and may have had particular appeal because black American culture was so focused on dance and music; dancing was British women's main leisure pursuit. British women went on to have approx 1,700 mixed race babies, despite being called 'nigger lover' and their children labelled 'bastard' and 'half-caste'. Drawing on interviews with these mixed-race offspring I explore the lives of women who bravely keep their children against all odds. Their agency lay in their decision to have relationships and children in the face of racial prejudice and the stigma of illegitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article present an interview with Dr. Don Niles, Acting Director and Senior Ethnomusicologist, Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies (IPNGS) and Research Associate, Australian National University. Topics discussed include focusing on music, dance and oral history at the Institute; IPNGS archival materials used by Papua New Guineans to relearn songs, to relearn endangered languages; and also mentions about traditional music materials and putting them online.

The article offers review on two photographs Beryl de Zoete in the Great Hall, Dartington, England and Gustavo Durán in the Great Hall, Dartington. Topics discussed include description of great hall interior decoration and architecture; fusion between music, dance and theatre in the education of children was an important aspect of the Dartington; and marriage description of Gustavo Durán and Bonté Crompton.

Synchronized movement is a ubiquitous feature of dance and music performance. Much research into the evolutionary origins of these cultural practices has focused on why humans perform rather than watch or listen to dance and music. In this study, we show that movement synchrony among a group of performers predicts the aesthetic appreciation of live dance performances. We developed a choreography that continuously manipulated group synchronization using a defined movement vocabulary based on arm swinging, walking and running. The choreography was performed live to four audiences, as we continuously tracked the performers’ movements, and the spectators’ affective responses. We computed dynamic synchrony among performers using cross recurrence analysis of data from wrist accelerometers, and implicit measures of arousal from spectators’ heart rates. Additionally, a subset of spectators provided continuous ratings of enjoyment and perceived synchrony using tablet computers. Granger causality analyses demonstrate predictive relationships between synchrony, enjoyment ratings and spectator arousal, if audiences form a collectively consistent positive or negative aesthetic evaluation. Controlling for the influence of overall movement acceleration and visual change, we show that dance communicates group coordination via coupled movement dynamics among a group of performers. Our findings are in line with an evolutionary function of dance–and perhaps all performing arts–in transmitting social signals between groups of people. Human movement is the common denominator of dance, music and theatre. Acknowledging the time-sensitive and immediate nature of the performer-spectator relationship, our study makes a significant step towards an aesthetics of joint actions in the performing arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Novel psychoactive substances (NPSs) continue to emerge in the United States and worldwide. Few epidemiological studies have examined the prevalence and correlates of use.Objective: We examined the extent of NPS use in a high-risk population-attendees of electronic dance music (EDM) parties at nightclubs and festivals.Methods: We surveyed 682 adults (age 18-25) entering EDM events at nightclubs and festivals in New York City (NYC) in 2015. A variation of time-space sampling was used. We examined the prevalence of self-reported use of 196 NPS and correlates of any NPS use.Results: Over a third (35.1%) of participants reported lifetime use of any NPS. Self-reported use of synthetic cannabinoids was most prevalent (16.3%), followed by psychedelic phenethylamines (14.7%; 2C series: 10.3%, 2-(4-iodo-2,5-dimethoxyphenyl)-N-[(2-methoxyphenyl)methyl]ethanamine [NBOMe] series: 9.0%, Dox series: 3.5%), synthetic cathinones ("bath salts", 6.9%), other psychedelics (6.6%), tryptamines (5.1%), and dissociatives (4.3%). 2C-I was the most prevalent 2C series drug (5.1%); methylone was the most prevalent synthetic cathinone (3.3%), 2-MeO-ketamine was the most prevalent dissociative (3.7%), and 1P-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) (2.9%) was the most prevalent non-phenethylamine psychedelic. Risk factors for NPS use included Ecstasy/MDMA/Molly, LSD, and ketamine use; identifying as bisexual (compared to heterosexual), reporting higher frequency of nightclub/festival attendance, and being surveyed outside of a festival (compared to those surveyed outside of nightclubs).Discussion: NPS use is prevalent in the nightclub and festival scenes in NYC. Since individuals in these scenes-especially frequent attendees-are at high risk for use, prevention and harm reduction services need to be geared toward this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the chapter of book "There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack" by Paul Gilroy regarding the black expressive culture with music and dance. It mentions that book "Listening in Detail: Performances of Cuban Music" by Alexandra T. Vazquez on the gender and culture with the cultural form. It also mentions that book "The Black Atlantic" by Gilroy on African American studies with the sites of diasporas.

We report an experiment investigating whether dancing to the same music enhances recall of person-related memory targets. The experiment used 40 dancers (all of whom were unaware of the experiment's aim), two-channel silent-disco radio headphones, a marked-up dance floor, two types of music, and memory targets (sash colors and symbols). In each trial, 10 dancers wore radio headphones and one of four different colored sashes, half of which carried cat symbols. Using silent-disco technology, one type of music was surreptitiously transmitted to half the dancers, while music at a different tempo was transmitted to the remaining dancers. Pre-experiment, the dancers' faces were photographed. Post-experiment, each dancer was presented with the photographs of the other dancers and asked to recall their memory targets. Results showed that same-music dancing significantly enhanced memory for sash color and sash symbol. Our findings are discussed in light of recent eye-movement research that showed significantly increased gaze durations for people observing music-dance synchrony versus music-dance asynchrony, and in relation to current literature on interpersonal entrainment, group cohesion, and social bonding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of MUSICultures is the property of Canadian Society for Traditional Music and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Muzikologija is the property of Serbian Academy of Sciences & Arts, Institute of Musicology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The authors of this paper introduce a method of establishing the dance and music synchrony of silent films by observing the play of musical instruments in case of the early dance films before the 1960s. They claim that applying the method needs the joint recording of the dancer(s) and the musician(s), as well as a thorough knowledge of instrument use, that of the ways of instrumental decorations and the movement analytical skill, which supported finding the connection between music and dance. They note that recording the dancers and the musicians in the same picture frame (or with time coded separate cameras) even in case of video recording is vital from the point of studying the interactions between the dancers and the musicians and their non-verbal communication, which is not possible without seeing the musicians as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music and dance are two remarkable human characteristics that are closely related. Communication through integrated vocal and motional signals is also common in the courtship displays of birds. The contribution of songbird studies to our understanding of vocal learning has already shed some light on the cognitive underpinnings of musical ability. Moreover, recent pioneering research has begun to show how animals can synchronize their behaviors with external stimuli, like metronome beats. However, few studies have applied such perspectives to unraveling how animals can integrate multimodal communicative signals that have natural functions. Additionally, studies have rarely asked how well these behaviors are learned. With this in mind, here we cast a spotlight on an unusual animal behavior: non-vocal sound production associated with singing in the Java sparrow (Lonchura oryzivora), a songbird. We show that male Java sparrows coordinate their bill-click sounds with the syntax of their song-note sequences, similar to percussionists. Analysis showed that they produced clicks frequently toward the beginning of songs and before/after specific song notes. We also show that bill-clicking patterns are similar between social fathers and their sons, suggesting that these behaviors might be learned from models or linked to learning-based vocalizations. Individuals untutored by conspecifics also exhibited stereotypical bill-clicking patterns in relation to song-note sequence, indicating that while the production of bill clicking itself is intrinsic, its syncopation appears to develop with songs. This paints an intriguing picture in which non-vocal sounds are integrated with vocal courtship signals in a songbird, a model that we expect will contribute to the further understanding of multimodal communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnomusicological studies of cultural change frequently focus on either the fortunes of one particular group of people – observing the factors that seem to effect change, or they study strategies and actions at state level – considering the motivations and edicts of government and its associated QANGOs. With a focus on the town of Nandom in northern Ghana, this article sets out to explore parallel narratives around the creation, preservation and usage of cultural artefacts. Beginning from a complex indigenous base, it traces the effect of actions by key local figures who had a variety of reasons and motivations for wishing to create and control cultural behaviours. These actions produced a music and dance form,Bϵwaa, that integrated well into the notion of a national culture, which was the aim of the Ghanaian government around the time of independence (1957). The article then traces the ongoing development of this form through local disputes, the development of cultural performance and the changes necessitated by the introduction of a western style of education, showing that, while significant people may be able to initiate change, it has to be adopted and adapted by individual people in order to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a species-typical trait of Homo sapiens, musicality represents a cognitively complex and biologically grounded capacity worthy of intensive empirical investigation. Four principles are suggested here as prerequisites for a successful future discipline of bio-musicology. These involve adopting: (i) a multicomponent approach which recognizes that musicality is built upon a suite of interconnected capacities, of which none is primary; (ii) a pluralistic Tinbergian perspective that addresses and places equal weight on questions of mechanism, ontogeny, phylogeny and function; (iii) a comparative approach, which seeks and investigates animal homologues or analogues of specific components of musicality, wherever they can be found; and (iv) an ecologically motivated perspective, which recognizes the need to study widespread musical behaviours across a range of human cultures (and not focus solely on Western art music or skilled musicians). Given their pervasiveness, dance and music created for dancing should be considered central subcomponents of music, as should folk tunes, work songs, lullabies and children's songs. Although the precise breakdown of capacities required by the multicomponent approach remains open to debate, and different breakdowns may be appropriate to different purposes, I highlight four core components of human musicality--song, drumming, social synchronization and dance--as widespread and pervasive human abilities spanning across cultures, ages and levels of expertise. Each of these has interesting parallels in the animal kingdom (often analogies but in some cases apparent homologies also). Finally, I suggest that the search for universal capacities underlying human musicality, neglected for many years, should be renewed. The broad framework presented here illustrates the potential for a future discipline of bio-musicology as a rich field for interdisciplinary and comparative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In previous studies investigating entrainment and person perception, synchronized movements were found to enhance memory for incidental person attributes. Although this effect is robust, including in dance, the process by which it is actuated are less well understood. In this study, two hypotheses are investigated: that enhanced memory for person attributes is the result of (1) increased gaze time between in-tempo dancers; and/or (2) greater attentional focus between in-tempo dancers. To explore these possible mechanisms in the context of observing dance, an eye-tracking study was conducted in which subjects watched videos of pairs of laterally positioned dancers; only one of the dancers was synchronized with the music, the other being asynchronous. The results were consistent with the first hypothesis-music-dance synchrony gives rise to increased visual inspection times. In addition, there was a preference for upper-body fixations over lower-body fixations across both synchronous and asynchronous conditions. A subsequent, single-dancer eye-tracking study investigated fixations across different body regions, including head, torso, legs and feet. Significantly greater dwell times were recorded for head than torso and legs; feet attracted significantly less dwell time than any other body region. Lastly, the study sought to identify dance gestures responsible for torso- and head-directed fixations. Specifically we asked whether there are features in dance that are specially designed to direct an observer's gaze towards the face- the main "communicative portal" with respect to the transmission of intent, affect and empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a deep relationship between music and dance, because music performance may be considered as a kind of dance, usually performed by the instrumentalist's arms, hands and fingers, and the movements performed by dancers may be considered as a source of sound and music. In performing works belonging to specific genres dancers and music performers interact, whereas in other works one kind of professionals fulfills all the required tasks. This article aims at exploring how the relationship between dance and music evolved over time, highlighting the most interesting genres and forms based on these two art forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several music criticism essays are presented taken from a colloquy discussion panel originally held at the National Meeting of the American Musicological Society in 2012, focusing on the varied hermeneutical approaches used to study German lieder art song. Topics addressed include the role of the music score as a source of private analysis rather than for public performance, the interaction between dance choreography and music, and the impact of sound recordings on musical practice.

Mark Morris's choreographic depiction of absence in Socrates (2010), set to Erik Satie's austere musical response to Plato's retelling of Socrates's death, poses important questions about the nature of Morris's expressive gesture - its origins, proceedings, and implications. In this essay, I examine the technical inner workings of the text, music, and dance and argue that Morris provides a frame for depicting loss that can help articulate something fundamental about Plato's text and Satie's score. If the notion of dance invites us to listen to the text and music in a different way, it also encourages us to reconsider not only the interrelations between text, music, and dance but also how expressions of death and dying play out in contemporary culture through Morris's nearly thirty-year study of Plato's text and Satie's score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I present an ethnotheory of the music/dance relationship in Swedish polska, based on dance fieldwork and interviews I have conducted with polska dance musicians. I discuss three mechanisms that these musicians use to communicate movement patterns to dancers: iteration (entrainment via repetition), metaphor (timbral weight conveying motional weight), and sympathy (musicians' movements mapping dance movements). I then discuss how musicians use these mechanisms to control four motional parameters: pulsation (rate and consistency of tempo), lean (degree and direction of tilt over the dance axis) viscosity (level of perceived air resistance), and libration (degree and timing of vertical motion). The work is intended in part as a case study of how theories of both music and dance can benefit from a focused analysis of the relationship between those two domains, as well as how studies of music/dance relations can benefit from the application of ethnographic research techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multicultural curricula that explore African musics often focus on the commonalities among its musical traditions. Exploring the diversity of individual African musical traditions provides pathway to the multiplicity of sounds, cultures, beliefs, and uses inherent within African and all multicultural musics. Deeper insights into the diversity of African musics are explored through the rich tapestry of South African musics. South African Xhosa and Zulu traditions are discussed and explored using three rhythm lesson plans that include songs, techniques, and movements adaptable for any grade level and ideal for teachers who wish to expand their idea of diverse African musics. A culturally-expanded curriculum, that includes the diversity of sounds within various cultures, provides opportunities for students to experience some of the rich variety inherent in African musics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of K-pop's global drive has provoked scholarly interests from various perspectives and disciplines. The multidisciplinary interest in K-pop reflects the wealth of K-pop success factors that are either exogenous (i.e., emphasizing global factors) or endogenous (i.e., highlighting Korean factors). This article focuses on the endogenous factors of K-pop's success, given the fact that the majority of the extant studies on K-pop analyze the impact of global factors on K-pop's popularity in different regions of the world. Thus, this study seeks to find if non-stereotypical Korean particularities that cannot be accounted for by exogenous explanations exist within the K-pop industry. We posit that the Korean peculiarities in the K-pop industry can be traced back to time/space hybridity, the "red queen's race," and cosmopolitan striving. This article finds that these three specific features within modern Korean culture explain why K-pop songs are still different from American or European pop music, despite their similarities due to the globalization of pop music. The differences between K-pop music and their counterparts in America and Europe are: the contemporaneity of the uncontemporary, the synchronized dancing to melodic music (vis-à-vis beat music), and the multi-top dancing formation. We conclude that the aforementioned Korean factors are responsible for these musical variations in K-pop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most auctioneers do not self-identify as musicians, the practice of auctioneering in the United States reveals a sophisticated musical approach to metric improvisation based on the establishment of musical expectation and the strategic thwarting of that expectation through flexible treatment of meter. Auctioneers establish a “referential” meter wherein a consistent organization of the pulse returns repeatedly, alternating with expansions or contractions of that primary meter. Listeners are entrained to expect musical consistency, but through disruptions of familiar musical patterns, the auctioneer focuses bidder attention on the chant rather than the realities of the economic transaction in progress. Thus, meter is employed as an improvisational tool that unites the listening and bidding audience within a musical space and plays with expectations just enough to keep bidders alert and engaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Internacional de Educacion Musical is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article discusses the relationship between the human body and music in contemporary Chilean culture. It features contributions from several experts and authors in this field of study, including Alejandra Araya Espínoza, María José Contreras, and María Emilia Tijoux, who comment on collective and individual music and dance, performance, and any perceived health benefits of music and dance.

LISTENING TO MUSIC MAKES US MOVE IN VARIOUS ways. Several factors can affect the characteristics of these movements, including individual factors and musical features. Additionally, music-induced movement may also be shaped by the emotional content of the music, since emotions are an important element of musical expression. This study investigates possible relationships between emotional characteristics of music and music-induced, quasi-spontaneous movement. We recorded music-induced movement of 60 individuals, and computationally extracted features from the movement data. Additionally, the emotional content of the stimuli was assessed in a perceptual experiment. A subsequent correlational analysis revealed characteristic movement features for each emotion, suggesting that the body reflects emotional qualities of music. The results show similarities to movements of professional musicians and dancers, and to emotion-specific nonverbal behavior in general, and could furthermore be linked to notions of embodied music cognition. The valence and arousal ratings were subsequently projected onto polar coordinates to further investigate connections between the emotions of Russell's (1980) circumplex models and the movement features [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including the history of Western theatrical dance, the relationship between dance and music, and the use of music theory by dance scholars.

A major impediment to greater integration of music and dance scholarship is the lack of common terminology. This paper aims to give music and dance scholars some tools of analysis for exploring how each of these related arts interacts with the other. After presenting analogies between terminology in music theory and movement analysis, the authors demonstrate how these tools can be applied in choreomusical analysis. We discuss two broad categories of choreomusical relationships: amplification and emergence, whose effects can be analyzed, we propose, through three strategies: conformance, isolated dissonance, and reorchestration. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Dance Chronicle for the following free supplemental resources: Three video excerpts from Shen Wei's choreography (2003) to Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, performed by Shen Wei Dance Arts at the Park Avenue Armory in New York in 2011.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Mark Morris's Dido and Aeneas (1989) audiences witness a complex web of historical and cultural concerns that not only overlap with those of the story's historical and aesthetic precedents, but also come sharply into focus in relation to our current cultural position. In this close reading of the work in relation to its contexts, we examine the subtle intricacies of Morris's engagement with words, music, and history. Drawing on historical perspectives of gender and self-determination as well as contemporary theories of art as embodiment, we use detailed comparative analysis of music-dance-text structures to illustrate resonances between the past and the present.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hip hop is a global cultural phenomenon that encompasses rap music, dance, graffiti art, and fashion as well as particular ways of being. One sub-genreof hip hop is Gospel rap, in which Christian rappers attempt to ‘represent’ the truth of God as a tangible reality, thereby ‘keepin’ it real’. This study investigates how young British Jamaican male adults in the Brixton area of London appropriate hip hop for their own ends. Based on original raps authored and performed by these young people, the research finds that their representations of spiritual reality are influenced by the conventions and boundaries of professional Gospel rap. The study describes how youth incorporate religious hip hop into their everyday lives and argues that in some cases hip hop performance becomes a method for pedagogically reshaping the body, giving religious beliefs an ‘embodied authenticity’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present study aims to gain better insight into the connection between music and dance by examining the dynamic effects of the bass drum on a dancing audience in a club-like environment. One hundred adult participants moved freely in groups of five to a musical sequence that comprised six songs. Each song consisted of one section that was repeated three times, each time with a different sound pressure level of the bass drum. Hip and head movements were recorded using motion capture and motion sensing. The study demonstrates that people modify their bodily behavior according to the dynamic level of the bass drum when moving to contemporary dance music in a social context. Participants moved more actively and displayed a higher degree of tempo entrainment as the sound pressure level of the bass drum increased. These results indicate that the prominence of the bass drum in contemporary dance music serves not merely as a stylistic element; indeed, it has a strong influence on dancing itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In describing the dedication necessary to transplant Buddhism to North America, the Japanese Zen master Sokei-an Sasaki (1882-1945) famously said 'it will be like holding a lotus to a rock, expecting it to take root'. Since 2001, the Texas Tech University Vernacular Music Center (VMC) (whose mission statement includes 'teaching, research, and advocacy in the world's vernacular traditions') has grown a community of collegiate dancers and musicians in the American Southwest, one that cuts across boundaries of class, age and ethnicity. Paradoxically, in this socially and culturally conservative part of the world, while receptivity to music and dance is very high - Texas is the only state in the Union that still maintains required music and art in the public schools - awareness of the art forms' available stylistic and cultural diversity is very low. Here, vernacular music communities are separated, insulated and cut-off from one another: alienated both geographically, stylistically and sociologically. At the same time, university music programmes, while recognizing the benefits to all of inclusive and diverse excellence, struggle to actualize this recognition: lacking resources, personnel, materials and/or community engagement. Drawing on musicology, ethnography, arts advocacy and mass communications theory, this article investigates the history, goals, means and methods by which the VMC has developed a series of student-centered, boundary-crossing participatory arts communities in the American Southwest, and provides both a practical toolbox, a political vocabulary and a philosophical framework for building like bridges elsewhere [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the capital of the Tang dynasty, Xi'an city and its surrounding preserve many burial places of the royal families, nobilities and the local elites. Among more than 3000 excavated Tang tombs, about one hundred contain wall paintings which are rich in iconographic content and superb in the execution quality. Twenty-three of them have images concerning instrumental music performances, dancing and singing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally considered that the jian drum dance emerged during the Han period in China. However, in contrast to other dances of the Han dynasty, jian drum dance has not been mentioned in any written source. The only evidence about its existence are iconographic representations carved on stones, showing people apparently moving and striking the jian drum. As the jian drum dance is not known from later iconographic sources, it would appear that the dance was performed only during the Han dynasty, and particularly during the period when those images were carved. Based on written records and iconographic data, this paper questions the existence of the jian drum dance and discusses the reasons led to the affirmation of its existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]