The original idea for this book appeared at the beginning of the curatorial work on the 2nd Asia Pacific international Dance Conference in early 2011 when Dance Hybridity was proposed as the conference theme. Being a multi-cultural, multi-religious society, and as an inter-cultural nation, Malaysia became the ideal location to host an international dialogics on hybridity in dance covering a wide spectrum of academic trajectories.
Dancing Mosaic: Issues on Dance Hybridity contains selected texts on dance hybridity from the 2nd Asia Pacific International Dance Conference organized by the Cultural Centre University of Malaya in collaboration with the World Dance Alliance Asia Pacific, MyDance Alliance (WDA-AP Malaysian Chapter), and the National Department for Culture and Arts, Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture, Malaysia, which was held from the 21st to the 25th of September 2011 in Kuala Lumpur.
The selections were primary papers or writings by dance practitioners, scholars, writers and critics, which went through a blind-review process before being accepted for this publication. Selected papers published in this volume show how issues of dance hybridity have developed through performance practices and theoretical approaches primarily within the Asia- Pacific region with additional examples from Europe and the United States.
This book is divided into three main sections:
- a three-article Prologue on Performing-Researching-Writing Hybridity;
- 23 Issues on Dance Hybridity; and
- an Epilogue by three writers.
Case studies or country specific discussions on Issues on Dance Hybridity are approached from various angles by the contributors to this volume.
