ABSTRACT

In the context of globalization, humanly organized expressive systems are sustained by translocal communities of practitioners. Globalization is disruptive, and the transnational flow of practitioners can challenge the coherency and formal properties of a humanly organized expressive system. This chapter draws upon the study of the relationship between music and dance, a field called choreomusicology. Choreomusicology analyze the cultural transmission of three distinct performance genres of combat-dancing as case examples of humanly organized expression: Silek Minang from West Sumatra, Pencak Silat Seni from West Java, and Capoeira from Northeast Brazil. In performances of combat-dancing, percussive and melodic music-making combine with systematized repertoires of interactive body movements to form holistic gestural complexes. Developments in the global distribution of these three genres of combat-dancing, the chapter explore three features of humanly organized expressive systems: autotelism, the self-sustaining capacity of an art; degeneracy, the synergistic correspondences between music and movement; and choreutic cognition, the improvised or choreographed basis of the art.