ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the dance – and in two instances, religion – from three cultures in the Western hemisphere: the Ghost Dance religion of the Lakota Sioux, Haitian Vodou, and Argentinian tango. The Ghost Dance movement ended tragically at Wounded Knee in 1890, it was neither the end of Native American political resistance, nor that of violent confrontation on Pine Ridge Reservation. Haitian Vodou, along with other Afro-Caribbean faiths, has antecedents in the ancient West African religions of Vodun and Yoruba. Vodou ceremonies at a hounfort temple take place in peristyle or tonnele, an outdoor courtyard that has a tall pole in the middle called a poteau mitan. Tango singers, dancers, and musicians faced challenges, censorship, and harassment during the twentieth century, especially during 1946-1955 presidency of Juan Peron and during the years of the "Dirty War". At the turn of the twentieth century, tango was thriving in Buenos Aires demimonde, but was still distained by the upper class.
