ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the significance of dance in ritual contexts in Sabah, the east Malaysian state on northern Borneo. Dance in ritual contexts has many functions. It can be a means of expressing joy and thanksgiving. It can be used in healing ceremonies; this may involve trance and possession. It can be a vehicle for interceding or mediating between the physical and spiritual worlds on behalf of humans. It can symbolically demonstrate events and transactions taking place in the unseen world. Dance often expresses joy and celebration as a form of thanksgiving. Dance involving spirit possession is sometimes a part of traditional healing rituals. Dance performed by ritual specialists in religious and ceremonial contexts can be a vehicle of mediation between the human and spiritual worlds. In this context, the dancing of the bobolizan is a physical manifestation of her mediation, as she acts out the rinait in time to the music.
