ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the especially pertinent in the postcolonial world people live in, when those involved in dance have to deal with issues of greater complexities than in any other historical period. In popular thought identity is first and foremost a set of information that allows us to recognize someone as an individual. Similarly one could argue that the identity of a dance work exists always in relation to other dance works and each performance of a work in relation to all other performances of that work. Anthropologist Drid Williams has argued for many years that "dances are socio linguistic phenomena" associated to physical actions. Repossessing the notions and researching the identities, values, and ideologies of the engaged in dance, dance scholars can find a rich territory, which can help us understand the postcolonial world dancers inhabit today.
