Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a fine example of what difference of perspective means in practice, in this case of what is understood to be an ancient monument. In this book anthropologist Greg Downey offers a parallel case, drawn from his experience of learning the Afro-Brazilian dance and martial art known as Capoeira Angola. Farnell and Wood directly confront the question of how we are to understand the creativity of apparently imitative and consistently repeated movements, in the work of contemporary dance artists. McFadyen explains how she improvised a way of drawing the gravel that fills the ditches of the archaeological site she has been excavating. Arnd Schneider arrives at much the same question, through a series of reflections on the parallels and contrasts between ethnography and experimental film.