Overview

This edited collection is compiled from the first MENACA (Middle East, North African, and Central Asian) Dance and Music Symposium (Pomona College, March 13-16, 2023), and includes a wide variety of readings on Middle Eastern Dance and Music.

The writers range from pioneers in the field of Middle Eastern dance and dance studies, from Barbara Sellers-Young, Karin van Nieuwkerk, and Anthony Shay to a range of newer voices. These authors come from dance, performance studies, theatre, and anthropology backgrounds and provide the reader with insights seen through a variety of lenses such as orientalism, colonialism and post-colonialism, nationalism, and Bourdieu's notion of capital to better understand the phenomenon of Middle Eastern dance and music in its many iterations.

The collection gives equal coverage to the three major ethno-linguistic areas of the region: The Arab World, The Turkish World and the Iranian/Persianate World.