Choreographies of Landscape
DANCE AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES
General Editors:
Helen Wulff, Stockholm University and Jonathan Skinner, Queen’s University, Belfast
Advisory Board:
Alexandra Carter, Marion Kant, Tim Scholl
In all cultures, and across time, people have danced. Mesmerizing performers and spectators alike, dance creates spaces for meaningful expressions that are held back in daily life. Grounded in ethnography, this series explores dance and bodily movement in cultural contexts at the juncture of history, ritual and performance, including musical, in an interconnected world.
Volume 1
Dancing at the Crossroads: Memory and Mobility in Ireland
Helena Wulff
Volume 2
Embodied Communities: Dance Traditions and Change in Java
Felicia Hughes-Freeland
Volume 3
Turning the Tune: Traditional Music, Tourism and Social Change in an Irish Village
Adam Kaul
Volume 4
Dancing Cultures: Globalization, Tourism and Identity in the Anthropology of Dance
Edited by Hélène Neveu Kringelbach and Jonathan Skinner
Volume 5
Dance Circles: Movement, Morality and Self-Fashioning in Urban Senegal
Hélène Neveu Kringelbach
Volume 6
Learning Senegalese Sabar: Dancers and Embodiment in New York and Dakar
Eleni Bizas
Volume 7
In Search of Legitimacy: How Outsiders Become Part of an Afro-Brazilian Tradition
Lauren Miller Griffith
Volume 8
Choreographies of Landscape: Signs of Performance in Yosemite National Park
Sally Ann Ness
Choreographies of Landscape
Signs of Performance in Yosemite National Park
Sally Ann Ness
First published in 2016 by
Berghahn Books
© 2016 Sally Ann Ness
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ness, Sally Ann.
Choreographies of landscape : signs of performance in Yosemite National Park / Sally Ann Ness.
pages cm—(Dance and Performance Studies ; 8)
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-78533-116-9 (hardback : alk. paper)—
ISBN 978-1-78533-117-6 (ebook)
1. Human geography—California—Yosemite National Park. 2. Cultural landscapes—California—Yosemite National Park. 3. National parks and reserves—Public use—Yosemite National Park. 4. Ethnology—California—Yosemite National Park. 5. Performing arts—Philosophy. 6. Ethnology—Philosophy. 7. Landscapes—Social aspects. 8. Symbolism. I. Title.
GF504.C2N47 2016
979.4’47—dc23
2015028312
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-78533-116-9 Hardback
E-ISBN: 978-1-78533-117-6 Ebook
This book is dedicated to Yosemite’s visitors, past, present, and future; and especially to my daughter, Anna Lucile Reck, and those of her millennial generation.
Chinese tourists taking photos of themselves at Tunnel Viewpoint, Yosemite National Park, June 2012. Photo by Sally Ann Ness.
Contents
Landscape Performance Theory, an Introduction
1. Bouldering: Movements of the Unforetold
2. Climbing: Scenic-Obscenic Movement
3. Hiking: Self-World Transformations
4. Unwinding and Changing Course
5. The Spartanburg Coincidence
Illustrations