DANCE NARRATION AND THE FEMININE MIMESIS IN OB-UGRIAN WOMEN’S DANCES

• Main Author: Inka Juslin
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Siikala; khanty; Mansi
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.579.6421; http://www.elore.fi/arkisto/2_07/jus2_07.pdf

During the period 1996–1997, I interviewed two Mansi and two Khanty women about their dancing. My interest was kindled after I had seen them performing with the Ob-Ugrian bear ritual theatre group in Helsinki. The performance took place in October 1996 at the Teatro stage in Yrjönkatu. I was watching their performance in the audience, and I later watched scenes from the dances and miniature plays on a video recording of the performance (Asplund 1996). In this article, I focus on these Ob-Ugrian Khanty and Mansi women’s dances, which have traditionally been performed in village rituals. Today active members of the community, such as artists, teachers and shamans, have revitalized these dances and other rite fragments, also performing them on theatre stages and in cultural centres (Pentikäinen 1998; Siikala & Uljasev 2002). Although the performance space of the Siberian bear ritual tradition has changed over time, the context of the dances remains that of the tradition. Three of my interviewees, a Khanty woman (born in 1968) and Mansi sisters (born in 1969 and 1971) represent the young generation. As a child, the young Khanty woman had attended some festivities related to the killing of the bear. Her father