Explores the structures and aesthetic possibilities of music, dance and dramatic representation in ritual and theatrical situations in a diversity of ethnographic contexts in Europe, Americas, Africa and Asia. This book aims to explore the way artistic and aesthetic practices in performance produce and structure experience.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: The Aesthetics of Symbolic Construction and Experience Bruce Kapferer and Angela Hobart Chapter 1. Making Grown Men Weep William O. Beeman Chapter 2. The Buzz of God and the Click of Delight David Shulman Chapter 3. Songs of Love, Images of Memory Saskia Kersenboom Chapter 4. The Hindu Temple and the Aesthetics of the Imaginary Rohan Bastin Chapter 5. Where Divine Horsemen Ride: Trance Dancing in West Africa Steven M. Friedson Chapter 6. Sorcery and the Beautiful: A Discourse on the Aesthetics of Ritual Bruce Kapferer Chapter 7. Transformation and Aesthetics in Balinese Masked Performances—Rangda and Barong Angela Hobart Chapter 8. A Concise Reflection on the Brazilian Carnival Roberto DaMatta Chapter 9. Bureaucratic Logic, Bureaucratic Aesthetics: The Opening Event of Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day in Israel Don Handelman Chapter 10. Compassion for Animals, Indifference to Humans: Non- and Misperceptions among Circus Audiences in 1970s Britain Yoram S. Carmeli Notes on Contributors Index

“There is much to recommend in this volume…a fascinating array of cases …an excellent job [by the editors] of introducing the main issues…many of the essays are accompanied by illustrations and photographs that enhance and exemplify the arguments.”  ·  Eyal Ben-Ari in JRAI