Abstract
Hahn's book is an ethnography of dance transmission focusing on how cultural knowledge is embodied, using lessons of Japanese dance nihon buyo in the Tachibana School in Tokyo as a case study. Based not only on her long-term experiences as a student but also on thorough systematic fieldwork, her participant observation of how dance is taught reveals a great deal about Japanese culture.
She explains her focus on behind-the-scenes activities of dance training as a unique way to observe a process when "culture flows", on the contrary to "finished" performances on the stage presented to the general public by most performing arts traditions around the world. Therefore, although she sheds light on the genre of nihon buyo, which remains relatively unknown outside Japan in comparison to kabuki, noh and bunraku, her aim is not to mediate a comprehensive history of the genre or records of the specific dances, but to concentrate on the elusive and fascinating process of how culture becomes inscribed in the body.