Successful Repair, Rituals, Dance Festivals Spin Jump

The Xinjiang Uygur ethnic Sema dance has a long tradition in Sufism (Sufiyah) of Islam. It was first inaugurated by sufis as a ritual in road churches (Khanaqah) and later gradually became so widely accepted as to be performed in many other occasions ranging from Mazar pilgrimage by Sufi Order to Id Kah Mosque ceremony by jolly crowds. What's more, today there are professional Sema dancers inheriting it at conservatory and performing it at stage.As a transnational art, the Sema dance has been well developed and nourished by cultures indigenous to such neighboring countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and even non-borders or areas like Turkey, Egypt, Iran and Chechnya. With Sema lineage of these regions, Chishtiyah, Jahriyah, Qadiriyah and Mevlevi have different versions of Sema dance while they are all Sufi orders native to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. As is known from the above-mentioned, study on Sema dances, though interlaced and interlocked, is promising as well as challenging.The study of Sema dances, as an interdisciplinary research, involves ethnological (anthropological) method and dance language analyses of Choreology with combination of archival research in history and religious, political and cultural study. From a comprehensive cultural perspective to interpret its distinctive history, the Sema dance is analyzed as a folk ritual structure to explore its signification and significance. Given its inheritance in municipal conservatory and theatre troupes, the study of Sema should also include its characteristics, function and evolution. At the same time, non-tangible cultural heritage research is also referred as an applied study in the thesis.The thesis falls into four parts in nine chapters. Part One is included in the first chapter. It explains definition of the Sema dance and tentatively analyzes its cultural environments. By the eco-anthropological method, Part One introduces the fact that the Sema dances are characterized by more Sufic than plural features with nurtured by compound and complicated Western Region cultures and governed by the rules of integration, acculturation, cultural vicissitudes and cultural differentiation.Part Two is composed of Chapter Two, Chapter Three and Four. This part mainly explores the origin of the Sema dance. There is always debate over which deserves credit for its invention, Shamanism or Sufi Order. Though highly contentious, it is inevitable. Without focusing on settling the disagreement, Part Two objectively highlights the intercultural comparison and contrast between Shamanic and Sema dance to gain an insight into its origins.As a key and difficult part, Chapter Five, Six, Seven and Eight are used to make register analyses including the Sema dances in religious Khanaqah, Mazar pilgrimage, Id Kah Mosque ceremony and in conservatories and performing troupes. Four register analyses involve describing ritual structure and evolvement process and explaining its symbolic meaning and cultural function helping to understand what is the Sema dance and what is its great significance in modern society, any analysis of which is the integral part of contemporary chorographic research. Furthermore, it is a significant enterprise to study ancient dances in our times.Part Four made up of Chapter Nine introduces the status quo and future of the Sema dances aiming to explore how an ancient religious dance, ever being marginalized on various accounts, is well exploited for the public and revived by improving their deficiency to avoid felling into oblivion and isolation from the dominant culture. And it is expected that the case study of the Sema can explore a feasible practice to recover other traditional dances.Writing four parts is attributed to the following three involvements. First, it is a further study in virtue of the preceding researches. Second, it is an urge to convert ethnic Choreology from concentrating on skin-deep description of the origins or motions to highlighting ritual structure, function and meaning in contemporary study. Last but not least, it is an initiative to take application into account. A perfect academic research can be credited to solve three questions, ie. what, why and how. More often, the last one---how to do--- falls into an assumption, but one is better than none. Any proceeding study paves the way for the preceding one.