Choreographies of Landscape. Sally Ann Ness

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      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

      www.berghahnbooks.com

      © 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

       List of Illustrations

       Acknowledgments

       I. Approach

       Landscape Performance Theory, an Introduction

       II. Visiting

       1. Bouldering: Movements of the Unforetold

       2. Climbing: Scenic-Obscenic Movement

       3. Hiking: Self-World Transformations

       III. Moving On

       4. Unwinding and Changing Course

       5. The Spartanburg Coincidence

       Index

      Illustrations

       Frontispiece. Chinese tourists taking photos of themselves at Tunnel Viewpoint, Yosemite National Park, June 2012. Photo by Sally Ann Ness.

       Figure 0.1. Visitor Anna Reck choreographing a “small fact” of visitor experience inside a living oak tree in Yosemite Valley, 4 July 2005. Photo by Erich Reck (from the collection of Sally Ann Ness).

       Figure 0.2. Visitors performing on boulders beside the trail to Lower Yosemite Fall Viewpoint, April 2009. Photo by Sally Ann Ness.

       Figure