Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Date

2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Art History

Committee Chair

Laurel Hackley

Committee Member

Earnestine Jenkins

Committee Member

Suzanne Onstine

Abstract

Dancing For Your Ka: Embodied Knowledge in the Ancient Egyptian Funerary Cult investigates the spiritual, cultural and social values and beliefs encoded in processional dances associated with the funerary cult at Beni Hassan. It assumes that, as is other ancient and modern religions, dance is a prayerful act that feeds into reciprocal relationships between humans and spiritual beings and asks what forms of embodied knowledges are archived in Middle Kingdom dance traditions. I propose the application Katherine Dunham’s Theories––Form and Function, Intercultural Communication and Socialization through the Arts––to help illuminate the relationship between dance, the dancing body and ritual knowledge. These theories reveal what dance and the dancing body do at various levels of meaning, from the individual to the collective. This study aims to treat dancers as subjects rather than objects and pushes for holistic interpretations not previously centered in earlier, traditional Egyptological studies on dance.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest/Clarivate.

Notes

Open Access

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