Moving Within the Circle

Contemporary Native American Music and Dance

Bryan Burton

ISBN 0-937203-65-3 Book/audio CD SET $29.95
ISBN 0-937203-66-1 Book/audio CD/Slides SET $63

Moving Within the Circle is a dynamic collection of twenty-four social songs and dances, flute songs, guided listening experiences, and instructions for making present day instruments. Representing the music of the Pueblo, Lakota, Kiowa, Nanticoke, Hidatsa, Haliwa-Saponi, Seneca and other peoples, they were taught directly to Bryan Burton (of mixed Caddo/Choctaw and European descent) over a period of several years by members of these groups. Moving Within the Circle also includes in-depth cultural and historical background for each of the peoples represented.

The music of the original inhabitants of North America stretches back beyond memory. Most importantly, it also reaches to the present and into the future with great vitality and spirit, rooted firmly in tradition but thriving, growing, evolving to reflect the dynamic cultures found across the continent today. The ancient voices have not been stilled by a difficult history.The traditional dances have not been forgotten. The music of Native American Indians was not frozen at a point in time only the old ones remember. Young musicians are absorbing the lessons of the past as well as the present, of the ceremonies as well as the conservatories, blending, melding, working with the raw materials to present sights and sounds distinctively marked with their culture as it exists in the present. Round Dances, Two-Step, a Pottery Dance, Rabbit Dance, Bear Dance, Canoe Dance, Call to SunriseÑthe songs included here are heard during inter-tribal pow-wows and at cultural centers, blasting from radios in pick-up trucks bouncing along the road in Monument Valley, or quietly floating on the wind moving across the Plains.

The 8 1/2 x 11 book includes:

• 18 musical transcriptions
• 5 Flute Songs
• 6 Guided Listening Experiences
• 43 photographs
• 34 illustrations; Map
• Dance diagrams
• Instructions for building several instruments and making accessories for regalia
• Genereal Background on Native American music, dance and culture
• Annotation for each selection
• Bibliography/Discography/Resources/Index

The companion CD includes:

• A recording of every selection in the book, featuring performances by Native American singers and musicians, including R. Carlos Nakai and Jackalope, the Porcupine Singers, Tom Bee and XIT, the Haliwa-Saponi Singers, the Tigua Youth Dancers, and many others who gave their voices and their energy to this unique project.

• Additional listening examples span traditional ceremonial music to rock

Optional set of 20 full color slides with teacher's guide

• Photos of the countryside, pow-wows, instruments, individuals

About the Author

Bryan Burton, D Mus Ed, is Professor of Music Education at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. From Arizona to Delaware to Texas, from New Mexico to New York, Bryan Burton has traveled, lived and studied with people who are actively using these songs in their communitiesÑpeople who cherish their traditions and are willing to share them in the hope of increasing understanding, respect for and appreciation of their culture among all people and all cultures. His articles have appeared in numerous journals and he is the author of Ceremonial and Social Songs and Dances of Selected Native peoples of the Southwestern United States and Artisans of the American Southwest. He is a frequent clinician at international, national, state, and in-service music education and ethnomusicology conferences.

"Compelling...the author approaches his subject with respect and sensitivity. (This) encouraged native singers to share not only their songs, but also the broader heeritage and values they spring from." Alan Tack, Native Peoples Magazine

"This book, with its healthy emphasis on contemporary dance songs, the new Indian music and the infinite variations you find, and its extensive background material for the reader, is unique among the few Native American resources available...very well-informed." David P. McAllester, Ph.D. (Wesleyan University)