Tragom nevidljive plesačice
Following a Trail of an Invisible Dancer

Summary/Abstract: In the first part of the text the author makes a critical review of the written documentation from the 19th and 20th centuries about the Carnival on the island of Lastovo, especially of the deficient descriptions of the female participants, the so called "lijepe maπkare" (pretty maskers). In spite of the fact that the Carnival of Lastovo has already been the topic of ethnological, ethnotheatrological, and even ethnochoreological research, the author noted and in her research and interpretation pointed out that in the Carnival events women are an obligatory and irreplaceable participants of the customs during which they dance a chain dance with a handkerchief, which has in the previous research remained unnoticed or neglected and marginalized. In the second part of the text the author discusses the female chain dance. In the context of Carnival events, the island of Lastovo is a unique case where women perform a chain dance, using handkerchiefs as substitutes for swords which are used in similar male chain dances (except in Kotor, where even the members of the Boka Navy perform a chain dance with handkerchiefs). The intention of most ethnological, ethnotheatrological and ethnochoreological research so far was to discover a common mythological background and the characteristics of Carnival roles and events, putting all sword dances in the same category, disregarding the sex and gender and the more detailed choreological differences of certain performances. In accordance with recent research of sex and gender in an ethnochoreological elaboration of the customs of "slavonske kraljice" (Slavonian queens) (»ale Feldman), the author claims that dance too should be observed in an attainable and concrete context of the events observed. At the end, in accordance with the interpretation of the dance and the roles of performers in the Carnival events, she notes the correspondence with the division of sex and gender roles in everyday life of the people from Lastovo...

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