Guest Editors’ Introduction

This special issue of Traditions of Music and Dance presents articles drawn from papers presented at the 48th World Conference of the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance held at the Tākina Wellington Conference and Exhibition Centre, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, from 9 to 16 January 2025. This World Conference had six key themes: “Indigenous people’s music and dance,” “Environment, place, displacement, and relocation,” “Translation, inclusivity, reception,” “Dance, movement, gesture, embodiment,” “Technologies of sound, music, movement, and dance,” and “Alternative approaches and methods to research, education, and knowledge dissemination,” (alongside “New Research”). The articles in this special issue present research that speaks across these themes, and we are pleased that the collection also includes works of both early-career researchers and established scholars. As the conference Programme Committee Chairs, we are delighted to serve as guest editors of this collection.