The Body, the Dance and the Text

This collection of new essays explores the many ways in which writing relates to corporeality and how the two work together to create, resist or mark the body of the “Other.” Contributors draw on varied backgrounds to examine different movement practices. They focus on movement as a meaning-making process, including the choreographic act of writing. The challenges faced by marginalized bodies are discussed, along with the ability of a body to question, contest and re-write historical narratives.

Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Brynn Wein Shiovitz is a lecturer in the department of theatre at UCLA and dance at Chapman University in Orange County, California. Her writing about dance has appeared in Dance Chronicle, Dance Research Journal, Theatre Survey, Jazz Perspectives and Women and Performance.

Edited by Brynn Wein Shiovitz

Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 276
Bibliographic Info: 35 photos, notes, bibliographies, index
Copyright Date: 2019
pISBN: 978-1-4766-7189-5
eISBN: 978-1-4766-3485-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vi
Introduction: Writing the Body, Staging the Other (Brynn W. Shiovitz) 1

Part 1: Writing the Body
Mouth Over Matter: Writing Early Tap Dance in the Margins of the Black Body (Brynn W. Shiovitz) 18
Spain in the Basement: Dancing Race and Nation at the Paris Exposition, 1900 (Kiko Mora and K. Meira Goldberg) 41
White Dreadlocks: Black Aesthetics in the Work of Louise Lecavalier and La La La Human Steps (MJ Thompson) 68
Flowers of Menace: Stephen Petronio’s Rites of Spring Constance Valis Hill 85

Part 2: Transmissions and Traces
Othering the Religious Right: Ameritude, Whiteness and the USA Freedom Kids (Michelle T. Summers) 104
Escape Routes and Roots: Rewriting the Narrative of the Vulgar Body (A’Keitha Carey) 117
Lo Que Queda/That Which Remains: Dancing Bodies, Historical Erasure and Cultural Transmission (Michelle Heffner Hayes) 134
Screaming Soundscapes: The Sounds of Puerto Rican Contemporary Performance in the Work of Teresa Hernández and Ivette Román (Lydia Platón Lázaro) 152

Part 3: Staging the Other
Always Already: The Jewish Body as Victim and Victimizer (Rebecca K. Pappas) 172
Israel Galván’s Aesthetic Anarchism: An Ethics Instantiated in Motion (Ninotchka D. Bennahum) 190
Brown and Black: Performing Transmission in Trisha Brown’s Locus and Hosoe Eikoh and Hijikata Tatsumi’s Kamaitachi (Michael Sakamoto and Christopher-Rasheem McMillan) 202
The Bustle, the Body and Stillness: ­Re-Centering Modernities through the Broadway Musical (Gwyneth Shanks) 219
Gradations of Presence: Armida in ­Nineteenth-Century Italian Dance Librettos (Melissa Melpignano) 235
Choreogrammatics: About the Cover of This Book (Linda Carreiro) 253

About the Contributors 263
Index 265

“Among this collection’s 14 contributions—which include essays from artist scholars A’Keitha Carey, Ninotchka Bennahum, and Michael Sakamoto—are essays that use dance forms such as flamenco, tap, dance hall, and postmodern genres to rewrite historical dancing narratives. An informative collection that can be used in composition, criticism and aesthetics, and pedagogy courses, this collection uses historical and cultural frameworks to interrogate the multiplicity of lived experiences. …recommended”—Choice