From objects to sounds, choreography is expanding beyond dance and human bodies in motion. This book offers one of the rare systematic investigations of expanded choreography as it develops in contemporaneity, and is the first to consider expanded choreography from a trans-historical perspective. Through case studies on different periods of European dance history - ranging from Renaissance dance to William Forsythe's choreographic objects and from Baroque court ballets to digital choreographies - it traces a journey of choreography as a practice transcending its sole association with dancing, moving, human bodies.
From objects to sounds, choreography is expanding beyond dance and human bodies in motion. This book offers one of the rare systematic investigations of expanded choreography as it develops in contemporaneity, and is the first to consider expanded choreography from a trans-historical perspective. Through case studies on different periods of European dance history - ranging from Renaissance dance to William Forsythe's choreographic objects and from Baroque court ballets to digital choreographies - it traces a journey of choreography as a practice transcending its sole association with dancing, moving, human bodies.
A new contribution to studies in choreography, Writing Choreography: Textualities of and beyond Dance focuses upon language and writing-based approaches to choreographing from the perspectives of artists and researchers active in the Nordic and Oceanic contexts. Through the contributions of 15 dance–artists, choreographers, dramaturges, writers, interdisciplinary artists and artist–researchers, the volume highlights diverse textual choreographic processes and outcomes arguing for their relevance to present-day practices of expanded choreography. The anthology introduces some Western trends related to utilizing writing, text and language in choreographic processes. In its focus on art-making processes, it likewise offers insight into how performance can be transcribed into writing, how practices of writing choreograph and how choreography can be a process of writing with. Readers, such as dancers, choreographers, students in higher education of these fields as well as researchers in choreography, gain understanding about different experimental forms of writing forwarded by diverse choreographers and how writing is the motional organisation of images, signs, words and texts. The volume presents a new strand in expanded choreography and acts as inspiration for its continued evolution that engenders new adaptations between language, writing and choreography. Ideal for students, scholars and researchers of choreography and dance studies.
In his 1978 book Nelson Goodman coined the term “worldmaking.” The new-materialistic approach to the potential for meaning of extra-human materiality and its multidimensional entanglements and the intraconnectedness shifts the concept of world-making into new perspectives of interpretation. In the categories of Karen Barad’s “agential realism,” it applies to practices of knowledge production and to a diffractive (re)configuration of the world’s matter and its meaning. “World-making” gains a further specific expression in Donna Haraway’s concept of “worlding” which shows the intraactive entanglement of matter, substance, meaning, storytelling and thinking on the fundamental level of the polysemic linguistic tissue itself.
Choreographer Jacky Lansley has been practicing and performing for more than four decades. In Choreographies, she offers unique insight into the processes behind independent choreography and paints a vivid portrait of a rigorous practice that combines dance, performance art, visuals, and a close attention to space and site. Choreographies is both autobiography and archive--documenting production through rehearsal and performance photographs, illustrations, scores, process notes, reviews, audience feedback, and interviews with both dancers and choreographers. Covering the author's practice from 1975 to 2017, the book delves into an important period of change in contemporary British dance--exploring British New Dance, postmodern dance, and experimental dance outside of a canonical US context. A critically engaged reflection that focuses on artistic process over finished product, Choreographies is a much-needed resource in the fields of dance and choreographic art making.
Fully revised and updated, this second edition of Contemporary Choreography presents a range of articles covering choreographic enquiry, investigation into the creative process, and innovative challenges to traditional understandings of dance making. Contributions from a global range of practitioners and researchers address a spectrum of concerns in the field, organized into seven broad domains: Conceptual and philosophical concerns Processes of making Dance dramaturgy: structures, relationships, contexts Choreographic environments Cultural and intercultural contexts Challenging aesthetics Choreographic relationships with technology. Including 23 new chapters and 10 updated ones, Contemporary Choreography captures the essence and progress of choreography in the twenty-first century, supporting and encouraging rigorous thinking and research for future generations of dance practitioners and scholars.
Driven by exacting methods and hard data, this volume reveals gender dynamics within the dance world in the twenty-first century. It provides concrete evidence about how gender impacts the daily lives of dancers, choreographers, directors, educators, and students through surveys, interviews, analyses of data from institutional sources, and action research studies. Dancers, dance artists, and dance scholars from the United States, Australia, and Canada discuss equity in three areas: concert dance, the studio, and higher education. The chapters provide evidence of bias, stereotyping, and other behaviors that are often invisible to those involved, as well as to audiences. The contributors answer incisive questions about the role of gender in various aspects of the field, including physical expression and body image, classroom experiences and pedagogy, and performance and funding opportunities. The findings reveal how inequitable practices combined with societal pressures can create environments that hinder health, happiness, and success. At the same time, they highlight the individuals working to eliminate discrimination and open up new possibilities for expression and achievement in studios, choreography, performance venues, and institutions of higher education. The dance community can strive to eliminate discrimination, but first it must understand the status quo for gender in the dance world. Wendy Oliver, professor of dance at Providence College, is coeditor of Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches. Doug Risner, professor of dance at Wayne State University, is coeditor of Hybrid Lives of Teaching Artists in Dance and Theatre Arts: A Critical Reader. Contributors: Gareth Belling | Karen Bond | Carolyn Hebert | Eliza Larson | Pamela S. Musil | Wendy Oliver | Katherine Polasek | Doug Risner | Emily Roper | Karen Schupp | Jan Van Dyke
Set in the Vietnam era the story follows Jordan Gentry a disabled Vietnam vet trying to get his life back together and Susan Kendal Kincaid, a victim of assault and abuse and the era's drug influence. Both Jordan and Susan find their way while "watching the weeds grow."
