Detroit, MIchigan, has long been recognized as a center of musical innovation and social change. Rebekah Farrugia and Kellie D. Hay draw on seven years of fieldwork to illuminate the important role that women have played in mobilizing a grassroots response to political and social pressures at the heart of Detroit’s ongoing renewal and development project. Focusing on the Foundation, a women-centered hip hop collective, Women Rapping Revolution argues that the hip hop underground is a crucial site where Black women shape subjectivity and claim self-care as a principle of community organizing. Through interviews and sustained critical engagement with artists and activists, this study also articulates the substantial role of cultural production in social, racial, and economic justice efforts.
Adrienne Rich chose Cathy Park Hong's "audacious" (Los Angeles Times) second book as the winner of the 2006 Barnard Women Poets Prize. Named one of the Los Angeles Times's Best Science Fiction Books in 2007, Dance Dance Revolution is a genre-bending tour de force told from the perspective of the Guide, a former dissident and tour guide of an imagined desert city.
The countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean - Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria - have undergone major turmoil in recent years, with civil war, occupation and uprising becoming a focus of international attention. Women, Dance and Revolution offers a highly original perspective on the political and cultural tensions through the experiences of contemporary dance practitioners from the region. It shows how these women - all established performers, choreographers and teachers - have been affected by and responded to the changes brought about by the troubles. As their personal dreams unfold into public aspirations for their society and country, the moving body becomes central in the debates over the future of the region. Through dance they engage in public protest and performance, endure violence and repression, and reveal new meanings of identity, gender and body politics. Their journeys of dance – both abroad and in their homelands - illuminate how, despite moments of disillusionment, objection and betrayal, being a woman and being a dancer can still mean many things and influence society in many ways in the Arab World
"The countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean-- Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria--have undergone major turmoil in recent years, with civil war, occupation and uprising. Women, Dance and Revolution offers a highly original perspective on the political and cultural tensions through the experiences of contemporary dance practitioners from the region. It shows how these women--all established performers, choreographers and teachers--have responded to the changes brought about by the troubles. Through dance they engage in public protest and performance, endure violence and repression, and reveal new meanings of identity, gender and body politics. Their journeys of dance illuminate how, despite moments of disillusionment, objection and betrayal, being a woman and being a dancer can still mean many things and influence society in many ways in the Arab World."--Bloomsbury Publishing.
The first comprehensive work in English on the three major regional styles of Uzbek women's dance – Ferghana, Khiva and Bukhara – and their broader Silk Road cultural connections, from folklore roots to contemporary stage dance. The book surveys the remarkable development from the earliest manifestations in ancient civilizations to a sequestered existence under Islam; from patronage under Soviet power to a place of pride for Uzbek nationhood. It considers the role that immigration had to play on the development of the dances; how women boldly challenged societal gender roles to perform in public; how both material culture and the natural world manifest in the dance; and it illuminates the innovations of pioneering choreographers who drew from Central Asian folk traditions, gestures and aesthetics – not Russian ballet – to first shape modern Uzbek stage dance. Written by the first American dancer invited to study in Uzbekistan, this book offers insight into the once-hidden world of Uzbek women's dance.
"Core Connections: Cairo Belly Dance in the Revolution's Aftermath investigates local, intra-Middle Eastern, and global circulations of belly dance centered within Cairo, Egypt, in the tumultuous aftermath of the Jan. 25th, 2011 revolution. This multi-sited ethnography takes audiences on a taxi ride that viscerally moves through contemporary city-circuitries of dance venues and stories from the Nile cruising tourist boats and decadent five-star hotels to smoky late-night discos and Pyramid Street cabarets. While mapping the multiple maneuverings of Cairene dancers and non-dancers alike, this book centralizes Cairene dancers embodied political insight while fleshing out nuanced portraits of their lives and stories amidst ongoing political precarity. In addition to interweaving Dance and Middle Eastern Gender Studies, this book innovatively 'does' and writes ethnography. This book's ethnographic approach embodies the dance itself via attending to the dual meanings of moving; centralizing mobility and movement as sites of power and knowledge, but also in researching and writing in ways that move emotionally, stirring up poignant affect that leads to physical reaction, change, and connection. In other words, this ethnography aims to center the same aesthetics and values of Cairo belly dancing, to 'move' with greater feeling to cultivate richer core connections within ourselves, between one another, and within our city-spaces. In doing so, this book stakes a claim for listening to the subtleties of otherwise marginalized bodily interaction, exchange, and wisdom as rippling with potential for stepping into more revolutionary realities and relationships. Core Connections: Cairo Belly Dance in the Revolution's Aftermath investigates local, intra-Middle Eastern, and global circulations of belly dance centered within Cairo, Egypt. This ethnography takes audiences on a taxi ride that viscerally moves through contemporary dance venues from the Nile cruising tourist boats and decadent five-star hotels to smoky late-night discos and Pyramid Street cabarets"--
"The author's love of dance shines through these pages, sweeping the reader along with her own enthusiasm ... This book emphatically and convincingly shifts the exploration of dance to centre-stage, providing a pioneering foundation for future work."--Cathy Lebelska, Women's Studies Network practise within a feminist perspective and, for the non-dance sociologist, it will provide an introduction to issues and concerns in the field.' - Leisure Studies Association demolishes the myth that dance is a female art form by demonstrating the way in which it is dominated by male managers, choreographers and directors. While most dancers are women, for the most part they interpret male-constructed images rather than create them. This is not inevitable, however, the author argues; dance is a possible arena for feminist practice and women's liberation. 'Feminism, cultural studies, and dance analysis will all benefit from this reorientation.' - Janet Wolff.
