Performing Gender

Abstract

This chapter discusses the performative nature of gender, specifically in the female moving body as it relates to jazz dance in a heteronormative dance culture that reinforces binary gender expression and gender roles. The research aims to identify the physical and cultural tropes that often define women in jazz dance and will present gender-inclusive, human-centric examples of choreography that disrupt the binary or heteronormative, societally-induced constructs pertaining to gendered movement. The chapter also considers the intersection of race and gender as it pertains to the commodification of the female body in jazz dance. Considering the heteronormative, highly-gendered stylizations that are hallmarks of various forms of jazz dance, can we imagine a way in which we might be more gender-expansive in our pedagogy and choreography? Can we identify pedagogical and choreographic approaches that offer alternative ways for female-identified persons to move?