Dance Historiography Research Articles

¿Retorno al espectáculo? Anotaciones sobre el proceso de cambio en la “danza mexicana”: el caso de la Escuela Nacional de Danza, 1932-1947

Much of the historiography of dance in Mexico has pointed out that the dance production of the Escuela de Danza (ED), attached to the Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP), lost relevance in the face of the onslaught of new cultural projects privileged by the Mexican state since the late 1930s, all aimed at building "Mexican dance" in artistic terms. The aim of this article is to propose an initial approach to the dynamics of the scenic creation of the DE -the Escuela Nacional de Danza (END) since 1938- in terms of the dance of the spectacle. This perspective can open new questions to deepen the study of this institution and contribute to the analysis of the field of dance in Mexico. First, I offer some important notes on "Mexican dance" and the dance of the spectacle in Mexico. Next, I address the case of the ED, from its foundation in 1932 until 1947, the year in which the Academia de la Danza Mexicana (ADM) was created, replacing it as the leading institution in the creation of the national dance language. At this point, I point out elements that allow me to propose the process of returning to the logic of the spectacle, from the incorporation of its production into the tourism promotion plan of the government of Manuel Avila Camacho.

Mapping as Historiographic Practice: The Ballet Landscape in Interwar Greece

This article proposes mapping as a tool for dance historiography, and presents a case study of ballet in interwar Greece to show mapping’s distinct attributes. Mapping supports critical dance historiography in five interconnected ways: fostering anti-hegemonic dance histories that counter hierarchical and exclusionary classifications; diversifying dance history beyond West-centric and nation-centric frameworks; undoing linear narratives primarily based on kinetic information; admitting dance history’s performativity and constructed-ness; and amplifying relational, transindividual perspectives within dance histories. Ultimately, the article presents a dual focus: bringing attention to the characteristics of interwar Greek ballet as a genre-crossing, transnational, interdisciplinary modern form blurring distinctions between art and entertainment, and showing how mapping illuminates these distinct aspects.

Tensionamentos dos Rastros Historiográficos do Zouk Brasileiro

ABSTRACT Tensions of the Historiographic Traces of Brazilian Zouk – This article aims to disseminate information about Brazilian Zouk and contribute to the historical understanding of Brazilian dances through critical reflection. To this end, we researched various bibliographic sources, such as articles, theses, dissertations, videos, and reports, in addition to personal notes. The analysis showed disputes concerning the following aspects: 1) the rise of the musical rhythm and dance; 2) the use of basic and competitive movements; 3) the process of commodification; and 4) contemporary issues related to the body. It is important to emphasize that this work is motivated by the necessity to broaden the debate on dance historiography in the country.

The necessity of constructing Tibetan dance iconology

The most glorious era in the history of Tibetan dance in ancient times was the Tubo period, which left many precious dance images with Tibetan colors. Although there has been some attention paid to Tibetan dance images in current scholarship, these images have focused on the theme of "Fantan pipa" or on Dunhuang murals as the main focus, and more Tibetan dance images have not received much attention. Such as Tibetan thangka art, palace murals or some dance posture in Tibetan religious ceremony. The construction of Tibetan dance iconology is essential because it can promote the study of Tibetan dance education and Tibetan dance historiography.

Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space and Sound in American Cultural History, by Christopher J. Smith

<i>Dancing Revolution: Bodies, Space and Sound in American Cultural History</i>, by Christopher J. Smith

Traditional White Spaces

ABSTRACT Why haven’t students been expected and required to study curricula beyond the Eurocentric perspective? This paper argues for equitable inclusion and representation in curricula and pedagogical practices for the discipline of dance in higher education and explicates why it matters to the discipline’s collective identity. Subsequently, this argument suggests that the racial formation in the history of America’s education system, including dance education, from the early 1900s through the mid-1930s, is a direct result of its ongoing monocultural and ethnocentric paradigm. Understanding how race has contributed to dance’s history and development as a discipline in the academy could offer a resolute path toward a paradigm shift away from its historically ethnocentric model. Faced with debates about essentialist nationalism versus broader enterculturalism, my historiography of dance in higher education intends to offer a critical approach to revisioning strategies necessitating more culturally relevant pedagogy.

Bildaktivism i dansarkivet: Betydelsen av Anna Wikströms Akademi för dans

Abstract The article combines Critical Archival Studies theory about agency and activism with an empirical exploration of dance history in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city. It focuses on Anna Wikström’s Academy for Dance (1930-1965), an education which has not been explored in previous research. A previous member of The Swedish Ballet, Wikström offered her students courses in artistic dance, dance as physical exercise, pedagogy, and social dancing. Thereby, her broad education differed from the narrow, elitist Ballet School at The Stora Teatern. The article accounts for how the collaboration between choreographer and dancer Gun Lund and Astrid von Rosen, scholar at the University of Gothenburg, contributes new knowledge about the local dance culture. It is argued that archival and activist approaches make it possible for more voices, bodies, and functions to take place in dance history. As such, the exploration complements previous postmodern dance historiography (see for example Hammergren 2002; Morris och Nicholas 2017) with a Gothenburg example.

Activating Dance Records. Conceptualizing research into the Swedish, Nordic and global archives pertaining to the Russian dancer Anna Robenne

This article explores the following research question: In what ways can activations of dance records (archived materials and other recordings of activities) be conceptualized to contribute to the making of a critically productive dance history in the digital age? Drawing on an extensive study of the Russian dancer Anna Robenne, the article focuses on the archival explorations (or road trip) as such, and in particular the multifaceted ways in which the records themselves can be active agents in processes of memory making and history production. Adopting recent theoretical developments concerning the concept of pluralization in archival studies, the exploration discards the conventional and rather static understanding of records as neutral containers of facts to emphasize instead an inclusive and infinitely evolving process. Working within an interdisciplinary archive-oriented realm, the author reflexively makes use of practices and methods belonging to both art history and classical and contemporary dance tradition. The article first maps recent pluralizing approaches within archival studies including re-theorizations of the key concepts records, provenance, value and representation. It then conceptualizes archival activation through examples from the archival road trip. The article concludes by offering the reader clear arguments for archival pluralization in the form of intimate, invasive, and imaginary activation, and demonstrates the importance and relevance of closely, critically and imaginatively engaging with records. The article highlights the role the archive can play in breaking down cultural barriers and re-evaluating notions of dance historiography, heritage and cultural identity.

Activating Dance Records. Conceptualizing research into the Swedish, Nordic and global archives pertaining to the Russian dancer Anna Robenne

This article explores the following research question: In what ways can activations of dance records (archived materials and other recordings of activities) be conceptualized to contribute to the making of a critically productive dance history in the digital age? Drawing on an extensive study of the Russian dancer Anna Robenne, the article focuses on the archival explorations (or road trip) as such, and in particular the multifaceted ways in which the records themselves can be active agents in processes of memory making and history production. Adopting recent theoretical developments concerning the concept of pluralization in archival studies, the exploration discards the conventional and rather static understanding of records as neutral containers of facts to emphasize instead an inclusive and infinitely evolving process. Working within an interdisciplinary archive-oriented realm, the author reflexively makes use of practices and methods belonging to both art history and classical and contemporary dance tradition. The article first maps recent pluralizing approaches within archival studies including re-theorizations of the key concepts records, provenance, value and representation. It then conceptualizes archival activation through examples from the archival road trip. The article concludes by offering the reader clear arguments for archival pluralization in the form of intimate, invasive, and imaginary activation, and demonstrates the importance and relevance of closely, critically and imaginatively engaging with records. The article highlights the role the archive can play in breaking down cultural barriers and re-evaluating notions of dance historiography, heritage and cultural identity.

Petrified? Some Thoughts on Practical Research and Dance Historiography

Ernst Kallai's 1931 Schrifttanz article bemoaned the way in which dance at the time was living ‘above its intellectual means’. The article cited a work by Oskar Schlemmer to exemplify how the theor...

The disappearing danseur

ABSTRACTThe notion of studying the nineteenth-century danseur is problematic because of an anti-male strain in dance historiography that has led some to suggest that he virtually disappeared from the stage. André Levinson is largely responsible for the danseur’s poor reputation: he minimised the narrative aspect of nineteenth-century ballet and declared in 1929 that the ballerina Marie Taglioni had ‘evicted’ men from the stage. Levinson also canonised La Sylphide (1832), a ballet that he, like his nineteenth-century predecessors Théophile Gautier and Jules Janin, gendered as feminine. He promulgated the term ‘ballet blanc’, a feminising but misleading term now in common use and rarely interrogated. And yet men danced on the stage throughout the nineteenth century. In the case of the Paris Opéra, men contributed to ballet as principal dancers, soloists and in the corps de ballet. A brief study of La Jolie Fille de Gand, a ballet contemporaneous with La Sylphide, shows a rich set of male roles calling on men’s skill as mimes and dancers in various styles. Further studies of the long-maligned nineteenth-century danseur are needed.

C] Blonde, Bewigged and Winged with Gold: Ballet Girls in the Music Halls of Late Victorian and Edwardian England

ballet, says Anstey, 'everything else on the programme is scarcely more than pudding'.' These venues, off-shoots of the traditional music hall, presented at least one, usually two and sometimes three ballets nightly and each production normally ran for six months or more. Approximately one hundred and forty new works were created during this period.2 In quantitative terms, the duration of this period of activity, the number of ballets produced, the number of people employed and the size of audiences all exceeded those of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. And yet, whilst the names of Diaghilev's collaborators, performers and ballets are common currency in dance discourse, the music hall ballet has been almost eclipsed from record. Clearly, historians have exercised judgements to do with perceived quality of artistic achievement, rather than recording the achievement itself. The ballets and their creators have all but disappeared from dance history. Katti Lanner's name is now barely known but, as arranger of thirty-five new ballets at the Empire, she has the rare distinction of being a woman choreographer in a field apparently dominated by men.3 Even the performing stars of the ballets such as Bessone, Brianza, Legnani, Palladino and, to a lesser extent, Genee, tend to be credited only in secondary sources for their achievements away from London's Leicester Square venues.4 If the premieres danseuses have had their music hall performances omitted from their biographies, the numerous women who comprised the corps de ballet have had no biographies at all, neither individually nor collectively. Whilst it is understandable, perhaps, that they rarely appear in records as named individuals, the corps as entity has been little recognised in dance historiography. Such a