Dance, Space and Subjectivity

by Briginshaw, Valerie A.

• ISBN13: 9780230229792
• ISBN10: 0230229794
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-12-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book contains readings of American, British and European postmodern dances informed by feminist, postcolonialist, queer and poststructuralist theories. It explores the roles dance and space play in constructing subjectivity. By focusing on site-specific dance, the mutual construction of bodies and spaces, body-space interfaces and 'in-between spaces,' the dances and dance films are read 'against the grain' to reveal their potential for troubling conventional notions of subjectivity associated with a white, Western, heterosexual able-bodied, male norm.

Author Biography

VALERIE A. BRIGINSHAW is a retired Professor of Dance, Chichester University, UK. Her publications include Writing Dancing Together and chapters in Analysing Performance, Dance in the City, Preservation Politics, Performing Nature and Anarchic Dance.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Preface to Second Edition	p. xiii
Preface	p. xv
Acknowledgements	p. xviii
Introduction	p. 1
Where bodies meet space	p. 2
Currency of ideas about space	p. 5
Questions of subjectivity	p. 6
Reading dances	p. 7
Bounded bodies	p. 9
In-between spaces	p. 14
Inside/outside interfaces	p. 17
Constructions of Space and Subjectivity
Travel metaphors in dance - gendered constructions of travel, spaces and subjects	p. 27
Introduction	p. 27
Metaphors of travel in postmodern discourse	p. 28
Travel and gender	p. 29
Space, power and gender	p. 30
Suggestions of travel in the dances	p. 32
Gendering of travel, space and subjects in the dance film	p. 35
Reappropriating travel metaphors for new subjectivities	p. 40
Conclusion	p. 42
Transforming city spaces and subjects	p. 43
Introduction	p. 43
Sixties precedents	p. 44
Muurwerk and Step in Time Girls	p. 49
Constructed spaces	p. 50
Mutual definition of bodies and cities	p. 51
Conclusion	p. 56
Coastal constructions in Lea Anderson's Out on the Windy Beach	p. 59
Introduction	p. 59
Eroticized bodies and spaces	p. 63
Bodies and boundaries	p. 65
Seaside surrealism	p. 68
Conclusion	p. 73
Dancing in the æIn-Between SpacesÆ
Desire spatialized differently in dances that can be read as lesbian	p. 77
Introduction	p. 77
Lesbian desire refigured	p. 78
The performance of gender and sexuality	p. 80
The dances - Reservaat (1988), Between/Outside (1999), Virginia Minx at Play (1993) and Homeward Bound (1997)	p. 81
Surfaces in contact	p. 83
Becoming/transformations in Reservaat and Homeward Bound	p. 85
Machinic assemblages in Between/Outside and Reservaat	p. 88
Polymorphous perversity and multiplicities in Virginia Minx at Play	p. 92
In-between spaces - spatial locations and private/public Boundaries	p. 94
Conclusion	p. 95
Hybridity and nomadic subjectivity in Shobana Jeyasingh's Duets with Automobiles	p. 97
Introduction	p. 97
Hybrid spaces between East and West	p. 99
Female solidarity and nomadic subjectivity	p. 102
Dancers and buildings and the spaces in between	p. 104
Mutual construction of bodies and spaces	p. 106
Nomadic subjects in cities	p. 108
Conclusion	p. 109
Crossing the (black) Atlantic: spatial and temporal displacements in Meredith Monk's Ellis Island and Jonzi D's Aeroplane Man	p. 112
Introduction	p. 112
Meredith Monk and Jonzi D	p. 114
The constructed nature of identity	p. 117
Technologies of power - subjectification, normalization and examination	p. 123
The role of language in operations of power	p. 130
Spatial containment, borders and territorialization	p. 132
Conclusion	p. 134
Inside/Outside Bodies and Spaces
Fleshy corporealities in Trisha Brown's If You Couldn't See Me, Lea Anderson's Joan and Yolande Snaith's Blind Faith	p. 139
Introduction	p. 139
The theories of Deleuze, Bordo and Kristeva	p. 141
The dances	p. 144
Flesh	p. 146
Fluids	p. 153
Folds	p. 155
Conclusion	p. 161
æCarnivalesqueÆ subversions in Mark Morris' Dogtown, Liz Aggiss' Grotesque Dancer and Emilyn Claid's Across Your Heart	p. 162
Introduction	p. 162
The dances	p. 164
Grotesque challenges to boundaries	p. 166
Excessive overflows	p. 171
Carnivalesque parody	p. 175
Grotesque and carnivalesque interactivity with the world	p. 178
Conclusion	p. 181
Architectural spaces in the choreography of William Forsythe and De Keersmaeker's Rosas Danst Rosas	p. 183
Introduction	p. 183
The choreographers and dances	p. 186
Disrupting the single viewpoint of perspective	p. 189
Challenging notions of a separated self	p. 192
The role of the visual in the construction of bounded and gendered subjectivity	p. 195
Vision and reason - the dominance and construction of the eye/æIÆ	p. 198
The ideological nature of visualization	p. 200
Conclusion	p. 204
Appendix	p. 207
Notes	p. 209
Bibliography	p. 213
Index	p. 223
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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