
The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater collects a critical mass of border-crossing scholarship on the intersections of dance and theatre. Taking corporeality as an idea that unites the work of dance and theater scholars and artists, and embodiment as a negotiation of power dynamics with important stakes, these essays focus on the politics and poetics of the moving body in performance both on and off stage.Contemporary stage performances have sparked global interest in new experiments between dance and theater, and this volume situates this interest in its historical context by extensively investigating other such moments: from pagan mimes of late antiquity to early modern archives to Bolshevik Russia to post-Sandinista Nicaragua to Chinese opera on the international stage, to contemporary flash mobs and television dance contests. Ideologically, the essays investigate critical race theory, affect theory, cognitive science, historiography, dance dramaturgy, spatiality, gender, somatics, ritual, and biopolitics among other modes of inquiry. In terms of aesthetics, they examine many genres such as musical theater, contemporary dance, improvisation, experimental theater, television, African total theater, modern dance, new Indian dance theater aesthetics, philanthroproductions, Butoh, carnival, equestrian performance, tanztheater, Korean Talchum, Nazi Movement Choirs, Lindy Hop, Bomba, Caroline Masques, political demonstrations, and Hip Hop.The volume includes innovative essays from both young and seasoned scholars and scholar/practitioners who are working at the cutting edges of their fields. The handbook brings together essays that offer new insight into well-studied areas, challenge current knowledge, attend to neglected practices or moments in time, and that identify emergent themes. The overall result is a better understanding of the roles of dance and theater in the performative production of meaning.
How do the intersections of dance and theater inform the performative production of meaning across diverse historical and cultural contexts? Edited by Nadine George-Graves, this volume compiles interdisciplinary scholarship that utilizes the concepts of corporeality and embodiment to analyze the moving body as a site of political and aesthetic negotiation. The contributors, ranging from emerging researchers to established practitioners, employ a variety of theoretical frameworks to examine how performance functions as a mechanism for power dynamics and social expression.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars and practitioners recognize this volume as a significant interdisciplinary resource for understanding the convergence of movement and dramatic performance. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which is intended for researchers and students engaged in advanced performance studies.
Page Count:
1021
Publication Date:
2015-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190273275
ISBN-13:
9780190273279
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