Choreographing Politics: Policy, Practice, and Protest

Catalog description

In this course, we will consider the ways in which dance and performance scholarship examines the politics of performance. Looking at particular dance forms and choreographic compositions as case studies, we will scrutinize how dance has been exercised to wield state power and forward narratives of nationhood. In so doing, we will consider how institutional powers have regulated dance to control citizenry and to dominate marginalized peoples. To being to question what is threatening about dance’s organizing of bodies, we will examine dances that have been censored, legislated, and outlawed, as well as looking at how acts of protests and demonstration manifest choreographic strategies and ideas. Throughout our study, we will continually return to questions around the performance of identity, attending to the ways in which the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and ethnicity factor into these danced practices of authority and protest. Considering the body and its organization in performance as potent sites for analysis, this course will take an interdisciplinary approach to our study, intermingling critical readings in Dance Studies, Performance Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and political theory, alongside performance viewings and physical exploration. Synchronous meetings (online) are very highly recommended for success in this course. Fulfills a theory requirement in the Dance minor. Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.