| Session 27 | Theorizing Paradigms |
| Marilynn Danitz | Methods to Create a New Paradigm for a Feminine Equality |
| Can women in a male-dominated society gain equal footing? Society is based on a belief system. To alter those beliefs or to release them completely requires the ability to perceive beyond commonly-held assumptions and provide a foundation that ensures society’s basic needs. HIStory runs rife with wars, new countries, conglomerates continuously arising. Exercising feminine traits of nurturing and empathy women can cross cultural boundaries with abilities to connect, building a new system on a large scale. And they can do it through their art. Women have been raised to support power not to exercise it. Now they must be taught to assume power and exert it with care. Once she has been taught to handle power and think out-of-the-box, the female dance artist can begin to use her art to promote and market a new paradigm. She becomes a leader that can connect with large audiences to influence a different mind-set. | |
| Kent De Spain | Of the Absence of Dance: Feminisms and Pragmatisms in the Writing of Dance Theory |
| In many ways “Dance Studies” has in recent years become synonymous with a kind of theoretical writing that is heavy on post-structuralist philosophy, but often curiously disconnected with the intentions and everyday practices of dancers and choreographers. In this presentation, I intend to examine this issue by investigating and analyzing the essays that make up the book, Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory (edited by Andre Lepecki), through the lens of a course I am teaching that steeps second-year MFA dance students in the world of dance theory. What is the role of “dance” in these essays? Is there a clear demarcation between feminine and masculine approaches to the theorized space of dance writing? In what ways does dance theory perform its own authority? How can the values of practitioners inform the scholarship of theorists? If there is a voice of dance theory, to whom is it speaking, and on whose behalf? | |
| Susan Leigh Foster | Choreographic Critiques of a Transnational Feminine |
| The presentation conducts a close reading of two recent feminist dance works – Yippee!!! (2006) by British choreographer Lea Anderson and Mission/K (2002) by the Japanese collective KATHY – in order to fathom their arguments about how gender is experienced in contemporary first-world societies. Using these dances as hypotheses about the social, I argue that gender has become a repertoire of images and movements, uploaded into a transnationally circulating repository available to accessorize any body. By comparing the two works, their similar choreographic strategies and distinctive political arguments, I hope to suggest how a transnational feminism in dance scholarship could begin to choreograph itself. | |
| Marilynn Danitz is the Artistic Director of High Frequency Wavelength and recent President of the American Dance Guild. She has received the Jacob's Pillow Artist Residency, Dance Brew’s Outstanding Dance Theatre Work of the Year, Choreography Award of Distinction, and Reel Art Ways National Residency. Her presentations have been featured in Japan, Australia, Italy, China, Taiwan, Korea, Bulgaria, Colombia, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Russia, Belarus, the Philippines, Canada, and 14 international festivals in New York. She has been Broadcast on CBS, ABC, and in 9 countries. Marilynn has had collaborations with poet-laureate, Allen Ginsber; photographer, Jerry Uelsmann; and composer Jesu Pinzon. She was an invited guest speaker at an international press-conference with Mikhail. Marilynn was also commissioned for choreography by Nukri Magalashvili of the Bolshoi Ballet, the Prima Ballerina of the National Ballet of Colombia. | |
| Kent De Spain is a dance and multi-disciplinary artist who holds a doctorate in Dance Studies from Temple University. He has taught and toured throughout the United States, Europe and the UK. He has presented his research at numerous international conferences and symposia, and is particularly known for his critical analysis of trends in dance research, and for his lectures, workshops, and writings on improvisational process (look for his upcoming book on improvisation from Wesleyan University Press). | |
| Susan Leigh Foster, choreographer and scholar, is Professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. She is currently working on the problematics of choreography, kinesthesia, and empathy. | |
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