The Choreopolitics of Alain Platel's les ballets C de la B

The Choreopolitics of Alain Platel's les ballets C de la B
Author: Christel Stalpaert
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2020-02-06
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1350080039

Les Ballets C de la B was founded by Alain Platel in 1984. Since then it has become a company that enjoys great success at home and abroad. Over the years, Platel has developed a unique choreographic oeuvre. His motto, 'This dance is for the world and the world is for everyone', reveals a deep social and political commitment. Through the three topics of emotions, gestures and politics, this book unravels the choreopolitics of Platel's Les Ballets C de la B. His choreopolitics go beyond conveying a (political) message because rather than defending one opinion, Platel is more concerned about the exposure of the complexity within the debate itself. Highly respected scholars from different fields contribute to this book to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the intense emotions, the damaged narratives, and the precarious bodies in Platel's choreographic oeuvre.

Dramatic Dance

Dramatic Dance
Author: Darren Royston
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2014-04-24
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1780933150

Dance is part of the art of theatre, a part which connects to movement, to communication, to improvisation, and to performance. It cannot exist on its own in the context of dramatic performance, but works in conjunction with other elements to enable meanings to be created in performance. Dramatic Dance sets a programme for actors to perform dance as part of the drama, offering several approaches which can contribute to developing this understanding, to training this skill, and always ensuring that the whole active and thinking body and mind are fully engaged with the task of making dance an integral and vital part of theatre. To study dance in this way allows students to develop further their understanding of logic and structure in a dramatic text. Many books deal with one aspect of dance or another: some on dance training, some on dance history, some on Rudolf Laban's ideas, some as dance manuals, and some as academic papers. Dramatic Dance is the first book to act as a comprehensive guide for theatre practice, bringing together these different, complementary disciplines.

Performing Mourning

Performing Mourning
Author: Guy Cools
Publisher:
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2021-06
Genre:
ISBN: 9789492095985

Each person?s grief is as unique as their fingerprint. But what everyone has in common is that no matter how they grieve, they share a need for their grief to be witnessed.?0David Kessler (2019)0The pandemic has once again made us more aware of the fragility of life and the importance of being able to properly mourn the dead. Dramaturg Guy Cools has been researching laments and other rituals of mourning. He is particularly interested in how the emotions of loss need to be externalized. The laments are a formal device, used in many cultures to express and contain the emotions of grief.0In a poetic, meandering, personal way Cools explores cultural habits, traditions, rituals, and artists? performances. His narrative looks into many forms of laments: literary, anthropological, philosophical, and in contemporary art practices. The latter part delves into artistic strategies to address or embody mourning: dialogical strategies that deal with personal losses; collective mourning rituals and how they invite communities to witness these losses; contemporary examples of laments that are not only used to dialogue with the dead but also to communicate with loved ones who are absent because of migration or exile; a very specific form of mourning that occurs when we grieve for the unrealized potential of a child?s unlived life, including that of an unborn child. And finally, the very recent phenomenon of lamenting not just the losses of the past, but also the loss of a future.

Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham

Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham
Author: Hannah Durkin
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2019-08-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0252051467

Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham were the two most acclaimed and commercially successful African American dancers of their era and among the first black women to enjoy international screen careers. Both also produced fascinating memoirs that provided vital insights into their artistic philosophies and choices. However, difficulties in accessing and categorizing their works on the screen and on the page have obscured their contributions to film and literature. Hannah Durkin investigates Baker and Dunham’s films and writings to shed new light on their legacies as transatlantic artists and civil rights figures. Their trailblazing dancing and choreography reflected a belief that they could use film to confront racist assumptions while also imagining—within significant confines—new aesthetic possibilities for black women. Their writings, meanwhile, revealed their creative process, engagement with criticism, and the ways each mediated cultural constructions of black women's identities. Durkin pays particular attention to the ways dancing bodies function as ever-changing signifiers and de-stabilizing transmitters of cultural identity. In addition, she offers an overdue appraisal of Baker and Dunham's places in cinematic and literary history.

Choreomania

Choreomania
Author: Kélina Gotman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2018
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190840412

When political protest is read as epidemic madness, religious ecstasy as nervous disease, and angular dance moves as dark and uncouth, the 'disorder' being described is choreomania. At once a catchall term to denote spontaneous gestures and the unruly movements of crowds, 'choreomania' emerged in the nineteenth century at a time of heightened class conflict, nationalist policy, and colonial rule. In this book, author K lina Gotman examines these choreographies of unrest, rethinking the modern formation of the choreomania concept as it moved across scientific and social scientific disciplines. Reading archives describing dramatic misformations-of bodies and body politics-she shows how prejudices against expressivity unravel, in turn revealing widespread anxieties about demonstrative agitation. This history of the fitful body complements stories of nineteenth-century discipline and regimentation. As she notes, constraints on movement imply constraints on political power and agency. In each chapter, Gotman confronts the many ways choreomania works as an extension of discourses shaping colonialist orientalism, which alternately depict riotous bodies as dangerously infected others, and as curious bacchanalian remains. Through her research, Gotman also shows how beneath the radar of this colonial discourse, men and women gathered together to repossess on their terms the gestures of social revolt.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Dance and Philosophy

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Dance and Philosophy
Author:
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2021-01-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350103489

An innovative examination of the ways in which dance and philosophy inform each other, Dance and Philosophy brings together authorities from a variety of disciplines to expand our understanding of dance and dance scholarship. Featuring an eclectic mix of materials from exposes to dance therapy sessions to demonstrations, Dance and Philosophy addresses centuries of scholarship, dance practice, the impacts of technological and social change, politics, cultural diversity and performance. Structured thematically to draw out the connection between different perspectives, this books covers: - Philosophy practice and how it corresponds to dance - Movement, embodiment and temporality - Philosophy and dance traditions in everyday life - The intersection between dance and technology - Critical reflections on dance Offering important contributions to our understanding of dance as well as expanding the study of philosophy, this book is key to sparking new conversations concerning the philosophy of dance.

Dance Education

Dance Education
Author: Susan R. Koff
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2021-01-14
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 135008803X

Winner of the 2021 Ruth Lovell Murray Book Award Dance Education redefines the nature of dance pedagogy today, setting it within a holistic and encompassing framework, and argues for an approach to dance education from a soci-cultural and philosophical perspective. In the past, dance education has focused on the learning of dance, limited to Western-based societies, with little attention to how dance is learned and applied globally. This book seeks to re-frame the way dance education is defined, approached and taught by looking beyond the privileged Western dance forms to compare education from different cultures. Structured into three parts, this book examines the following essential questions: - What is dance? What defines dance as an art form? - How and where is dance performed and for what purpose? - How do social contexts shape the making and interpretation of dance? The first part covers the history of dance education and its definition. The second part discusses current contexts and applications, including global contexts and the ability to apply and comprehend dance education in a variety of contexts. This book opens up definitions, rather than categorising, so that dance is not presented in a hierarchical form. The third part continues to define dance education in ways that have not been discussed in the past: informal contexts. The book then returns to the original definition of dance education as a way of knowing oneself and the world around us, ending on the philosophical application of this self-knowledge as a way to be in the world and to engage with others, regardless of background. This textbook is a refreshing and much-needed contribution to the field of dance studies by one of the most eminent voices in the field.

Imaginative Bodies

Imaginative Bodies
Author: Guy Cools
Publisher:
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2017-02-28
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9789492095206

La 4e de couverture indique : "Imaginative Bodies' contains a series of in-depth conversations with dancers and choreographers, composers, visual artists, Hip Hop artists, dramaturgs, a lighting designer and a puppeteer. The overall theme is defined by the body, both in relation to the place it takes in the artist's work, and in relation to wider debates on the body in philosophy, science, medicine, anthropology, and the arts. Depending on the affinities of the artist, a more specific theme has been defined for each dialogue, ranging from poetics to politics, from mythology to ecology, from intercultural studies to conflict management. The associative chains of thoughts of these talks give an intimate insight into the creative process, inspirations, sources, identity, and ways of collaborating. It is through the sentient body that we experience, know and imagine. 'Imaginative Bodies' reaffirms the central position of the body in many artistic practices."

Falling Through Dance and Life

Falling Through Dance and Life
Author: Emilyn Claid
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2021-01-14
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1350075736

This is a book about falling as a means of reconfiguring our relationship with living and dying. Dancer, choreographer, educator and therapist Emilyn Claid draws inspiration from her personal and professional experiences to explore alternative approaches to being present in the world. Contemporary movement based performers ground their practices in understanding the interplay of gravity and the body. Somatic intentional falling provides them a creative resource for developing both self and environmental support. The physical, metaphorical and psychological impact of these practices informs the theories and perspectives presented in this book. As falling can be dangerous and painful, encouraging people to do so willingly might be considered a provocative premise. Western culture generally resists falling because it provokes fear and represents failure. Out of this tension a paradox emerges: falling, we are both powerless subjects and agents of change, a dynamic distinction that enlivens discussions throughout the writing. Emilyn engages with different dance genres, live performance and therapeutic interactions to form her ideas and interlaces her arguments with issues of gender and race. She describes how surrender to gravity can transform our perceptions and facilitate ways of being that are relational and life enhancing. Woven throughout, autobiographical, poetic, philosophical, descriptive and theoretical voices combine to question the fixation of Western culture on uprightness and supremacy. A simple act of falling builds momentum through eclectic discussions, uncovering connections to shame, laughter, trauma, ageing and the thrill of release.

Defiant Itineraries

Defiant Itineraries
Author: Lydia Platón Lázaro
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2015-08-05
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1137471808

How did Caribbean rituals helped form new currents in the performing and visual arts of the United States? This book answers this question through an examination of the Caribbean-inspired dance creations of dancer/choreographer Katherine Dunham and the experimental films of avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren.