Dance, Space and Subjectivity

by V. Briginshaw

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230229792
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	08/03/2001
Edition description:	2009
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

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 Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: CONSTRUCTIONS OF SPACE AND SUBJECTIVITY Travel Metaphors in Dance: Gendered Constructions of Travel, Spaces and Subjects Transforming City Spaces and Subjects Coastal Constructions in Lea Anderson's Out on the Windy Beach PART II: DANCING IN THE 'IN-BETWEEN SPACES' Desire Spatialized Differently in Dances that can be Read as Lesbian Hybridity and Nomadic Subjectivity in Shobana Jeyasingh's Duets with Automobiles Crossing the (Black) Atlantic: Spatial and Temporal Displacements in Meredith Monk's Ellis Island and Jonzi Di's Aeroplane Man PART III: 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 Carnivalesque Subversions in Liz Aggiss's Grotesque Dancer , Mark Morris's Dogtown and Emilyn Claid's Across Your Heart Architectural Spaces in the Choreography of William Forsythe and De Keersmaeker's Rosas Danst Rosas Appendix Endnotes Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

'Dance, Space and Subjectivity is...a very welcome publication in that Valerie Briginshaw here has the scope to investigate her complex themes through ten chpaters on interconnected issues...An impressive variety of themes and issues is explored...Briginshaw's writing style is clear and will be accessible to students as well as researchers in a variety of disciplines...The book brings dance into the arena of so many current, fascinating debates that it offers a very useful point of reference and contribution to the field.' - Anna Pakes, Dance Theatre Journal

'...presents a fast introduction to a whole range of current theoretical approaches to space, subjectivity and the representation of bodies, and shows how these theories enable explorations of the construction of subjectivity...' - Maaike Bleeker, University of Amsterdam and School for New Dance Development, The Netherlands; Research in Dance Education

From the Publisher