This volume brings together philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives on improvisation. The contributions connect the theoretical dimensions of improvisation with different viewpoints on its practice in the arts and the classroom. The chapters address the phenomenon of improvisation in two related ways. On the one hand, they attend to the lived practices of improvisation both within and without the arts in order to explain the phenomenon. They also extend the scope of improvisational practices to include the role of improvisation in habit and in planned action, at both individual and collective levels. Drawing on recent work done in the philosophy of mind, they address questions such as whether improvisation is a single unified phenomenon or whether it entails different senses that can be discerned theoretically and practically. Finally, they ask after the special kind of improvisational expertise which characterizes musicians, dancers, and other practitioners, an expertise marked by the artist's ability to participate competently in complex situations while deliberately relinquishing control. Philosophy of Improvisation will appeal to anyone with a strong interest in improvisation, to researchers working in philosophy, aesthetics, and pedagogy as well as practitioners involved in different kinds of music, dance, and theater performances.

This book provides a thorough analysis of terpsichorean lexis in Renaissance drama. Besides considering not only the Shakespearean canon but also the Bard's contemporaries (e.g., dramatists as John Marston and Ben Jonson among the most refined Renaissance dance aficionados), the originality of this volume is highlighted in both its methodology and structure. As far as methods of analysis are concerned, corpora such as the VEP Early Modern Drama collection and EEBO, and corpus analysis tools such as #LancsBox are used in order to offer the widest range of examples possible from early modern plays and provide co-textual references for each dance. Examples from Renaissance playwrights are fundamental for the analysis of connotative meanings of the dances listed and their performative, poetic and metaphoric role in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century drama. This study will be of great interest to Renaissance researchers, lexicographers and dance historians.

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.

This book provides a practical introduction to researching and performing early Anglo-American secular music and dance with attention to their place in society. Supporting growing interest among scholars and performers spanning numerous disciplines, this book contributes quality new scholarship to spur further research on this overshadowed period of American music and dance. Organized in three parts, the chapters offer methodological and interpretative guidance and model varied approaches to contemporary scholarship. The first part introduces important bibliographic tools and models their use in focused examinations of individual objects of material musical culture. The second part illustrates methods of situating dance and its music in early American society as relevant to scholars working in multiple disciplines. The third part examines contemporary performance of early American music and dance from three distinct perspectives ranging from ethnomusicological fieldwork and phenomenology to the theatrical stage. Dedicated to scholar Kate Van Winkle Keller, this volume builds on her legacy of foundational contributions to the study of early American secular music, dance, and society. It provides an essential resource for all those researching and performing music and dance from the revolutionary era through the early nineteenth century.

What does it mean to give life to movement? Tamara Williams answers this question through an ethnographic study and historical mapping of the Silvestre Dance Technique created by Brazilian master teacher, dancer, and choreographer, Rosangela Silvestre. In the first book solely dedicated to Silvestre Technique, Williams illustrates how the applied theory of the triangles of inspiration, expression and balance of training can lead to self-actualization through implementation in daily life practice. From the Brazilian arts movements of the 1970s, to the sociopolitical themes of the Blocos Afros, to the global practice of Silvestre Technique presently, the author explores the impact of the Body Universe in understanding self-capacity and capability. Williams investigates the functionality of the technique through a series of interviews, physical practice, and training.

Curating Dramaturgies investigates the transformation of art and performance and its impact on dramaturgy and curatorship. Addressing contexts and processes of the performing arts as interconnecting with visual arts, this book features interviews with leading curators, dramaturgs and programmers who are at the forefront of working in, with, and negotiating the daily practice of interdisciplinary live arts. The book offers a view of praxis that combines perspectives on theory and practice and looks at the way that various arts institutions, practitioners and cultural agents have been working to change the way that art and performance have developed and experienced by spectators in the last decade. Curating Dramaturgies argues that cultural producers and scholars are becoming more cognizant of this overlapping and transforming field. The introductory essay by the editors explores the rise of interdisciplinary live arts and its ramifications in cultural and political terms. This is further elaborated in the interviews with 15 diversely placed arts professionals who are at the forefront of rethinking and consolidatingthe ever-evolving field of the visual arts and performance.

Curating Dramaturgies investigates the transformation of art and performance and its impact on dramaturgy and curatorship. Addressing contexts and processes of the performing arts as interconnecting with visual arts, this book features interviews with leading curators, dramaturgs and programmers who are at the forefront of working in, with, and negotiating the daily practice of interdisciplinary live arts. The book offers a view of praxis that combines perspectives on theory and practice and looks at the way that various arts institutions, practitioners and cultural agents have been working to change the way that art and performance have developed and experienced by spectators in the last decade. Curating Dramaturgies argues that cultural producers and scholars are becoming more cognizant of this overlapping and transforming field. The introductory essay by the editors explores the rise of interdisciplinary live arts and its ramifications in cultural and political terms. This is further elaborated in the interviews with 15 diversely placed arts professionals who are at the forefront of rethinking and consolidatingthe ever-evolving field of the visual arts and performance.

This book presents an engaging sociological investigation into how gender is negotiated and performed in ballroom and Latin dancing that draws on extensive ethnographic research, as well as the author's own experience as a dancer. It explores the key factors underpinning the popularity of this leisure activity and highlights what this reveals more broadly about the nature of gender roles at the current time. The author begins with an overview of its rich social history and shifting class status, establishing the context within which contemporary masculinities and femininities in this community are explored. Real and imagined gendered traditions are examined across a range of dancer experiences that follows the trajectory of a typical learner: from finding a partner, attending lessons and forming networks, through to taking part in competitions. The analysis of these narratives creates a nuanced picture of a dance culture that is empowering, yet also highly consumerist and image-conscious; a highly ritualised set of practices that both reinstate and transgress gender roles. This innovative contribution to the feminist leisure literature will appeal to students and scholars of anthropology, dance, sport, gender, cultural and media studies.

There is no archive or museum of human movement, no place where choreographies can be collected and conserved in pristine form. The central consequence of this is the incapacity of philosophy and aesthetics to think of dance as a positive and empirical art. In the eyes of philosophers, dance refers to a space other than art, considered both more frivolous and more fundamental than the artwork without ever quite attaining the status of a work. Unworking Choreography develops this idea and postulates an unworking as evidenced by a conspicuous absence of references to actual choreographic works within philosophical accounts of dance; the late development and partial dominance of the notion of the work in dance in contrast to other art forms such as painting, music, and theatre; the difficulties in identifying dance works given a lack of scores and an apparent resistance within the art form to the possibility of notation; and the questioning of ends of dance in contemporary practice and the relativisation of the very idea that dance artistic or choreographic processes aim at work production.

This book uses the Afro-Brazilian art of capoeira to examine how security has been pursued from below and what significance this has for security analysis and policy. Illegal at the beginning of the twentieth century, capoeira is now a cultural institution and export that is protected by the Brazilian state and recognised by UNESCO, with capoeira players protecting and promoting their interests through the practice and development of their art. The book brings the musical and corporeal narrative from capoeira into conversation with debates on security; these have typically been dominated by northern, white, military voices, and as a result, the perspective of the weaker player is routinely overlooked in security literature and policy making. Bringing the perspective of the weaker party, Cultural Resistance and Security from Below examines the distribution of security from two angles. First, it presents the history of the interaction between capoeira players and the Brazilian society and state that resulted in political and legal acceptance of capoeira. Second, it explores how the practice of capoeira generates knowledge of identities, explanations and values, and how this knowledge empowers communities of players and is communicated to society more broadly. The book then turns to consider how capoeira resists within Brazil's contemporary context of insecurity, and what significance the knowledge and power, along with capoeira's core move of escape, have to security analysis and policy. The book concludes by taking the lessons from capoeira to inform understanding of other cultural activities and ways of life as potential sites and forms of resistance. Conceptually and methodologically original, this book will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of security studies, development studies, political science and international studies. It will also be of interest to those scholars interested in the changing interaction between politics and the arts.

Diaspora studies continue to expand in range and scope and remain fertile terrain for investigating multiple techniques of myth creation in dance performance, history as performance, dramatic narrative, and staged rituals in the field. Similarly, research in postcoloniality, gender/sexuality, intercultural, and literary studies, among others, all engage and feature core components of performance and myth in articulating and understanding their fields. This sharing of similar components also demonstrates the interrelatedness of these fields. In Myth Performance in the African Diasporas: Ritual, Theatre, and Dance, the authors contend that performance traditions across artistic disciplines reveal a shared if sometimes varied journey among diasporic artists to reconnect with their African ancestors. The volume begins with a historical and aesthetic overview of how dramatists, choreographers, and performance artists have approached the task of interpreting African myth. The individual chapters reveal how specific artists, dramatists, and choreographers have interpreted African myth and what performative approaches and traditions they have used. Focusing on theatre practitioners from the nineteenth century through the present, the authors examine performative traditions from Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Drawing upon research in theatre, dance, and literary texts, Myth Performance in the African Diasporas will be crucial to academics interested in African performance viewed through the prism of myth making and spiritual/ritualistic stagings. Besides those interested in diasporic studies, this book will also be useful to scholars and students of history, drama, theatre, and dance.

How does structural economic change look and feel? How are such changes normalized? Who represents hope? Who are the cautionary tales? Unfinished Business argues that U.S. deindustrialization cannot be understood apart from issues of race, and specifically apart from images of, and works by and about African Americans that represent or resist normative or aberrant relationships to work and capital in transitional times. It insists that Michael Jackson's performances and coverage of his life, plays featuring Detroit, plans for the city's postindustrial revitalization, and Detroit installations The Heidelberg Project and Mobile Homestead have something valuable to teach us about three decades of structural economic transition in the U.S., particularly on the changing nature of work and capitalism between the mid-1980s and 2016. Jackson and Detroit offer examples of the racialization of deindustrialization, how it operates as structures of feeling and as representations as well as a shift in the dominant mode of production, and how industrialization's successor mode, financialization, uses imagery both very similar to and very different from its predecessor.

This book examines the political power of dance, particularly its transgressive potential. Focusing on readings of dance pioneers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, Gumboots dancers in the gold mines of South Africa, the One Billion Rising movement, dabke in Palestine and dance as a protest against human rights abuse in Israel, the book explores moments in which the form succeeds in transgressing politics as articulated in words. Close readings and critical analysis grounded in radical democratic theory combine to show how interpreting political dance as 'interruption' can unsettle conceptions of both politics and dance. -- .

Dance Legacies of Scotland compiles a collage of references portraying percussive Scottish dancing and explains what influenced a wide disappearance of hard-shoe steps from contemporary Scottish practices. Mats Melin and Jennifer Schoonover explore the historical references describing percussive dancing to illustrate how widespread the practice was, giving some glimpses of what it looked and sounded like. The authors also explain what influenced a wide disappearance of hard-shoe steps from Scottish dancing practices. Their research draws together fieldwork, references from historical sources in English, Scots, and Scottish Gaelic, and insights drawn from the authors' practical knowledge of dances. They portray the complex network of dance dialects that existed in parallel across Scotland, and share how remnants of this vibrant tradition have endured in Scotland and the Scottish diaspora to the present day. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Dance and Music and its relationship to the history and culture of Scotland.

Fifty Contemporary Choreographers is a unique and authoritative guide to the lives and work of prominent living contemporary choreographers; this third edition includes many new names in the field of choreography. Representing a wide range of dance genres and styles, each entry locates the individual in the context of contemporary dance and explores their impact. Those studied include: Kyle Abraham Germaine Acogny William Forsythe Marco Goeke Akram Khan Wayne McGregor Crystal Pite Frances Rings Hofesh Shechter Sasha Waltz With an updated introduction by Deborah Jowitt and further reading and references throughout, this text is an invaluable resource for all students and critics of dance and all those interested in the everchanging world and variety of contemporary choreography.

Fifty Contemporary Choreographers is a unique and authoritative guide to the lives and work of prominent living contemporary choreographers; this third edition includes many new names in the field of choreography. Representing a wide range of dance genres and styles, each entry locates the individual in the context of contemporary dance and explores their impact. Those studied include: Kyle Abraham Germaine Acogny William Forsythe Marco Goeke Akram Khan Wayne McGregor Crystal Pite Frances Rings Hofesh Shechter Sasha Waltz With an updated introduction by Deborah Jowitt and further reading and references throughout, this text is an invaluable resource for all students and critics of dance and all those interested in the everchanging world and variety of contemporary choreography.

This book examines the political power of dance, particularly its transgressive potential. Focusing on readings of dance pioneers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, Gumboots dancers in the gold mines of South Africa, the One Billion Rising movement, dabke in Palestine and dance as a protest against human rights abuse in Israel, the book explores moments in which the form succeeds in transgressing politics as articulated in words. Close readings and critical analysis grounded in radical democratic theory combine to show how interpreting political dance as 'interruption' can unsettle conceptions of both politics and dance. -- .

This book analyzes and theorizes the efficacy of using applied theater as a tool to address refugee issues of displacement, trauma, adjustment, and psychological well-being, in addition to split community belonging. Fadi Skeiker connects refugee narratives to the themes of imagination, home, gender, and conservatism, among others. Each chapter outlines the author's applied theater practice, as a Syrian, with and for Syrian refugees in the countries of Jordan, Germany, and the United States. This book will be of great interest to scholars, students, and practitioners of applied theater studies and refugee studies.

This book tells the story of teaching Kathakali, a seventeenth century Indian dance-drama, to contemporary performers in Australia. A rigorous analysis and detailed documentation of the teaching of multiple learners in Melbourne, both in the group workshop mode and one-on-one, combined with the author's ethnographic research in India, leads to a unique insight into what the author argues persuasively is at the heart of the art's aesthetic- a practical realisation of the theory of rasa as first articulated in the ancient Sanskrit treatise on drama The Natyashastra. The research references the latest discoveries in neuroscience on 'mirror neurons' and argues for a reconceptualization of Kathakali's imitative methodology, advancing it from the reductive category of 'mimicry' to a more contemporary and complex mirroring which is where its value lies in Australian actor performer training. The Teaching of Kathakali in Australia will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre and dance, intercultural actor training, practice-led research, and interdisciplinary studies of neuroscience and performance.

In this study, Josefine Wikstroem challenges a concept of performance that makes no difference between art and non-art and argues for a new concept. This book confronts and criticises the way in which the dominating concept of performance has been used in art theory and performance and dance studies. Through an analysis of 1960s performance practices, Wikstroem focuses specifically on task-dance and event-score practices and provides an examination of the key philosophical concepts that are inseparable from such a concept of art and are necessary for the reconstruction of a critical concept of performance, such as "practice", "experience", "object", "abstraction" and "structure". This book will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners across dance, performance art, aesthetics and art theory.

Involuntary Motion contributes to the study of refugee flight by using movement as a lens to explore problems in refugee performance and understand the experience of bodies in motion. Drawing from somatics, movement analysis, and dance praxis, the chapters explore forces that set bodies in motion; the spaces in which forced movement occurs; the movement of refugee identity arcs; the monstrosity of refugee performance; and the relationship between writing and body culture. How does forced movement impact identity? What are the philosophical implications of robbing individuals of agency over motion? What performances does involuntary motion necessitate? These questions are important as the world confronts the threat of a return of the horrors of the twentieth century. Bringing together debates in migration studies and movement studies, the book argues that refugees are akin to dancers performing on disappearing stages not of their choosing. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of performance, dance, and politics.

The Art of Tango offers a systematic exploration of the performance, arrangement and composition of the universally popular tango. The author discusses traditional practices, the De Caro school and the pioneering oeuvre of four celebrated innovators: Pugliese, Salgan, Piazzolla and Beytelmann. With an in-depth focus on both reception and practice, the volume and its companion website featuring supplementary audio-visual materials analyse, decode, compare and discuss literature, scores and recordings to provide a deeper understanding of tango's artistic concepts, characteristics and techniques. River Plate tango is explored through the lens of artistic research, combining the study of oral traditions and written sources. In addition to a detailed examination of the various approaches to tango by the musicians featured in this book, three compositions by the author embodying creative applications of the research findings are discussed. The volume offers numerous tools for developing skills in practice, inspiring new musical output and the continuation of research endeavours in the field. Illustrating the many possibilities of this musical language that has captivated musicians and audiences worldwide, this book is a valuable resource for everyone with an interest in tango, whether they be composers, performers, arrangers, teachers, music lovers or scholars in the field of popular music studies.

A collection presenting cutting edge research from music, dance, performance art, fashion and visual arts, written by scholar-practitioners working in Southeast Asia. This eclectic monograph explores multi-disciplinarily performativity through the body. Exploring the notion of the body as central to creative practice it draws together conversations centring on innovation through embodied knowledge relating to space, time and place. The authors in this collection are leaders in their field and recognized internationally. Their chapters represent new directions in thought and practice by game-changers in the arts. Underpinned by a central theme of corporeality, it is bold and innovative in its scope and range, bringing diverse disciplines together. It enables connections that create new ways of critically exploring corporeality extending beyond physicality and the traditional body-centred areas of performing arts practice. Insightful and stimulating reading for students, scholars and practitioners across the tertiary arts sector, as well as education, therapy, cultural studies and interdisciplinary arts.

This anthology negotiates the influential, yet silent educational presence of spiritualities within the field of somatic movement dance education internationally. The expressive and integral nature of spiritual experience remains academically undefined and peripheral to our understanding of creative practice. Lack of theoretical rigour, as well as a lack of a substantive definitional and methodological competency, has resulted in spirituality being marginalised. To date, important questions about how diverse spiritualities shape professional practice in the somatic movement and dance arts remain unanswered. This cutting-edge collection fills that void, providing greater creative and discursive clarity.

Dance and the Corporeal Uncanny takes the philosophy of the body into the field of dance, through the lens of subjectivity and via its critique. It draws on dance and performance as its dedicated field of practice to articulate a philosophy of agency and movement. It is organized around two conceptual paradigms - one phenomenological (via Merleau-Ponty), the other an interpretation of Nietzschean philosophy, mediated through the work of Deleuze. The book draws on dance studies, cultural critique, ethnography and postcolonial theory, seeking an interdisciplinary audience in philosophy, dance and cultural studies.