Dancing Desires Volume 18: Choreographing Sexualities On And Off The Stage (Studies in Dance History) - Hardcover

Jane C. Desmond (author)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0299170500 ISBN 13: 9780299170509

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001

Synopsis

What happens to the writing of dance history when issues of sexuality and sexual identity are made central? What happens to queer theory, and to other theoretical constructs of gender and sexuality, when a dancing body takes center stage? Dancing Desires asks these questions, exploring the relationship between dancing bodies and sexual identity on the concert stage, in nightclubs, in film, in the courts, and on the streets. From Nijinsky's balletic prowess to Charlie Chaplin's lightfooted "Little Tramp," from lesbian go-go dancers to the swans of Swan Lake, from the postmodern works of Bill T. Jones to the dangers of same-sex social dancing at Disneyland and the ecstatic Mardi Gras dance parties of Sydney, Australia, this book tracks the intersections of dance and human sexuality in the twentieth century as the definition of each has shifted and expanded. The contributors come from a number of fields (literature, history, theater, dance, film studies, legal studies, critical race studies) and employ methodologies ranging from textual analysis and film theory to ethnography. By embracing dance, and bodily movement more generally, as a crucial focus for investigation, together they initiate a new agenda for tracking the historical kinesthetics of sexuality.

About this title

About the Author

Jane C. Desmond is associate professor of American studies at the University of lowa. She has taught dance, theater, and American studies at Duke University, Cornell University, and Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary. She worked as a modern dancer and choreographer from 1975 to 1990 and is the author of Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World and editor of Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0299170500
• ISBN 13: 9780299170509
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 488