Perspectives in Dance: Queering the Dancing Body: Critical Perspectives on LGBTQ Representation
DANC 377
Spring 2020 not offered
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| Course Cluster: Queer Studies |
This course focuses on questions of "queering" dance as a historical, cultural, social, and political enterprise. Focusing on both historical and postmodern dance contexts, the course explores key issues around gender and identity, with special reference to the concepts of performativity, impersonation, sexuality, and transformation. The course places the notion of "flows of gender and transformation" at its center, and examines historical, social, and aesthetic shifts in these ideas over the past 50 years. It draws on case studies ranging from female/male dance traditions of impersonation in India, China, Japan, and Indonesia, to postmodern shifts of "classical" dance (such as the all-male cast of Matthew Bourne's "Swan Lake") and more popular forms such as voguing and "RuPaul's Drag Race." |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA DANC |
| Course Format: Studio | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (DANC-MN)(DANC)(ENVS-MN)(ENVS)(HRAD-MN)(STS) |
Major Readings:
Barnes, Sally. Dancing Women: Female Bodies Onstage. London: Routledge, 1998. (excerpts)
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London: Routledge, 1990. (excerpts)
Fisher, Jennifer and Shay, Anthony ed. When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. (excerpts)
Gere, David. How to make dance in an epidemic: Tracking Choreography in the Age of Aids. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. (excerpts)
Hanna, Lynne Judith. Dance, Sex, and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance, Defiance, and Desire. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1988. (excerpts)
Historical Representations of Gender Impersonations in Asia and Beyond
Krishnan, Hari. 2009. "From Gynemimesis to Hypermasculinity: The Shifting Orientations of Male Performers of South Indian Court Dance." When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities Across Borders. ed. Fisher, Jennifer and Shay, Anthony. New York: Oxford University Press.
Leiter, Samuel. 1999-2000. "From Gay to Gei: The Onnagata and the Creation of Kabuki's Female Characters." Comparative Drama 33 (4): 495:514
Tian, Min. 2000. "Male Dan: The Paradox of Sex, Acting, and Perception of Female Impersonation in Traditional Chinese Theatre." Asian Theatre Journal. 17 (1): 78-97
Redefining Popular Hetero-normative Narratives in Dance as Queer Experience
Drummond, Kent. 2003. "The Queering of Swan Lake-A New Male Gaze for the Performance of Sexual Desire." Journal of Homosexuality 45 (2-4): 235:255
Juhansz, Suzanne. 2008. "Queer Swans: Those Fabulous Avians in the Swan Lakes of Les Ballets Trockadero and Matthew Bourne." Dance Chronicle 31 (1): 54-83
Stoneley, Peter. A Queer History of the Ballet. New York and London: Routledge, 2007. (excerpts)
Dance Representations of LGBTQ Identities in Musicals and Cinema
Levy, Emmanuel. Gay Directors, Gay Films?: Pedro Almodóvar, Terence Davies, Todd Haynes, Gus Van Sant, John Waters. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. (excerpts)
Mehes, L. "'If You Were Gay, That'd be OK': Queer Identity in the Modern Broadway Musical." Ignite 2 (1): 44-51
Wolfe, Stacy. "The Queer Pleasures of Mary Martin and Broadway: The Sound of Music as a Lesbian Musical." Modern Drama 39 (1): 51-63
"You're born Naked. The Rest is Drag": Rupaul, Voguing and other popular reimaginings of gender and identity
Bailey, M. Marlon. Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013. (excerpts)
Buckland, Fiona. Impossible Dance: Club Culture and Queer World-making. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002. (Excerpts)
Edgar, E.A. 2011. "'Xtravaganza!': Drag Representation and Articulation in 'RuPaul's Drag Race.'" Studies in Popular Culture 34 (1), 133-146.
Lawrence, Tim. 2011. "Disco and the Queering of the Dance Floor." Cultural Studies 25 (2): 230-243.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Assignments include (subject to change):
Mandatory attendance and classroom participation
End of semester Essay (12 pages)
Choreographic gender-queer portraits as in-class projects
Major group dance project as in-class showing at the end of semester
Two short reactionary papers to class discussions, various dance sequences, guest dance classes and guest lectures
NO Final examination |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
Interested students should contact Prof. Hari Krishnan (hkrishnan@wesleyan.edu) |
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