Jennifer Atkins

Luc has lived a long time as a soloist. She has not seen Billy for many years. A visit to a major show of his sculptures sends her arrowing back to younger version of herself: to a time when she had to make room to love him when she'd felt no room within herself. To a time when she could not find their convergence: the cello player and the lover. To a time when she was forced to make a choice between being one thing or another. To a time when he was a sculptor, but she was not yet a cellist.

The Cellist

Mardi Gras festivities don’t end after the parades roll through the streets; rather, a large part of the celebration continues unseen by the general public. Retreating to theaters, convention centers, and banquet halls, krewes spend the post-parade evening at lavish balls, where members cultivate a sense of fraternity and reinforce the organization’s shared values through pageantry and dance. In New Orleans Carnival Balls, Jennifer Atkins draws back the curtain on the origin of these exclusive soirees, bringing to light unique traditions unseen by outsiders. The oldest Carnival organizations—the Mistick Krewe of Comus, Twelfth Night Revelers, Krewe of Proteus, Knights of Momus, and Rex—emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. These old-line krewes ruled Mardi Gras from the Civil War until World War I, and the traditions of their private balls reflected a need for group solidarity amidst a world in flux. For these organizations, Carnival balls became magical realms where krewesmen reinforced their elite identity through sculpted tableaux vivants performances, mock coronations, and romantic ballroom dancing. This world was full of possibilities: krewesmen became gods, kings, and knights, while their daughters became queens and maids. As the old-line krewes cultivated a sense of brotherhood, they used costume and movement to reaffirm their group identity, and the crux of these performances relied on a specific mode of expression—dancing. Using the concept of dance as a lens for examining Carnival balls, Atkins delves deeper into the historical context and distinctive rituals of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Beyond presenting readers with a new means of thinking about Carnival traditions, Atkins’s work situates dance as a vital piece of historical inquiry and a mode of study that sheds new light on the hidden practices of some of the best-known krewes in the Big Easy.

The Secret Side of Mardi Gras, 1870-1920

New Orleans Carnival Balls

As Jennifer Atkins suggests in New Orleans Carnival Balls, Mardi Gras has a secret side. After masking and parading through the streets, krewes retreat to theaters, convention centers, and banquet halls to spend the evening at lavish balls where krewe members could cultivate their sense of fraternity and celebrate their shared values. Atkins uses the concept of dance as a lens for examining Carnival, allowing her to delve deeper into the historical context and distinctive rituals of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Dancing is a particularly illuminating social practice, and by using it to probe into old-line festivities, Atkins is able to decode the mysterious rituals that have mostly remained secret. Beyond presenting readers with a new means of thinking about Mardi Gras, Atkins’s work situates dance as culturally and socially relevant to historical inquiry, contributing to our understanding of the usefulness of dance in examining the past.

Tricia Henry Young

Sally R. Sommer

Dancing embodies cultural history and beliefs, and each dance carries with it features of the place where it originated. Influenced by different social, political, and environmental circumstances, dances change and adapt. American dance evolved in large part through combinations of multiple styles and forms that arrived with each new group of immigrants. Perspectives on American Dance is the first anthology in over twenty-five years to focus exclusively on American dance practices across a wide span of American culture. This volume and its companion show how social experience, courtship, sexualities, and other aspects of life in America are translated through dancing into spatial patterns, gestures, and partner relationships. This volume of Perspectives on American Dance features essays by a young generation of authors who write with familiarity about their own era, exploring new parameters of identity and evaluating a wide variety of movement practices being performed in spaces beyond traditional proscenium stages. Topics include "dorky dancing" on YouTube; same-sex competitors on the TV show So You Think You Can Dance; racial politics in NFL touchdown dances; the commercialization of flash mobs; the connections between striptease and corporate branding; how 9/11 affected dance; the criminalization of New York City club dancing; and the joyous ironies of hipster dance. This volume emphasizes how dancing is becoming more social and interactive as technology opens up new ways to create and distribute dance. The accessible essays use a combination of movement analysis, thematic interpretation, and historical context to convey the vitality and variety of American dance. They offer new insights on American dance practices while simultaneously illustrating how dancing functions as an essential template for American culture and identity. Contributors: Jennifer Atkins | Jessica Berson | J. Ellen Gainor | Patsy Gay | Ansley Jones | Kate Mattingly | Hannah Schwadron | Sally Sommer, Ph.D. | Ina Sotirova | Dawn Springer | Michelle T. Summers | Latika L. Young | Tricia Henry Young ﻿

The New Millennium

Perspectives on American Dance

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Jennifer Atkins

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