Jens Richard Giersdorf

Gay Morris

'Choreographies of 21st Century Wars' addresses the interface between choreography and war in this century. The book challenges concepts of choreography as solely a structuring mechanism and an aesthetics of politics that is exclusively resistant. Instead, in the context of 21st-century war, it calls for a rethinking of choreography that incorporates the disorder and dispersion of power away from nation-states, which is central to this century. The collection is composed of an introduction and sixteen essays by individual authors who work across a number of disciplines through field notes, case studies, participant observations, and photographs, as well as essays reflecting on war issues and their relationship to choreographic practices.

Choreographies of 21st Century Wars

Wars in this century are radically different from the major conflicts of the 20th century--more amorphous, asymmetrical, globally connected, and unending. Choreographies of 21st Century Wars is the first book to analyze the interface between choreography and wars in this century, a pertinent inquiry since choreography has long been linked to war and military training. The book draws on recent political theory that posits shifts in the kinds of wars occurring since the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War, all of which were wars between major world powers. Given the dominance of today's more indeterminate, asymmetrical, less decisive wars, we ask if choreography, as an organizing structure and knowledge system, might not also need revision in order to reflect on, and intercede in, a globalized world of continuous warfare. In an introduction and sixteen chapters, authors from a number of disciplines investigate how choreography and war in this century impinge on each other. Choreographers write of how they have related to contemporary war in specific works, while other contributors investigate the interconnections between war and choreography through theatrical works, dances, military rituals and drills, the choreography of video war games and television shows. Issues investigated include torture and terror, the status of war refugees, concerns surrounding fighting and peacekeeping soldiers, national identity tied to military training, and more. The anthology is of interest to scholars in dance, performance, theater, and cultural studies, as well as the social sciences.

The Body of the People is the first comprehensive study of dance and choreography in East Germany. More than twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Jens Richard Giersdorf investigates a national dance history in the German Democratic Republic, from its founding as a Communist state that supplanted the Soviet zone of occupation in 1949 through the aftermath of its collapse forty years later, examining complex themes of nationhood, ideology, resistance, and diaspora through an innovative mix of archival research, critical theory, personal narrative, and performance analysis. Giersdorf looks closely at uniquely East German dance forms—including mass exercise events, national folk dances, Marxist-Leninist visions staged by the dance ensemble of the armed forces, the vast amateur dance culture, East Germany’s version of Tanztheater, and socialist alternatives to rock ‘n’ roll—to demonstrate how dance was used both as a form of corporeal utopia and of embodied socialist propaganda and indoctrination. The Body of the People also explores the artists working in the shadow of official culture who used dance and movement to critique and resist state power, notably Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, Arila Siegert, and Fine Kwiatkowski. Giersdorf considers a myriad of embodied responses to the Communist state even after reunification, analyzing the embodiment of the fall of the Berlin Wall in the works of Jo Fabian and Sasha Waltz, and the diasporic traces of East German culture abroad, exemplified by the Chilean choreographer Patricio Bunster.

East German Dance Since 1945

The Body of the People

Yutian Wong

The second edition of The Routledge Dance Studies Reader offers fresh critical perspectives on classic and modern dance forms, including ballroom, tango, Hip-hop, site-specific performance, and disability in dance. Alexandra Carter and Janet O’Shea deliver a substantially revised and updated collection of key texts, featuring an enlightening new introduction, which tracks differing approaches to dance studies. Important articles from the first edition are accompanied by twenty new works by leading critical voices. The articles are presented in five thematic sections, each with a new editorial introduction and further reading. Sections cover: Making dance Performing dance Ways of looking Locating dance in history and society Debating the discipline The Routledge Dance Studies Reader gives readers access to over thirty essential texts on dance and provides expert guidance on their critical context. It is a vital resource for anyone interested in understanding dance from a global and contemporary perspective.

The Routledge Dance Studies Reader

The Routledge Dance Studies Reader has been expanded and updated, giving readers access to thirty-seven essential texts that address the social, political, cultural, and economic impact of globalization on embodiment and choreography. These interdisciplinary essays in dance scholarship consider a broad range of dance forms in relation to historical, ethnographic, and interdisciplinary research methods including cultural studies, reconstruction, media studies, and popular culture. This new third edition expands both its geographic and cultural focus to include recent research on dance from Southeast Asia, the People’s Republic of China, indigenous dance, and new sections on market forces and mediatization. Sections cover: Methods and approaches Practice and performance Dance as embodied ideology Dance on the market and in the media Formations of the field. The Routledge Dance Studies Reader includes essays on concert dance (ballet, modern and postmodern dance, tap, kathak, and classical khmer dance), popular dance (salsa and hip-hop), site-specific performance, digital choreography, and lecture-performances. It is a vital resource for anyone interested in understanding dance from a global and contemporary perspective.

Jens Richard Giersdorf

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