Dates: October 29th – November 1st, 2015
Location: Baton Rouge, LA, U.S.A.; Manship Theatre
2015 Full Program (PDF)
By the numbers:
- 80 presenters/performers: including 15 selected artists/scholars from 250 submissions, representing 14 different countries
Keynote Speaker – Dr. Ann Dills
Dr. Ann Dils, professor and Chair of the Department of Dance at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is a dance historian with strong interests in movement analysis, feminist theory and research methods, and cultural studies. Dils has taught in the Department of Dance and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. She served as Director of WGS at UNCG from 2010-2013. Dils received the Dixie Durr Award for Outstanding Service to Dance Research from the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) in 2010 and has been editor of Dance Research Journal and president of the Congress on Research in Dance. A former dancer and choreographer, Dils received a PhD from the Department of Performance Studies, New York University, and an MA in Dance from The Ohio State University.
Featured Companies
ODC Dance Company from San Francisco, founded by Brenda Way in 1971 with three resident choreographers who have received Guggenheim, NEA American Masterpiece Award, 30 years of NEA fellowships and production grants, seven Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, two Nureyev Awards, a San Francisco Examiner Golden Slipper Award, and a Tony nomination. ODC has been hailed as “Best Dance Company” in the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s Best of the Bay 2002, 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011 editions.
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THODOS DANCE CHICAGO-For 25 years, Thodos Dance Chicago has performed with captivating style described as “breathtakingly athletic” and “powerfully beautiful.” The company’s dedication to the American voice in contemporary dance has established TDC as an innovative presence in the modern dance landscape. The 2016-2017 season is TDC’s 25th year of touring throughout the USA and performing in Chicago.
Featured Soloists
Yin Mei is professor of dance in the Drama, Theatre and Dance Department and director of the dance program at Queens College, City University of New York. Yin Mei is an internationally known director, choreographer, and performance artist. Yin Mei received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Choreography in 2004 and has been named a Choreography Fellow from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Amy Hall Garner is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she worked with choreographers Paul Taylor, David Parsons, and Lar Lubovitch. Mrs. Garner has worked with Ann Reinking, Susan Stroman, Chita Rivera, Savion Glover and the late Gwen Verdon. Mrs. Garner has taught and at Perry- Mansfield, American Ballet Theaters’ summer intensive, Broadway Dance Center, LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts (NYC), and Rosie O’Donnell’s Marvel Arts Center (NYC). She is an adjunct instructor at New York University’s New Studio on Broadway at Tisch School of the Arts.
Selected Choreographers
Scholarly Papers
A’Keitha Carey: Invisible Identities and Intersectionality in Dance: Finding Voice in Higher Education
Abstract:In this article, I discuss the term intersectionality and how I am engaging with it from the perspective of curricular reform in dance. I share my experiences with academic racism and sexism through autoethnography that is prescriptive, descriptive, and reflexive in its approach. I will discuss my experiences in various institutions and the behaviors of faculty, administration and students. I will engage with personal narrative to illustrate the culture in which I am immersed—academe. It is my hope that sharing my personal experiences in a reflexive manner will encourage the reader to survey, investigate, and analyze the culture from an interpretive and investigative lens, surveying the multiple layers of consciousness and realities that exist. I argue that “Studying others invariably invites readers to compare and contrast themselves with others in the cultural texts they read and study, in turn discovering new dimensions in their own lives” (Chang 34). I am interested in exploring strategies that will encourage and support junior faculty of color find voice who may be experiencing racism and sexism. I am also investigating how to implement these strategies, exploring what are some helpful resources, and what are the methods for self-care and healing.
Chell Parkins: Dancing on the 50-Yard Line: A feminist Perspective of Drill Team
Abstract: This paper explores drill team, the group of girls who dance in football half time shows, from a feminist perspective. Drill teams thrive across Texas due to the popularity of football and have created a pocket in the male sports arena for females to dance, but for the male gaze. The dancing girls present themselves in traditional Southern Belle fashion, seeming to perpetuate what Naomi Wolf labels the beauty myth in her nonfictional work The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used against Women. However, my experience as the director of a drill team in a Title 1 high school in rural Texas led me to believe that drill team also provides the opportunity for adolescent girls to become empowered, reclaim their bodies, and strive for success. As a self proclaimed feminist I wondered how this paradox was possible, an art form that is seemingly chauvinistic in presentation but that guides young girls in a feminist direction. This paper presents historical and experiential research scrutinized in relation to feminist theory on societies limited perspective of female bodies.
Lauren Wingenroth: Moving Past Patriarchy: How Embracing Female Choreographers Can Transform the World of Ballet
Abstract: This paper focuses on the systematic way that women are discouraged to choreograph for ballet, considering both historical influences and current practices in the ballet world. I posit that the authoritarian pedagogical methods used in ballet, the larger competition for women in ballet companies, the larger demand for women in canonical works, the favoritism towards boys and men in ballet, and the way we approach craft are factors that exclude women from creative positions in the ballet field. I argue that it is essential to rethink ballet in a way that is inclusive of women creators, and that the inclusion of these new choreographic perspectives will push the ballet world forward immensely.
Lisa Craig: Touching Water
Abstract: Touching Water was inspired by Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, Contact Improvisation and Continuum Movement. It is a study of theology, movement, touch and water and how they are integral to our relationships with others. The research on touch is in its infancy. A deeper interest in this sense began developing in the 1970’s/1980’s, the same timeframe that Contact Improvisation (1972) and Theology of the Body (1979-1984) were introduced into the world. What did a post-modern dance technique and a series of lectures by the Pope have in common? The importance of the connection between bodies. Emilie Conrad’s Continuum Movement can be used to further unite theology and dance. Through her immersion into the undulating movements of Haitian prayer, she discovered “God is not elsewhere, but is moving through our cells and in every part of us with its undulating message.” She compares the “movement of God within us” to the “fluid nature of ourselves”, an analogy also reflected in Theology of the Body. Touching Water applies the principles of Continuum Movement to Contact Improvisation; through movement and touch we create a physical dialogue between couples, enriching their bond. Weaving arts and sciences with theology and relationships, we aim to connect the physical body to our deepest desire, our oneness with God – from a universal human level, to our intimate partners, to ourselves.