Queering Partner Dance
Will be published approx. on 12. November 2026
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-350-56272-1 (ISBN)
Description
Queering Partner Dance brings work by established and emerging researchers together in one volume, exposing readers for the first time to this burgeoning field and allowing for comparison across genres and geographic areas. The contributors to Queering Partner Dance, who are dancer-scholars themselves, highlight the broad transformative potential of queer dance practices and theorize how those practices are relevant to multiple disciplines.
Since the emergence and expansion of the scholarly fields of gender studies and queer studies, which transformed music and dance studies along the way, social dancers of all genders began to openly question the gendered dynamics of their art and to experiment with how they might be changed. Exploring dances like tango, ballroom, Latin hustle, and salsa, with chapters on teaching dance and queer dance spaces, the contributors show how efforts to queer dance came to mean not only different gender constellations or role distributions, but also the modification of movements and expectations, steps and techniques, and a reorientation of a dance to acknowledge those who are usually excluded.
Since the emergence and expansion of the scholarly fields of gender studies and queer studies, which transformed music and dance studies along the way, social dancers of all genders began to openly question the gendered dynamics of their art and to experiment with how they might be changed. Exploring dances like tango, ballroom, Latin hustle, and salsa, with chapters on teaching dance and queer dance spaces, the contributors show how efforts to queer dance came to mean not only different gender constellations or role distributions, but also the modification of movements and expectations, steps and techniques, and a reorientation of a dance to acknowledge those who are usually excluded.
Reviews / Votes
A long-overdue volume, addressing queer interventions on one of the world's most persuasive and pervasive systems of intercorporeal heteropatriarchy. This collection will be indispensable not only for those interested in queer partner dancing, but for any scholar concerned with the specific mechanisms by which queer embodied practices interact with and challenge heteronormative social formations. -- David Kaminsky, University of California, Merced, USA Queering Partner Dance," edited by Val Meneau and Sydney Hutchinson, is a transformative academic work about embodied ideas. Through a finely curated collection of interdisciplinary essays, the book analyzes how traditional dances such as tango, salsa, swing, and country western can become powerful tools for inclusion and political resistance. The book leaves us with an uncomfortable yet necessary question: are we ready to let go of control, learn, and dance in true equality? -- Mercedes Liska, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina Queering Partner Dance reminds the reader of the many joyful and transgressive possibilities that emerge when heteronormative conventions of partner dances are disrupted by queer communities and their accompanying practices. Coming from diverse disciplines and employing a range of methodologies, the authors in this important collection also recall the ways that oppressive social contexts can reproduce themselves in queer partner dances as articulated in clubs, films, concert dances, competitions, classrooms, and more. Balancing scholarly rigor and practical engagement with the forms they study, these chapters are sure to be of great interest to anyone with a genuine interest in the ways that queerness moves. -- Professor Peter Carpenter, Z. T. Scott Family Chair in Drama, University of Texas at Austin, USAMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Laminated cover
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
366 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-56272-1 (9781350562721)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Val Meneau (they/sie/elle) is a trans non-binary multi-disciplinary artist, researcher, activist, and is currently a research associate at the Department of Diversity Research of the University of Goettingen, Germany. Their expertise lies in body and sexual politics at the intersection of gender, queer and critical dance studies. They are the author of DanceSport's Economy of Desire (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026).
Sydney Hutchinson (she/her) is an ethnomusicologist at the Staatliches Institut fuer Musikforschung (State Institute for Music Research) in Berlin, Germany. Her five books and many articles on Latin American music and dance have won multiple awards. She currently leads the project Second World Music: Latin America, East Germany, and the Sonic Circuitry of Socialism.
Sydney Hutchinson (she/her) is an ethnomusicologist at the Staatliches Institut fuer Musikforschung (State Institute for Music Research) in Berlin, Germany. Her five books and many articles on Latin American music and dance have won multiple awards. She currently leads the project Second World Music: Latin America, East Germany, and the Sonic Circuitry of Socialism.
Content
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
1. Queering Partner Dance - An Introduction, Val Meneau (University of Vienna, Austria) and Sydney Hutchinson (State Institute for Music Research, Berlin, Germany)
Part I: Challenging Normativities
2. Breaking the Cisheteronormative Visual Imagery: Queer Utopian Imaginings for a More Inclusive Future in Ballroom Dance, Val Meneau and Giulia Settomini (Independent Researcher)
3. Femme-bodiment as Praxis: Equality Dancing and the Reclamation of Femme Identity, Yen Nee Wong (University of Leeds, UK)
4. 'Are you...following?' Phenomenal Failures in Queer Country Western Dancing, Kathryn Alexander (University of Arizona, US)
Part II: Navigating Desire
5. Negotiating Heteromasculinity: Towards an Understanding of Straight Men Who Dance with Men (MDM) in UK Swing, Matthew Hall (Bath Spa University, UK)
6. Queering Form - Queering Representation: Questions on the Queer Aspect in Queer Tango Performances, Arno Plass (Independent Researcher)
7. Desmadrosas/es/xs: Queer Quebradita Deviations in Public and Private Spaces, Irvin Gonzalez (Ohio State University, US)
Part III: Designing Inclusive (Teaching) Spaces
8. Queering the Classroom: Dual-Role Pedagogy in University Salsa and Tango Courses, Juliet McMains (University of Washington, US), Julia Collier (Independent Researcher), Ivan Fernandez Victoria (Independent Researcher), Katherine Leavitt (Independent Researcher), and Kefan Yi (Independent Researcher)
9. The Queering of Lindy hop, Linnea Helmersson (Independent Researcher)
10. Teaching and Practicing Care through Somatic Partnering, Ilya Vidrin (Northeastern University, US)
Part IV: Shifting Scenes and Communities
11. Do the Latin Hustle: The Queer Rites of Saturday Night, Abdiel Jacobsen (Scripps College, US), Ahtoy Juliana WonPat-Borja (Scripps College, US) and Sarah Nguy?n (Jacob's Pillow, US)
12. Salsa in India - A Queer Partner Dance by Chance, Sydney Hutchinson (Humboldt University, Germany) and Subhashish Mandal (Independent Researcher)
13. Queering Traditional Dance? Reflections on Gender Negotiations Within a Set of Scenes in Sweden and Norway, Karin Eriksson (University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway)
14. Toolbox for Queering Partner Dance, Val Meneau (University of Vienna, Austria) and Sydney Hutchinson (Humboldt University, Germany)
Works Cited
Index
Notes on Contributors
1. Queering Partner Dance - An Introduction, Val Meneau (University of Vienna, Austria) and Sydney Hutchinson (State Institute for Music Research, Berlin, Germany)
Part I: Challenging Normativities
2. Breaking the Cisheteronormative Visual Imagery: Queer Utopian Imaginings for a More Inclusive Future in Ballroom Dance, Val Meneau and Giulia Settomini (Independent Researcher)
3. Femme-bodiment as Praxis: Equality Dancing and the Reclamation of Femme Identity, Yen Nee Wong (University of Leeds, UK)
4. 'Are you...following?' Phenomenal Failures in Queer Country Western Dancing, Kathryn Alexander (University of Arizona, US)
Part II: Navigating Desire
5. Negotiating Heteromasculinity: Towards an Understanding of Straight Men Who Dance with Men (MDM) in UK Swing, Matthew Hall (Bath Spa University, UK)
6. Queering Form - Queering Representation: Questions on the Queer Aspect in Queer Tango Performances, Arno Plass (Independent Researcher)
7. Desmadrosas/es/xs: Queer Quebradita Deviations in Public and Private Spaces, Irvin Gonzalez (Ohio State University, US)
Part III: Designing Inclusive (Teaching) Spaces
8. Queering the Classroom: Dual-Role Pedagogy in University Salsa and Tango Courses, Juliet McMains (University of Washington, US), Julia Collier (Independent Researcher), Ivan Fernandez Victoria (Independent Researcher), Katherine Leavitt (Independent Researcher), and Kefan Yi (Independent Researcher)
9. The Queering of Lindy hop, Linnea Helmersson (Independent Researcher)
10. Teaching and Practicing Care through Somatic Partnering, Ilya Vidrin (Northeastern University, US)
Part IV: Shifting Scenes and Communities
11. Do the Latin Hustle: The Queer Rites of Saturday Night, Abdiel Jacobsen (Scripps College, US), Ahtoy Juliana WonPat-Borja (Scripps College, US) and Sarah Nguy?n (Jacob's Pillow, US)
12. Salsa in India - A Queer Partner Dance by Chance, Sydney Hutchinson (Humboldt University, Germany) and Subhashish Mandal (Independent Researcher)
13. Queering Traditional Dance? Reflections on Gender Negotiations Within a Set of Scenes in Sweden and Norway, Karin Eriksson (University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway)
14. Toolbox for Queering Partner Dance, Val Meneau (University of Vienna, Austria) and Sydney Hutchinson (Humboldt University, Germany)
Works Cited
Index