Geographies of Dance

Reviews / Votes

The first of two proposed volumes edited by Pine and Kuhlke, this collection explores how space and place, identity and cultural diversity create embodied dance as individuals and groups negotiate the complexities of modern life. Chapter topics illustrate that people in the varied environments and sites find meaning and community through dance in different ways than one usually employs when viewing and writing about dance and dancers. Included are essays on Israeli-Jewish women's interest in belly dancing as a way to connect physicality with feminine emotions; the experiences of exotic dancers in popular strip clubs in a large city where neighborhood placement conflicts affect their ability to make a living; the evolution of jazz in Capetown, South Africa, from the 1940s swing styles and jazz era to the more current influences of hip-hop, tango, and salsa; and the work of four Toronto choreographers trained in Bharata Natyam Indian dance as they incorporate more contemporary forms to expand their cultural identities. This interdisciplinary collection offers a unique perspective on the broad role of dance in global cultures. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. * Choice Reviews * This book shows how dance makes space effective in myriad ways. It is both a primer and, like dance, an exploration of what both the body and space can do. Anyone moving onto this rich terrain needs to start here. -- Nigel Thrift, University of Warwick Geographies of Dance provides a valuable set of engagements with the relations, variously choreographed and creative, between dancing bodies and our understandings and experiences of space and place. Empirically rich and conceptually ambitious, the fascinating essays in this volume serve to demonstrate the vibrancy of current scholarship on this topic while also mapping out important trajectories for future research. -- Derek McCormack, University of Oxford