The Israeli Society for Dance Research announces its 3rd annual conference:
Embodied Stories: Dance, Narrative, and Expression
Thursday, January 26, 2016
Faculty of Dance – The Jerusalem Academy for Music and Dance
In her paper on Jonathan Burrows’ piece, Weak Dance Strong Questions (WDSQ), theoretician and performance artist Bojana Cvejić said: “Contrary to what seems to narrate another end to dance in the terms of choreography, composition, authorship and interpretation, I propose a zero-degree departure in which WDSQ draws a limit to movement as dance – no, not to danceability as such (about which we cannot say anything) – but to the expression of movement against the resistance of the body. If I borrow Wittgenstein’s words, I can say: We cannot think dance which we cannot dance; so what we cannot dance we cannot think as dance either. Perhaps we can dance ‘thinkdance’ as showing the logical scaffolding of dance”.
How do we think about dance? How dance think us? What kind of stories does the dancing body tell us? In what way does dance structure meaning through language, syntax, form, and content? How are identities, gender, and cultures embodied in dance? Which narratives deconstruct or reconstruct dance historiographies or dance education?
We propose exploring these questions in the following contexts:
- The human body and technology in the last two centuries
- The spectacle of the naked body and the mundane in today’s dance
- The relationship between the spectator’s body and the dancing body
- Embodied political narratives in dance
- Movement stories: between abstraction and the narrative
- Stories of the learning and exercising body
- Dramaturgy and dance narratives
- New historiographies
We call for scholars to propose diverse and interdisciplinary points of view on these subjects. Papers may present research in progress or collaborative multidisciplinary research. In addition, we call upon choreographers, dancers, and performers to submit proposals for performative lectures and/or lecture demonstrations.
Submissions should contain no more than 300 words and include: a clear subject, rationale, a coherent theoretical framework, and methodology. Submit along with your CV by September 30th to Mira Eidels at: eidelsm@yahoo.com