Booklist: Dance
Media and Performance: Along the Border
Johannes Birringer
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998
ISBN: 0801858526 Book
Description: In Media and Performance, choreographer Johannes Birringer offers the first comprehensive critical study of the intimate relationship between dance and performance art and the new media technologies in contemporary culture. The book interweaves Birringer's recollections of his own work in the alternative culture along with commentary on contemporary artists, from Nam June Paik to Laurie Anderson and Madonna. At a time when the new arts are being accepted and adopted by mainstream institutions, Birringer reclaims performance as process and movement, as political commitment to social activism and community, as aesthetic intervention into technological and economic structures of domination, and as anarchist disturbance of aesthetic pretensions. The author discusses the performance aspects of such political events as the breaching of the Berlin wall and the destruction of Sarajevo, and examines the use of video and agitprop performance in political activity, including protests by the gay activist group ACT UP and the disquieting performances of the former pornography actress and sex worker Annie Sprinkle. Birringer ends with a discussion of the continuing incursions of business into digital media, including the "imperialism of technological enhancements" as experienced in the culture of constant "upgrades" and the omnipresence of Bill Gates.
Performance on the Edge: Transformations of Culture
Johannes H. Birringer
Athlone Press, 2000
ISBN: 0485004186 Book
Description: Performance on the Edgetakes the reader on a journey across geographical borders and conceptual boundaries in order to map out the new territory of contemporary theatre, dance, media arts and activism. Working across social, cultural and political fault lines, the book explores performance as both process and contact, as the commitment to political activism and the reconstruction of community, as site-specific intervention into the social and technological structures of abandonment, and as the highly charged embodiment of erotic fantasies. The book addresses the politics of community-oriented and reconstructive artmaking in an era marked by the AIDS crisis, cultural and racial polarization, warfare, separatism and xenophobia. Provocatively illustrated with work from North and Central America and Eastern and Western Europe, the book challenges our assumptions about the relations between media and activism, technological imperatives and social processes and bodily identities and virtual communities
Dance, Power, and Difference: Critical and Feminist Perspectives on Dance Education
Sherry B. Shapiro, editor
Human Kinetics Publishing, 1998
ISBN: 0880117478
Book Description: In Dance, Power, and Difference, eight leading dance educators from around the world examine the fundamental values and goals of dance and dance education. Using a variety of approaches-including general critique, case studies, and personal histories, the book provides a foundation for reconstructing dance education in light of critical, social, and cultural concerns. This is not an answer book, however. It is a thought-provoking book that encourages readers to question traditional practices and develop a personal philosophy that is both critical and feminist. It seeks to transform the way readers think about dance-not only regarding how it is taught, researched, and critiqued, but also in terms of its purpose and aims. The contributors link dance to themes of human emancipation, multicultural awareness, and gender awareness, prompting readers to contemplate questions like these: How do we think of and value "the body" in dance? What cultural values, if any, should we impart to our students? What changes might a feminist-oriented pedagogy for dance stimulate? How should we prepare ourselves to work with students from cultures that are different from our own? Should we perpetuate old teaching methods? Part I introduces the reader to foundational questions concerning curriculum, pedagogy, and research. Part II presents personal stories that place these questions in the context of specific situations. Part III discusses the role of dance within the broader political and social arena. Each chapter includes an abstract, critical reflections, questions to spur class discussion and individual thought, and references.