Unknown Speaker  00:03
We'll begin with the organisms chemical today that includes people with a variety of backgrounds so we're going to begin with some general remarks very very general and

Unknown Speaker  00:32
they will go back into something more specific than that develop out of our individual pieces this will all feel painful at the end for discussion of anything that we bring up or king other issues that you would like to see with that said about the format Let me introduce myself super fast and this is to demand and start to play around the speaker said because

Unknown Speaker  01:21
I'm finishing a dissertation at Columbia which has been titled body politic the dancer was the Department of Dance I also took humanities programs at Columbia I'm Christine berry president of National Teaching college about

Unknown Speaker  02:01
Americans over I guess I was waiting for you to draw great and I'm a dancer from Grad for doing a dissertation and I teach at NYU

Unknown Speaker  02:35
one of the lightest this country borrow money from a small photographer and I've always loved February 7 My name is Dr back on patient on an agnostic contract

Unknown Speaker  04:49
everybody in our comments today we're going to be concerned almost exclusively with American and European concert dance, as it is developed in the 20th century, we're not going to deal with musical comedy or show dance of any sort, or with folk or ethnic traditions in the United States. Nor are we able to survey examples of moral dance. Our decision to narrow the discussions simply reflects our desire to give more in depth. consideration to one area than the more superficial treatment of a larger field also reflects our area of expertise. Well, 20th century American concert dance is a field that's largely populated by white middle class women in ballet, in modern dance, and contemporary and avant garde dance, women outnumber men, as choreographers and dancers and as teachers by at least one. This holds true for both the professional world of dance and for dancing schools at all levels, just to sort of couple rules, statistics, but we just did a search at Wesleyan for a full time tenure track person, we had about 160 people apply for that job, full time, modern dance teacher 126 of

Unknown Speaker  06:23
those applications, but

Unknown Speaker  06:28
there are about 1300 listings of choreographers in the dance magazine, annual directory, and 62% of them are women. So it's it's a field that's very heavily participated, organized and worked by women. And I think what we're trying to do in our discussions today is to talk about the pertinence of feminist studies to that field. And also the pertinence of that field to feminist studies. We know people who are doing women's studies, boy that should be very interested in, in dance and, and also that dance, certainly, by having people with expertise, or discipline. Men and American concert dance have played very complicated role there. And there's almost no research on this. So very, very hard to talk about what the statistics are here, and what the what what the representation looks like. They have an image of being predominantly homosexual. And this, in turn relates to the fact that dance is seen as a sort of fizzy art or sort of female of all of all the arts most feminine. So you have men throughout the 20th century trying to defend their masculinity as they participate in dance, or openly opt for dance because it is a place where they can be more overtly homosexual. And all these cross currents are playing back and forth to each other the way that we discussed this. We weren't really able to say anything very definitive about them, except just signal that this is sort of an area of need do a lot more research. Nobody knows very well, so we've got this field here. That's very much a woman's pursuit of women as choreographers, women, as dancers, women as teachers. But within that, we also have still a lot of male oriented or what happens continues the patriarchal values this morning, that are replicated within the field itself. So that we should note, for example, that men hold many of the most prestigious positions in the field in positions as fundraisers as producers as directors and choreographers of major Dance Company, and also have influential mentors or critics. Men hold a much larger proportion of those jobs than their overall representation in the field. and sort of another kind of statistic about that one woman, while assessment sociologist at Tufts work was that just began to do some work on the sociology has condemned company notes in a recent article that overall of women take home about 65% of pay that men take home in dance. So you can argue, to a certain extent, this is a law of supply and demand. Men are almost the kind of exotic tropical phenomena in dance. You know, everyone's always glad when you have men in your classes or men in your company, they're, they're definitely harder to come by, they also earn a lot more money, partly because, certainly, overall Patreon. The other thing that I want to mention about this, the way that the patriarchy has replicated itself within the dance field, just to talk briefly about the distinction between ballet and modern dance and avant garde dance. There's a set of values that are associated with the ballet that seemed to be more consonant with what we would think of as patriarchal values, pursuit of an abstract enduring form, the ability to mold the body to an ideal image and, and as a result of that, a canonizing movements, the establishment of a lexicon of steps that day dance so, we have the ballet, this, this lexicon of steps, we have with a modern dance, which is a more feminine person pursue the idea of a process of creative process, that that is occurring with many individual approaches to making movements to fashioning movements and a real difference between using a set of steps in a new way and inventing your own. And this new set of values in two major domains of concert dance has in hierarchical relations, the ballet is dominates in every area in funding and sort of popularity in terms of the general popular opinion of it. And and there are few more men choreographers in ballet, then there are long devils are still the number one cloud proceeding was sort of beginning about the unknown, you have

Unknown Speaker  13:54
to continue with some of the ideas Susan started presenting on there. The fact that dance has been fun as a woman is a double edged sword. Both of those words are very important for feminist studies to look at one edge if that was true that that sexism pervades. Dance,

Unknown Speaker  14:33
particularly modern dance in America is a major art form. Women have watched the shape. And therefore I think that gives us examples of a tremendous range

Unknown Speaker  14:48
of art by women. Gives us examples of art that were made by women who did not define themselves as the others. did not have to forge a weight for themselves in men's dominated field is very different than what you'd find in an art form like visual arts, music, literature, where women had to fight their way in, defined as engineers. And therefore, many women in those fields have sought to define certain characteristics that characterize a particular woman.

Unknown Speaker  15:33
So in the visual arts, you get a lot of people who talk about

Unknown Speaker  15:37
a mentally curved flowers as opposed to the straight lines, the cognitive painting began to contend with turning the corner patient. Women have displayed a whole range of qualities in their there are so that it's a it's a wonderful example of what some of the possibilities might be. In a situation where security is not just replacing the course the other edge of the sword is that because dance had been defined as a woman feel it has been marginalized in his culture. And they see that in many respects, is the last part for mutually inclusive, greater education. And its children are educated. We can divide their bodies off and give them physical education. And then they're given drawing lessons, music lessons, but art is dance departments in university have to struggle to be founded to maintain themselves, they're usually segregated

Unknown Speaker  16:57
from the rest of the university.

Unknown Speaker  17:01
Secondly, we see our stigma attached to men who come in to dance like that alleviated somewhat in the past 20 years, but men were coming into our marginalized men. Because they think they had to battle stereotype. The men's being homosexual, as

Unknown Speaker  17:32
Susan already mentioned this, this phenomenon of the large homosexual population in the field for women and marginalized dance as a whole, also become characterized both by people outside of it, and often by people who viewed it as something that is feminine, or woman. And so that dance becomes character on something. As opposed to intellectual, something intuitive. That is all about feeling. So that I think very often, dancers, American dancers find themselves in a very curious position of having to argue against some of the fringe arguments for feminists who's happy to find themselves who have sought help generally definition in the areas of expressiveness in the unconscious. That's something that an American dance, we almost have to battle, that kind of stereotype of ourselves. Because we haven't had to define myself and not wanting people to want to do that, or really kind of confine us into a certain kind of compartment. Finally, I'll just mention, this is something that we won't have time to get into these important issues. I mentioned that I think that the marginalization of dance as a field is very related to the process that we observed elsewhere in American society, particularly in the treatment of Black Bart Black is a field which I think have had major impact on the dance of American culture as a whole. And that is usually considered in a very separate way, said segregated isn't considered at all, during my history, major part of Genesis with a secondary modern. A couple of paragraphs given over to black bands. I think there's an excellent parallel to American modern dance in jazz music. That Jazz Music It is an indigenous form of experience largely by blacks and marginalize white. And that while it's getting superficial acknowledgement, as something that Americans know about and proud of great music, it is not legitimized. And it's very, very often not taught as part of people's education. And it's it's something that is considered secondary to serious seriously. And I think that Susan, is going to have some more continuation and the actual study.

Unknown Speaker  20:49
Well, my part in this three part of the reduction is to comment on dance studies, which is a field far less politicized than Women's Studies, the one that leads the three of us clearly feel the need of politicization. And the three of us have attended many conferences of the Congress, on research and dance decided to ancestry scholars over the last decade or so. And yet, we really cannot recall one panel that explicitly addressed feminist concerns. Does anyone else in the room recall in such a panel, maybe we have short memory. That is amazing, since what we hope to show today is that dance studies does encounter the concerns of feminists and Women's Studies at every turn. But it is also perhaps not surprising that a panel on relationship with feminism and dance has not been put forward to one of these conferences, because and this is what Susan Cynthia have already shown. The dance field itself hardly seems aware of the association between its preponderance of women and its marginal status. Now, dance studies does represent one attempt to resist this marginalization to legitimize dance as a significant cultural form. But one wonders if the field will ever achieve this goal without first becoming more politicized, more aware of what I define as its implicit polemic, that the representation of the body and movement combined as a symbolic system, a signifying practice which is accessible to analysis and interpretation. To those of us within the field, it seems a simple proposition. But it's one that I think the field needs to be much more conscious about fighting for, and particularly in the academy. Anyway, it seems at the present, dance studies are far less integrated into academic institutions than women's studies. In fact, dance studies seems to occupy a curious position halfway between the worlds of scholarship and journalism, which actually is not a bad thing, but incredibly unusual, I think, in American culture, much more usual. And much more possible in European culture. I've noticed, you know, there's a kind of scholarly journalism that takes place in many European culture that doesn't seem to take place in American culture, except in this regard to dance. But I think this situation is partly because until very recently, it was journalists who wrote about dance, not faculty and university dance department. Although University dance departments do seem the logical home for dance scholars, they have not wholeheartedly welcomed either scholars or artists scholars. Most departments do offer a few courses in history in theory, but more often than not, they're taught by faculty members who hold MFA degrees PhDs in physical education have little training in historical and theoretical methods. Ever since Margaret, a dribbler founded the first dance major at the University of Wisconsin in 1926. Dance Department had seen their mission to promote the experience of dance as an antidote and complement to the intellectuality of the university curriculum. This rationale or this mission for dance departments clearly comes out of the progressive education movement of the teens and the 20s. In other words, to really learn when does not mean just to think but it means to experience and to do and so dance departments saw their mission as the place in the university were doing and thinking became an integrated process and therefore, as I said, kind of was an antidote a complement to the rest of the curriculum. But the thought that then one could step Ask from that process of doing and thinking and think about it in a way that involves another kind of doing. And that's the kind of doing of research and scholarship and writing and sitting on panels and talking. That jump does not seem to have been made by the majority of dance departments in the country. So what I'm saying is that few dance departments really have seriously addressed the relations of dance scholarship and dance practice. One hopes that ultimately this relationship is addressed more in the manner of music departments, where performers and scholars and performer slash scholars are in the same department, though they might fight at least they talk to one another, rather than in the manner of say the art the split between art history and studio art. I think that would be very

Unknown Speaker  25:52
sad for dance overall. So I guess what I'm saying is that it does seem and again, like Susan's statistics, these statistics come out of one's own own experience. But it does seem that as many dance scholars hold positions into problems other than dance or workout time, the academy as independent scholars or journalists as vocal contributions of dance departments. Recently, there have been several graduate programs have danced and founded yet many dance scholars do pursue advanced degrees in other fields. Again, just recounting the fields of friends of ours, comparative literature, philosophy and critical theory, theater history, art history, musicology American Studies, anthropology. And of course, faculty in the new graduate programs have these other degrees as well, since the dance programs are still too new to have produced their own second and third generations. So this is interesting, because like women's studies, dance studies, instances, and interdiscipline. In the making, here, you have scholars with all of these various trainings coming together. But dance, it seems very different from women's studies as an interdiscipline. And I think it's different in fundamentally for this reason, that whereas Women's Studies unites, essentially, female scholar from a whole variety of disciplines, who have turned the methods of their disciplines toward the apt and other female experience in literature in history, religion, psychology, etc. Dance studies confronted subject matter without a coherent discourse without a language of inquiry without disciplinary method. So I think of a woman's historian, you need to trained in history, and that's the kind of male oriented history and then you discover the absent other female experience in history, and you use the historians methods to get at that, well, in dance study, the field itself is the absolute other, I mean, your dance is the art that's just been left out, and no one has learned how to deal with it, male,

Unknown Speaker  27:59
or otherwise.

Unknown Speaker  28:01
So this is, so what all the scholars who come from all these backgrounds have to do is import methods from these other disciplines, translate them, you know, in order to deal with dance. And this is, as I say, it's an interdiscipline in the making. And that's what's going on at the moment. One wonders, if dance studies will remain, much as it is today, and I suppose I would define it today as a kind of common area of interest, represented by several conferences a year attended by historians and theorists of music, art performance and culture will also have an interest in dance will remain this kind of interdiscipline or will some kind of discourse cohere out of this general process of importing and translating discourses from other disciplines? I think we all hope in a way that that will happen and I don't mean when I say that, it just I hope a discourse will evolve with a single point of view with single methodology will evolve No, but that there is some kind of body of literature and and combined points of view that are debated discussed, worked over and form a discourse, you know, which is specific to dance. Or another possibility, will dance studies become integrated with other disciplines that are interested in similar issues, the representation of the body representation of general goals being the primary among these. My hope, and I actually think applies for the three of us. Our hope, is that dance studies evolved its own discourse, while at the same time of all being a dialogue with other disciplines and inter disciplines, and especially with women's and feminist studies, and, as Susan said, there seems enormous potential for it. two way dialogue between Women's Studies and dance studies. And that's why we're here. And that's why we left lots of time at the end of the presentation to talk about

Unknown Speaker  30:12
can we have three sort of individual longer presentations to give to a cause participant question about this overview that we've tried to give? You at this time, they are certainly not earlier in the 20th century.

Unknown Speaker  30:43
We've Yeah, the, we've discussed that. And there was a period John Martin, Edwin Denby, who certainly would have been a great critic, personally, and also mentor, to dancers. And today, it does seem to be women seem to be a tendency among the critics. So it's interesting among the choreography, it's the reverse, because, of course, with Martin, you know, that time the 30s and 40s women didn't dominate in a way that big not now and that, you know, it's kind of the Taylor's question, for

Unknown Speaker  31:26
somebody who talks about modern debt, even more,

Unknown Speaker  31:31
having a more feminine approach.

Unknown Speaker  31:34
Well, feminine in quotation marks, I'm not sure what you meant by that, oh, that, that it tends not to have a lexicon or that it tends to privilege, you know, movements that prefers flow over shape, or that it doesn't necessarily search for the abstract geometric ideal that are privileged in the ballet. These are examples that come to mind of the screen, sort of masculine and feminine traits that one finds in ballet versus modern dance. That help or

Unknown Speaker  32:21
I'm going to try to talk about that too. tricky issue.

Unknown Speaker  32:30
More modern desperately

Unknown Speaker  32:33
Valley companies. So is it is it getting really popular outlines that I think that nationally, there's still a larger number of ballots

Unknown Speaker  32:58
that modern dance companies. The typical ballroom dance companies lasts about five years.

Unknown Speaker  33:10
Or that, and I mean, it is more expensive to run a ballet company than Amana dance companies. And so that can explain some of the discrepancy in funding. But I really just think in terms of audience numbers, that many more Americans have attended a ballet performance than a modern dance performance. I mean, you have to remember we were living in New York, and this is where the modern dance companies cluster and you go to another even city of major size and you know, there are very few native modern dance for years to restore.

Unknown Speaker  33:55
Yeah, I mean, New York did kind of come I mean, wasn't always the center was really kind of in the 30s you know, that New York really began to be a center and so there was lots of Regional Ballet, you know, movement in the teens in the 20s. But you modern dance has been. Okay. Jenna Shawn was on the West Coast. And of course, that was, of course, that was modern dance. But there was not kind of a comparable modern dance movement everywhere, everywhere else. And so I would say if anything, it's modern dance that's been more tied to New York thing than ballet. I mean, because there was a regional value before there was a centralization in New York. And as soon as there was decentralization, New York, of course, there was momentum to revitalize that Regional Ballet.

Unknown Speaker  34:49
Your comment? Of course, it's more expensive to run a ballet company is kind of sheds light on how dominant that image is because not of course, it's more expensive to rent a ballet car If you think about the possibility of modern dance companies being as large as

Unknown Speaker  35:04
and goods, right, and having that kind of resources Yeah, exactly

Unknown Speaker  35:09
assume that modern is small and ballet is traditional.

Unknown Speaker  35:13
And it's only with Regional Ballet. I mean, it's part of kind of American cultural history. As cities, you know, at the turn of the century, you know, decided now it's important to find a museum, you know, to find a symphony orchestra. Well, then to found a ballet company was part of that constellation work. Before that, it

Unknown Speaker  35:32
seems that ballet was in opera that was kind of had those larger houses attached to it. And then when valet came out of offer, it's still by its relationship got that institutional credibility.

Unknown Speaker  35:47
So I think that goes back with that offer, and the legibility of again, the way Valley vocabulary is structured so that it can be seen from a great distance. As we talked about water

Unknown Speaker  36:09
wasn't sure in 17th century Marc Benioff kind of emerged out of court court and author of the reforms

Unknown Speaker  36:23
and went through a period where

Unknown Speaker  36:26
there were no women on stage.

Unknown Speaker  36:28
It was not marginalized with respect to the culture the way it is.

Unknown Speaker  36:34
It was really as women during the 19th century as women became more and more prominent as performers that lost its status and moved out of quarantine into the professional theatre

Unknown Speaker  36:46
effect. But 18th century and before the great dances in the Western tradition tended to be male virtuosos, because it was more seemly in the court, you know, in accord entertainment, the man had pants, you could see his legs, he could jump, he could do beat actions and that kind of thing. And the women could not move in that fashion because of the kind of costuming and just because of the general

Unknown Speaker  37:10
associate people work crowd.

Unknown Speaker  37:32
Well, hold on your questions please so so that you do get champion talk about I'm going to address the question of the male and the female body into American dance for two very different contrasting forms to take a look at one is ballet and the other is contact improvisation. And I want to talk about the ways in which these dance forms construct the body and document the convention get in touch. And and I do this in the tradition of, of questioning, the very widespread to some degree that the body is natural and easy just pops out. And also the suit union of gender or sexual characteristics with being a male or characteristic vary from culture to culture. The bond is very much culturally socially constructed. Although dance operates on many levels, on one level, I think that it has to be considered a primary realm of culture, which does shape ways in which men and women can move and shape some of the meanings of that movement might have. And I think that that also the way in which movement gets categorized alongside bars and dance is related to categories and other cultural realms. And that certain techniques of the body cluster with other values and practices and I hope to be explained that more specific examples, let me just say that I use the term techniques of the body after the sociologist or so, most. And it refers to movement practices, which are both effective that is their their skill, they use the body as in technical officers for means of doing something and their practices which are traditionally transmitted by learning cultural structures. And again, I think first I want to very briefly describe the history in general social structure of each dance form I'm going to talk about in order to provide a little background for those of you who are unfamiliar with ballet is the most common and widely viewed and funded American Theatre Dance form today. It has a 400 year history and tradition originated in Europe. Ballet is a preset form choreographed by highly accomplished individuals who teach movement to dancers. While it is taught and performed all over the country ballet is recognized as a highly professionalized and specialized Art Center in New York City, which only an elite group of dancers can really accomplish. The structure of the ballet class and company hierarchical form in general is thought of as hierarchy assume that everyone can do at once, television. So I'm going to provide an example of that. The second dance forms that are considered is contact improvisation. And you just came around the middle. And actually the teacher obligation to go with it to begin with, and we're neither dressed or warmed up to do it, but so, anyway, contact improvisation is a web form. And it originated in 70s 60s the culture and the large American culture on the give and take of weight flows through the body to partners facing each other. If we were fully one. It was originated. Remember

Unknown Speaker  42:30
I know I'm just counterbalance here and now I want to talk about later. Ah, that's what I wanted to say your organization of advanced form, okay. It's something that is has tried to be very egalitarian leadership has always been solicited very non hierarchical form. And there have been some companies, but none of them have lasted very long. So that it has really been on a very ad hoc basis. Performance is formal, usually around small

Unknown Speaker  43:11
contracts. Well, there is a very interesting difference. Okay. The lagless choreograph its work. And if if we had an example to kind of take within here, you see if your movement is much harder, harder edge

Unknown Speaker  43:33
in your lives on strength, rather than on this improvisational fencing. So they are related, I think, to certain trends in the culture.

Unknown Speaker  43:42
The touching the athleticism, the gymnastic quality related, but they're very different. No, they actually work simultaneously.

Unknown Speaker  43:52
Thank you. Okay. What I'd like to do now is to take a look at some slides. Maybe I can there we go. I think it's not necessary. This will work. I'll scoot over here lay out of your way. Okay. Ballet and contact

Unknown Speaker  44:28
improvisation come with duet

Unknown Speaker  44:30
structure as a central component. So they're particularly interesting to compare. The ballet to athletes how to do is always danced by a man and a woman, and they encounter most often refers to romantic love. So that heterosexuality is established as a normative dance. Partner in in ballet music demand guide support carries and manipulate thus a sexual division of labor movement it characterizes the males. The usually the man is solid, stable and strong. While the woman is delicately balanced on one leg extended in the air. This gendered codification of movement maintains itself. Outside of the cottage, the male soloist tends to exhibit strength in large jumps and air turns, while the female solo is tinged with different flexibility, quickness, and leg extensions in particular. Even in the so called abstract ballets of George Balanchine, which contains no narrative, we see the same movement connection to the woman balance on one leg, stretched out and then

Unknown Speaker  45:44
solid stable point of

Unknown Speaker  45:49
contact improvisation, on the other hand may take place between a man and a woman, two women or two men and a does not concern romantic love or any other narrative content. reform has almost no codification of numerous vocabulary, the vocabulary that exists is available for both men and women. To see an example of two women dancing to ballet requires exaggerated sexual dimorphism because a man must be able to lift the woman with ease for women, lightness and flexibility in the splendor, long limb. Strong but fragile looking body our desire for what she's doing takes enormous strength. For men, strength and agility and mean but muscular body are valued. As a rule the male body must be larger and taller than the female body. conversation to where each member male and female must be ready to give or take wait for it to feel as called for by the interaction.

Unknown Speaker  46:59
This is just the addition of these two. Wait, that's the right moment of March person who knows how to move his or her way of contacting conversation may seem much lighter than small. When a company has a man or a woman small a larger concern of these dancers. For each dance one there is a shared movement style for both men and women.

Unknown Speaker  47:39
In ballet, movement is presentational that is aimed towards the audience. It emphasizes the periphery of the body, the arms like the spatial design of the body, its shape, and the control of the vertical balance. For contact improvisers movement tends to be focused internally rather than towards an audience to empathize with the center of the body. The weight and momentum or energy flows the ability to lose balance to fall off of the greater good to to see the way in which certain movement characteristics start to get associated with masculine or feminine.

Unknown Speaker  48:39
Costumes reinforce distinctions between men and women in ballet, highlighting conventional American sexual characteristics the arms and the legs and the policy both men and women as well as pointing out hierarchy among male female dancers. That is we know that the woman in the center is the most important one and only because of the story and only arrangement and only because she has a man

Unknown Speaker  49:13
contact your provides this anti costume of workflows. Usually sweatshirts and T shirts tend to obscure the outlines of the bodies to some degree and here you see a dress almost identical to bagginess. And sometimes we just have a quality of his clothing often camouflage his dress, gifts and musculature in somebody's grave. So I would suggest that a cluster of techniques of the body exist, which are associated with sexual dimorphism and gender distinction of the ballet. These techniques include outward presentation, control space, strength and support for the male strength tempered by delta hinders female and I think this cluster techniques can also be associated with characteristics of the ballet as a choreography, or as a social organization with the classification of ballet as a hierarchy for the hierarchical nature of the ballet as it is taught in dance classes, and as an advantage for the dance companies. Now let's contrast your cluster of techniques, which are associated with lack of gender distinction. Contact recombination, includes the techniques of inward focus, disorientation and uncontrolled phone space. And a combination of supporting independent movement to each and every dancer regardless except this cluster can also be associated with the characteristics of contact improvisation as a dance form as a social organization, the classification of contact improvisation as a folk dance, but the people who do it and the egalitarian ideology are acquired as it is practiced and taught to my point about these clusters is that I'm not saying that it fixes these movement qualities, to these meanings for all times in all cultures. But I'm trying to suggest how movement gets associated with a host of values, which do not belong to the domain of dance alone, but are part of how we understand our lives, and how we define ourselves as men and investigating. The interaction between dancers in the two forms also has interesting implications that images of the body that language employ emphasizes female male dimorphism was often presents the two dancers in the representation of real social encounter, even when the characters are princess. The concept was social encounter is suggested not only by the frequent narrative context of ballet, but also applying the techniques of the body. A great deal of touching and gesture involves iFocus, facial expressions and armored hand motions, and lenses and gestures of the performers to meanings which can be socially decoded, often as a message of romantic love. And at the same time, the meanings of these gestures determined and of course by their use in the context of the ballet. Second category of touching and by contacting ballet consists of the movement necessary for the man who lived with a woman to put a woman to be partnered, in this case, both for the characters in the performers and the audience, to touching becomes part of the convention of executing the product. And part of the visual abstract design of the crayon, social or sexual meanings are not meant to be explicitly red introduced gestures, although they have a lot of overtones that they add to the dance and a strong example of that the man's hands on woman's inner thigh in a ballet even in the love scene, it's really not a caress, but it's a dance action necessary in order to manipulate the ballerina, the audience as I say many times in erotic content to that, but like strangers press body, your body in a crowded subway car, almost no one made mistakes these techniques on the body for sexual act, where if they do this big trouble in contact improvisation, the second category of touching Oh Here is another example of that combination of the social demands. A relationship between a man and a dancer together and the abstract design without a leg. In contact improvisation the form depends on communication between dancers through the sense of touch and sight is used peripheral is not in iContact. In fact, dancers seldom encounter each other face to face. all body parts are potential surfaces to support contact. Those parts of normally considered social the head, the arms and the hands are used as levers and physical mass. This distancing them from any emotional meaning they might have.

Unknown Speaker  54:17
Likewise, body parts are normally considered sexual and taboo to touch and tumblr are to some degree d sexualized, right, they're using the dance. Interestingly, contact improvisers engage in actions which in some cases looks like lovemaking. This is the closest photograph I have to it's not a great example. But they're dancing is is often less erotic than the ballet which incorporates social emotional gesture and often narratives suggesting life contact improvisation, which posits as a central technique encountered between two bodies considered as weight and mass may convey sensuality and I think it really does The construction of the body is not gendered, is often accompanied by the construction of the body as not sexual. Here's an example where dancers I think, intentionally look away from each other. And if they were to look towards each other, even a whole emotional, meaning that they might not continue to improve at this moment. Of course, contact improvisation can have sexual or emotional content. First of all, it can be invested in a 3d interpretation of an observer. Furthermore, interesting reversal of presentational framework, one of the ways in which contact and validation which contain humor pointed standard performance is through the sudden appearance of mutual recognition by the dancers in the audience of a socially meaningful gesture. So a dancer the cradle dancer and that they hold on to that for a moment it's so tender this comes out with emphasize this is a photograph of a dance by Robin filled with parlor dance she made 1981 where she used this social pocket on the couch and put contact improvisation on top of it. It's a very, very funny suggestive dance because let me just say clearly, I think the construction of gender in ballets techniques and the body matches and promotes a sexual stereotyping of the male and female body and American culture. Where as the lack of construction or deconstruction of gender contact improvisation provides counter images to dominant stereotypes. With the construction of the body in both forms, I think structure and perpetuate classifications of the body in larger American culture, that is either the body moves abstractly, as a physical force fulfilling, athletic and or aesthetic purposes and very often in the US, we ask the national average on the aesthetic, or the body is expressive of social sexual intentions, tied to gender or sexual definition. Often valet particularly in the potty do crystallizes these two interpretations of the body. The body is a perfectly functional physical instrument, and or it is a sexually charged male or female body. contact improvisation I think provides a model for dance form, which avoids the sexual stereotyping of male strength, female dependence, and the ballet convention of the duet as temporal sexual romantic love. At the same time, contact improvisation sometimes do sexualizing the body and eliminates not only narrative, but social gesture as well, treating the body as purely physical. Certainly contact improvisation is exciting in the alternative techniques offers numerous possibilities for interpretation. But I think it also illustrates the difficulty of creating new images of the body, which lie outside not only of gender stereotyping, but outside of contemporary constructions of body image. I have more to say about that, that I think I'll stop, and maybe we'll return to some of these ideas and questions at the end. I think Susan Foster is going to be returning to the present period in her discussion and may take up some of these same issues. But right now we're going to turn to another period of time in which body images for men and women were slightly different.

Unknown Speaker  58:49
I can't help but take advantage of being a fellow presenter and commenting on your talk before I get into my which is, I mean, I really see what you say about ballet as being the abstract body and, and also the sexually charged body. But I do think Well, I mean, I guess this is where the two come together. In I mean, a particular it is a metaphor for locomotion. And I think you do read Okay, on one level, we know that the inner thigh touch is technical, but it is a caress of the inner thigh. And I think that's, I mean, that's, I guess, the interface, isn't it? I mean, where it's, I mean, the potty. I mean, the body is at once abstract, you know, it's abstract design and lovemaking it every single moment and those touches are very significant when you're away and then you come together and then you go up in the air you're free and around and he's part of that so there's a great sexual fantasies and on that on some level and so, but I mean, that's what makes it well, this is gets around to the whole question of representation and you know, the reason we can watch that and feel okay, and the reason it's not pornography, right It's not really about mooching, you know, is that because of that abstract quality? Anyway, we can talk about that. Yeah, but it's interesting, okay. Stand up in a second. My topic is images of women in early modern dance. And I will focus on images of Isidore Duncan and also of Mary big one, I'm going to show you images of them, prints and photographs of them. I chose both media just to show you that when you see an image of the dancer, you are seeing an image of the dancer and not the dance. Unfortunately, I don't have videos and archival footage of both of them to show you but my comments really do relate to the dances that they did as close as I can get to the dances that they did. And of course, these kinds of images were one source of evidence for that. Less than a decade, separates the chronological ages of Isidore Duncan and Mary big mon Isidoro, was born in 1877, big man in 1886. And yet the careers of these two women do seem to span if not defined the first two generations of modern dance that first generation of modern dance, which had its greatest impact in the decade preceding the First World War in the years that occurs to a war and then the second generation, which had its greatest impact in the 20s and 30s. And later, Duncan American born, gave her first concert in New York in 1898, went to London the following year remained in Europe until her death in 1927, touring all over, variously settled in England, France, Germany, Russia, back in France, Mary Big Mom gave her first performances in 18 1914, at that point, was in Switzerland, where she spent the Warriors more or less in exile. But as soon as the war was over, went back to Germany, at that's where she very much stayed until her death in 1973. And although she gave up performing in 1942, she continued teaching later. So it's on one level, sort of interesting, Duncan was always moving around, and always stayed in one place. But what I as I talk about these two dancers, what I am doing is using Duncan as representative of a first generation of monad. And as I said, the generation that had its great impact in the years before the First World War, and then the second generation that has impacted me in the years after in the 20s, and 30s.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:45
Did we switch to the other parents who did? Okay. I visit focus, there's a focus that there

Unknown Speaker  1:02:56
is a little bit okay, this I do want to comment briefly on images of women and 19th century dance because I can't talk about how different

Unknown Speaker  1:03:06
the images were in

Unknown Speaker  1:03:07
the 20th century. So I do. But briefly, let me kind of jump ahead and semi, I just want to note that modern dance did emerge from interplay between central European dancers, and also from the intersection of popular culture and the avant garde that is from the fusion of movement techniques, drawn from physical culture and from popular theatrical dancing, with ideas about performance drawn from the theatrical on dollars. And another occasion, I will argue that the early modern dancers desire to represent a new female self did underlie their artistic performance, both institutionally and formally. But I don't have time to present that full argument tonight. So I'm going to talk not about how modern dancers changed the institutional and formal structures of 19th century ballet, but how their images of women differ. So let me put that in phenacetin. Also, the argument that I'm attempting to make is that Duncan initiated a transition that big been completed and it was a transition from the Victorian conception of woman's separate and special sphere which is exemplified in 19th century ballet, to a modern conception of woman's identity is in flux, and in conflict. Now, knowing at this point, this is a print of what Sophie choreographed at 32 premiered at the Paris Opera choreographed by could people tell you only for starting to retaliate on BBC on the right this was the opening moment of the ballet and it goes if you don't know this plot, please summarize it. James is this fellow who's sitting in the chair is about to wed a fellow peasant girl named epi and get out on the day of their patrol and wedding this So here's to him wakes him out of this sleep in trances and seduces him tempts him, appears only to him not to the other people on stage at one point rushes in and takes away the ring that he's offering to Fe. And at that point James takes out out of the window after the self meeting this peasant community into disarray the second act in this was a typical romantic ballet we have one act kind of set in the real world a seemingly real world and a second act set of very superficial world James follows the silk into a world of similarly white skirted women about anyway, um, you know, loses her, you know, in this in this group of dancers, you're kind of exhaust himself finally, at one point. He takes a spark and is trying to capture her and she disappears and you swoons, it's actually kind of interesting and ambiguous the end, does he die? Is he? Is this all a dream? And will he wake up back in his chair where he began? Also, at the end of the original production areas, kind of sounds but bridal procession off in the distance? Has he lost Fe to his rival suitor burn and you know or not? Okay. I think what's essential here to see is that the plot focuses on a male protagonist who is torn by a choice between two women between two visions of femininity between ethics and between the self. And this plot device of the male protagonist conflict caught between two women appeared again and again, in romantic ballet and again and again in later 19th century ballet. It seems to me that these these two visions of femininity there were lots of opposition's when they were the peasant aristocratic, the innocents sophisticated, the good and evil, the earthly, other worldly, which is clearly what's shown in lots of feet. But underlying all of these opposition's seems to be a tension between the erotic and the spiritual. And in the case of Bazzill feet, you see this tension embodied in Marie Italia only, I mean, she is the there's the eroticism, of seduction, of taking him away from the socially sanctioned marriage to Fe and also this very spiritual quality that she somehow inhabits world, you know, larger than life or greater than life or other than life. But

Unknown Speaker  1:08:00
the point I'm trying to make is that images of women in 19th century ballet, were idealized. They were also ambivalent, I mean, was woman in the end, spiritual or erotic? I mean, from the 19th century males point of view, is she going to save me or she's going to seduce me, you know, and they're kind of a tremendous conflict. And also, to about these images like that generally say that tension between the erotic and the spiritual, but the women definitely do inhabit a separate and a special sphere and that white app of the the second half of all of the women as they say dressed as italiani, absolutely empty the ties this separate and special sphere for women and as I said, a sphere which somehow is characterized by a disjunction between the between feminine potential for eroticism and for spiritual elevation. Okay, because that reductive account of 19th century images of women and nitrogen Cavalli I'm going to go on to this adore Junkin. Let me just show you some images first and then I'll kind of settle on one these are some drawings by mistake for time took Duncan actually published in Portfolio form the year after project but who thinks I've seen are often in performance and these are identifiable close stances

Unknown Speaker  1:09:41
settle on this one. This is a photo by Arnold dent of Dunkin in an IQ 14 work of a Maria a work in which he seemed to very much express the sentiments of a woman warning lost children perhaps morning Oh The date of the first world war but anyway, choreographed phone following the grounding for only two children here before which again, obviously very dramatic. The first thing that I want to know that is different between La selfies and the image of woman in LA Sophia and the image, a woman here is that retiree on the enlace up dance steps that her father believe will tell you what a choreographed, perfect emblem of the woman executing the steps designed by the Father, the authority, the patriarch, if one wants to use that word, here, we have Dunkin and a dance that she choreographed for itself and this is actually going into Mary I said I wouldn't which is the fundamental institutional innovation worked by this first generation of modern dancers that they substituted the performer choreographer for the kind of large scale spectacular ballets of the 18th century.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:05
So we have Junkin

Unknown Speaker  1:11:06
executing your own steps, not steps, fashion by man and not seeing you in relationship to a man but scene alone on stage. The this generation of performers, biographers, his first generation tended to be touring soloists as well. Now, what's interesting is that Duncan did and her dancing seem to assume this Victorian notion of woman's separate and special sphere no man could dance like Duncan image persona was overtly feminine female concerned with spiritual concerns, emotional concerns mean she could only be woman. And yet, she redefined this separate and special sphere for women by projecting an image of woman images of women who were both erotic and spiritual. At the same time, that division that you see a 19th century ballets between woman's erotic potential and her spiritual potential. That split is harmonized by Duncan and by her contemporaries. And when I say more erotic, you don't see here, but you can see in some of the books, that's very funny. I hit reverse and then look forward again.

Unknown Speaker  1:12:31
Yeah, it's stuck there. Excuse me. Okay. Now, I didn't notice I didn't notice a little anomaly that tally only slight she was barefoot. She hadn't been barefoot on stage. Anyway, she was barefoot on that slide in that in that in that print. But the point is that Duncan's costuming did reveal more flesh, more bare flesh that had been revealed by the 18th century. And I think it's actually interesting. Seeing reconstructions of Duncan's dance by contemporary dancers. I am just still kind of shocked by the bear saw, I mean, because they have these Greek style tunic things. And they're, well, one would call it an actual flitting, you know, and all of a sudden, that tunic goes up and you see, verify the underwear, and you just go, you know, I've seen something shocking, you know, and this is after, you know, a generation of all of these dancers and leotards when you see the old form, but it's very different. So I mean, definitely played with mind revealing, you know, revealing what had been concealed. So what I'm saying is, it's even today, shocking to see a reconstruction of a Dunkin dance in terms of those glimpses of bare flesh. It's not and Dunkin Donuts and reportedly, I mean, it wasn't just bare thigh, but it was bare breasts in me, obviously, you know, since the turn of the century on. Okay, so she, you know, this was a more erotic image a woman, but at the same time, he was a more spiritual, spiritual image of woman and I think the way I'm going to achieve that, and again, maybe some of like the project witch conversation, she turned her focus inward. So her she did not it was not like of course, girl, here's my flesh, see my flesh look at me look at my flesh, come take me fantasize about me. Not at all. She turned her focus very much inward advance seem to kind of inner meditation, she seemed all involved with inward processes, and that that he never did focus out towards the audience. But there was a sense of a kind of disappointed in your self self absorption. And actually reviewing the time comment again and again, it's incredible here we see a lot of bare flesh, and yet it's not. You know, it's not too late. It's it's introspective. It's Spiritual, it's elevating, you know. So the point I want to make is that I think this physical self display, the self display of flesh, didn't become a metaphor for emotional and spiritual self revelation. As I say, the erotic and the spiritual best split is formalized. Her technique did posit a harmony between the body and the soul. This is true control more advanced in general, the notion was that that was that the body is a direct revelation of the soul. The corollary is that, then no two bodies can dance in the same way. And of course, this circle back to the dancers, performer, choreographer, fashioning her own steps.

Unknown Speaker  1:15:53
So

Unknown Speaker  1:15:55
this, given this harmony between the body and the soul, what the dancer projected was the image of an autobiographical self. In other words, don't get on stage dance, the story of Duncan offstage and the story of Duncan offstage, Jackson was quite well known and play zones in

Unknown Speaker  1:16:16
children without fathers and

Unknown Speaker  1:16:18
without husbands and this kind of thing. But the fact of the matter is that her dance did project this illusion of autobiography that these were stories about herself. Okay, we try to get forward to where, okay, this is which dance 1914 diversion when American ones first choreographies she later revised, which dance presented a second version in 1926. This time dance was a real mask. This became very much a significant piece. She even showed it in your work. And interesting Kate Stimson this morning was talking about the witch. But here we have the woman as which you should maybe I liked this image, I'll stay in this image. What big one did was transform the autobiographical self that had been implicit in Duncan's dance and transformed it towards what I've termed to get static self, this ecstatic self was implicit in the autobiographical self. The notion is this, if the body does become an expression of the individual, so then it can also become a channel for a universal soul. And this idea was in Duncan's writings, and wasn't Duncan, his dancing, and it somehow it wasn't that autobiographical story was, the suggestion was that it wasn't just your own story, though. It was primarily her own story. It was every woman's story at the same time. Well, what big mind did is extend the implications of this ecstatic self to its extreme limit, and presented not their own personal story, but became a channel for forces which were far bigger than the individual. This had a kind of woman component in that Big Mom, I didn't think I presented in her group dances only women. But there was a sense that women was women were the gender who is the gender capable of transform transformation through an encounter with transcendent forces. Again, you know, it's not that a man, there's something about a woman that she's more in touch with these other forces can make contact with them can become transformed into ecstatic self. In this transformation, as I said, carried to the extreme limit, she ended up projecting the illusion of a non human self. here and I credit this formulation to Susan Foster. She does not impersonate a witch, but she embodies witch lives. And this is something beyond the cultural categories of masculinity and femininity and reviewers noted this they said that she seemed asexual or and more androgynous, neither masculine nor feminine, were both masculine and feminine, but certainly never be overly feminine self that don't get ahead. And in this way, and this is why I said before she completed a process that don't get initiated. She absolutely broke down the notion of woman's separate and special sphere at this point, you know, she had gone beyond as I said, she confounded the traditional cultural categories of masculinity. I want to just end with this Have a little CODA and kind of project a little bit further forward. This is big on in our federal contract of 1942 Dancing camps with Neil Bay. And it's interesting what happens when the big one sentences in the 30s This, this image, this masked image, the transformed self, the ecstatic self seemed to disappear. And what big mind did was revert to a more Duncan kind of autobiographical self. This really was a result of the pressure of the alliance between German loaner dance and national socialism.

Unknown Speaker  1:20:40
And there

Unknown Speaker  1:20:41
was no longer a Christie's such concept versus gender images, which could not be identified as national femininity presented on stage, Tom Friedman began to present herself as merely identifies the feminine. But interestingly, this was not an autobiographical self kind of directly revealed, but rather, again, the concept of the mask somehow masks through the means of legendary and heroic women, like Neil's day, in the stands, like Blue Hill that in other directions.

Unknown Speaker  1:21:18
It's also very interesting,

Unknown Speaker  1:21:19
and I wish I'd known Helen. And really Graham, I'd ask him for some slides, I don't have any slides, early Graham, but let me just kind of jump to that. And I'm hoping that you have some images in mind. This overtly, you know, clearly, female self did return also in market brands, dances of the 30s, at the time, interesting parallels, but, of course, the political context for that return was far different. But the point I want to make is, I think, brands dances in the 30s, and later picked up on the image of women in big months, dancers were picked up where big man had left off and extended the implications of that image of the ecstatic self in a way that Big Mom herself never did after 1930. So again, just as big man had amplified by that ecstatic self implicit in in Dustin, so brand amplified, but I called the divine itself, implicit and big months ecstatic. So that's clear, because if the ecstatic shots on the ecstatic self, this confounding of cultural categories of masculinity and femininity, also kind of suggests that there is an internalized conflict between masculinity and femininity. And this is the direction this is what brands began to develop. As I said, picking up on big markets left off in grandstands, especially in the 30s and 40s. While continuing, the image of women became a locus for conflicts between the feminine desire for affiliation feminine, and the masculine desire for independence. In other words, woman no longer inhabits this separate and special sphere, but rather a very problematic identity and identity in which it's unclear. And I think this is still the identity of women today, what does it mean to be a woman and how does one bring together one's masculine and feminine selves. And that is, I think, the modern image of woman that as I say, big mind got to the doorway of that and Bram stepped through leave this where it is suited for you

Unknown Speaker  1:23:42
to turn on the lights. Okay, but but maybe y'all could just stand up and stretch for a minute while I start talking, because we're going to probably charge ahead here for reasons of time, but stand up and stretch anyway. I'll tell you about the first time I saw the wallflower order. collectors, Eugene, Oregon, and they toured California in the 1977. On the program, they perform their signature piece, which is a highly amusing and painfully accurate catalog of different varieties of social dance waters. As a veteran wallflower myself, I saw a great merit to the name chosen by the typical experience of the wallflower in my fingers emblematic of much of women's experience in the present aspects of that experience. Having been denied access to the social arena by males applying this protocol, wallflowers stand at the margins of society, and from their vantage points, they see a great deal about the choreography of power and gender. Indeed, the wallflower order sponsored addressed several years She's of concern to those existing at the margins of society. They danced about oppression, sexual stereotypes about racial and economic inequality, the non ecological destruction of the environment and even discrimination against the handicapped. The effectiveness of their presentation derived in part from the scale and location of their performance. Their imaginative use of agit, prop theatrical techniques worked well in the informal cafeteria where I saw them. The gorilla environments rendered all the more vivid their meticulous and passionate portraits of girlhood or license prison and all the more humorous they're satires macho behavior, earnest Marxist. What's the teenagers if the informal setting enhance the sincerity and enthusiasm of the performance, the movement style itself contributed much to the credibility. The dancers demonstrated in expressive versatility, proving their expertise and movement found in the less cons of ballet, modern dance, and also Aikido gymnastics, pantomime, blogville and American Sign Language. They moved fluidly from one vocabulary to another privileging none, and thereby suggested a new kind of dancer and a new image of woman. By embodying the qualities of strength, flexibility and endurance and coordination that were proposed in the choreography as antidotes to political and sexual oppression. The dance is transmitted to the audience a sense of urgency and immediacy about their cause. They inspired the audience to action I'm not signed up for Aikido the next day I'm serious but and everybody else here too. occasion to meet with members of the wallflower order a few months later to talk with us at length about their work. In addition to holding down part time waitressing job, choreographing collectively and rehearsing and meeting the feminists Marks and Spencers for two hours a day the group had because it's not that was ballet intensity. They felt strongly that what they call the technical basis of their work was not adequate to reach large numbers of people and speak powerfully to them. They believe that increased virtuosity of Noetic skills would provide that basis. I already booked them but the strength there were ways to do it to redefine the notion of technical competence to include a broader repertory of movement skills. They were not persuaded.

Unknown Speaker  1:27:39
This was 1978. Well, when I observed the results of their ballet study a year later, I was surprised that the impact they had on their work movements performs now with a more commanding confidence was more expert. intricate, and also more uniform. jumps were higher and more posed. Legs kicked higher with a straight shoreline. Multiple miracle turns devil Bei, the center of the body seems higher and more lifted and movement was more pictorial, aerial and ethereal. The range of subjects presented in the choreography remained the same, but the movement no longer supported or made credible to diverse characters represented in the dance, not only to dance his team to poised and polished for their subject matters, but also were to also be itself took precedence over the content of the dances with the result that each dance seems similar to the others. Even more damaging, it seems to me there was the sense of critical evaluation and judgment demanded by this display of virtual so skills. dancers were suddenly placed in competition with one another as one watched for the highest expansion or the sense of the group's ensemble was lost. And with it, the second thing is women will live in what they were dancing. In this concert, the wallflower orders nearly display the same concerns rather than the motion. Well, I offer this rather lengthy, historical anecdote here is a way of focusing our attention on the relation of choreographic form to the overall message of a dance. And the rest of my comments this afternoon, will pursue the impact of form in these ways a lot of outline on message. In more recent works by the wallflower order and also in dance by another choreographer whose work addresses spending issues of Johanna voice. What I'm going to try to do is assess strategies used by both groups in an attempt to sort out those strategies that seem to enhance their project of feminist resistance from those that it seems that would seem to undermine or dilute Their attempts at feminist resistance. Well, in 1982, a woman were moved to Boston. And once there they became involved in current political events in Central America. They toured extensively throughout the region brought back visiting dancers and musicians and campaigned vigorously in their performances for a greater awareness of issues facing the area in 1985, just last fall, after 10 years together as a group separate, as a result of ideological and aesthetic differences, these two companies wanted them to dance per day performed that symptom space here in New York in January in benefit for the focus of the game. And I'll talk about that a little bit more detail and he said that well. Much of the diversity and balance of movement styles that I originally saw in the wallflower order could now be found in the dance today's current work. Aikido contact, improvisation and folk dance forms were featured as prominently as ballet or modern dance skills, with the result that this group has regained its sense of ensemble, one appreciating the dancers virtue virtuoso skill at the ballet vocabulary now as part of how well they move in general, rather than the sole criteria for evaluating their experience or their expertise. The dance brigade deployed their versatility in three different directions to create three different types of dances on the concert of these the most successful theatrically and I think politically was the Sapphire on social and sexual stereotypes. COINTELPRO pictured here outdoors as one example combined moves from Aikido contact improvisation and vaudeville sticks at me the moonwalk and to make a vicious mockery of the macho secret agent. These are the matters dressed as secret agents. Not only were the agents portrayed as menacing bumblers, but the women clearly had their number one expertise at representing the agents turn them into paper tigers, but it also replaced the flawed skill to the agents with the superior skills of the dancers, in effect, saying, We don't have to be afraid of these guys, not only because they are inept, but also because our own physical prowess is superior to theirs.

Unknown Speaker  1:32:28
The dance brigade achieved a similar effect in their rendition of a teenage girls encounter with mother, father, teacher and boyfriend. Each of the four archetypal characters, I don't have a picture of this 10 foot tall, but like figures delivered stuck conflicting answers to the Google's insightful questions. They learned about her as an imposing yet fragile core set of ideologies. And the audience laughed at they're all too familiar pronouncements and also at the flare which the cardboard constructions were presented. The dance per day impeccable timing and their dicks dexterity at caricatures enabled these tried and true theatrical devices that they use to work their magic on us. Once again. They're really experts at this kind of stuff. Second type of keys presented by the dance brigade cast contemporary political events and a far more serious tone. Dances about Lebanon, South Africa and Central America made use a scope attached in form of poems or journal in order to contextualize the choreography. The movement blended moments of superb technical accomplishments with representations of anguish, struggle and courageousness, thereby undoing the facts and figures, the video and photographic images that we have seen in these places with a flesh and relevance. The brief xcos a calico should not convey any of the social or political complexities facing the Lebanese or the Nicaraguans, nor do they give us new insights into the problem. At best these dances serves to remind us of the continuous struggle