The Anthropology of Dance

The Anthropology of Dance: Diaspora, Identity,
Culture examines dance in a global context,
placing diverse examples of choreography in
dialogue with foundational theories and
contemporary debates in globalization,
nationalism, transnationalism, diaspora,
orientalism, and postcolonialism. With a
special focus on the anthropology of dance (and
dance in ethnography, past and present), this
course further explores the interdisciplinarity
of dance studies, which draws from fields such as
anthropology, performance studies, critical race
theory, and queer theory. At the core of this
course is an investigation of subjectivity and
the relationship between the body and agency. Is
dance merely a reflection of society? Can it
incite political change? Keeping in mind the
relationship between self and other (and
individual and society), we will look at the work
of dance artists from countries such as the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil, India,
China, the US, France, Morocco, Senegal, and
Thailand to see how they conceive of the body in
relation to space, society, and nation, and to
consider the ways movement circulates globally in
and across time. We will also bring in
discussions of the dance studies-specific terms,
choreopolitics (Lepecki) and geo-choreography
(Osterweis). In looking at
dance-and its scholarship-as a practice, we will
keep in mind the ways social and vernacular
dance become translated onto the concert stage,
in various cultural contexts of circulation and
exchange. Our readings will be informed by
anthropologists and theorists including Michael
Taussig, E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Theresa Buckland,
Sally Ann Ness, Deidre Sklar, Anya Peterson
Royce,
Achille Mbembe, Barbara Browning, Mark Franko,
Karl Marx, Edward Said, Judith Butler, Michel
Foucault, Ananya Chaterjea, Thomas DeFrantz, and
more. This is a participatory seminar; students
will be expected to attend every class, write
weekly responses to readings and performances,
write two short essays, attend up to two
performances in Los Angeles as a class, and
submit a final ethnographic research essay. While
this course is designed as the second semester
BFA dance studies course in a series of four, it
is open to students outside of dance.

Students should expect to spend approx. $100 for
books and performances.