BALLET FOLCLÓRICO MERCEDES BAPTISTA: ENTRE BRASILIDADE E NEGRITUDE NO RIO DE JANEIRO DAS DÉCADAS DE 1950 E 1960 / Mercedes Baptista Folk Ballet: between Brazilianess and Blackness in Rio de Janeiro during the 1950’s and 1960’s

Abordagem histórico-crítica sobre a emergência de uma dança negra cênica no Rio de Janeiro, nas décadas de 1950 e 1960, consolidada pela bailarina e coreógrafa Mercedes Baptista mediante a articulação das técnicas do balé clássico, das danças modernas e de consistente pesquisa acerca das danças afro-brasileiras e dos pés de dança do candomblé. Levando em conta as possibilidades de abertura e transformação dos códigos próprios do que hoje é uma das vertentes de maior peso do que se entende por danças afro, que permitiram a criação de novas poéticas e metodologias, o texto aponta para a existência de uma estética negra que se construiu no campo das artes cênicas no contexto da diáspora negra.Palavras-chave: Mercedes Baptista; História da dança; Danças negras. AbstractThis text takes a historical and critical approach to the emergence of Black concert dance in Rio de Janeiro between the 1950s and 1960s. This movement found its consolidation through the ballet dancer and choreographer Mercedes Baptista’s articulations between classical ballet, modern dances, as well as her consistent research regarding secular and religious Afro-Brazilian dances. By considering the possibilities of openings and transformations within the codes of Danças Afro that allow for the creation of new poetics and methodologies, the text also seeks to base the existence of a Black aesthetics in the performance arts within the context of the black diaspora.Keywords: Mercedes Baptista; Dance history; Black dance.

Bodies in Motion

Drawing on the combined approaches of ancient Greek iconography, dance history, and the archaeology of ritual and religion, this paper examines dance gesture as a mechanism of ritual communication in ancient Greek vase-painting. After presenting the problems and limitations of matching art and text with regard to dance, as both Classical scholars and practitioners of modern dance have attempted, the paper expands on various ways of showing dance on vases. Special attention is given to komast dancers on black-figure vases and to other types of dance scenes and figures. A rethinking of the evidence for dance as ritual on Greek vases is proposed under the two categories of non-repetitive and repetitive gesture. It is posited that such a distinction anticipates the mood, participants, and occasions, and might indicate discrete areas of ritual activity. Dance, gesture, and ritual are also considered according to the gender and sexuality of performers, the presence of the divine, and the relationship between the shape, composition, and function of some vessels.

«Historia är något som konstrueras, det här är ett val» – om kritisk granskning i danshistorieundervisning

This article examines and discusses how teachers at upper secondary school relate to teaching dance history within the course Dance Theory, focusing on the aim that students critically examine various dance history writings. The study uses interviews and open-ended questionnaires, and the material has been analysed qualitatively and discussed in relation to historiographical and norm-critical perspectives. The study shows that a historiographic perspective is important to teachers when they describe their teaching but less important when describing what they think students should gain from their studies. Instead, a general knowledge of dance history and an ability to connect one’s dancing to a historical context are central. The norm-critical perspective is manifested mainly in the teachers’ positioning of themselves, but as I understand it, the critical examination primarily lies within the norm rather than providing a means of looking outside the Western box. The next challenge is therefore to not only review the conditions in which history is created but also question and change the structures that create knowledge.

Forgotten “New” Dancer of New York City's Gilded Age: Genevieve Lee Stebbins and the Dance as Yet Undreamed

In the Gilded Age, Genevieve Lee Stebbins (1857–1934) became a dance soloist admired in New York City's theater world. Stebbins created a foundation from which a new “serious” dance aesthetic emerged and notably inspired the early dance work of Ruth St. Denis and Isadora Duncan; however, she remains an overlooked figure within American dance history. This article chronicles Stebbins's innovations and clarifies misrepresentations of her work in recent scholarship. Unlike other American dance pioneers, there is no public archive dedicated to Stebbins, therefore this article draws upon newly available primary sources to explore Stebbins's foundational work.

Tracing Choreography

Chapter 1 contextualizes choreography as integral to, yet invisibilized within, immersive performance. The chapter's focus is the thematic concerns of choreography in Western dance history, specifically the intentionality with which it is created, the portability of its concepts outside of the realm of formal dance, and its resulting ubiquity across domains in the twenty-first century. Deployed by European aristocrats in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a practice for reinforcing structures of ritual and power when assigning societal roles, choreography as a term emerged alongside the professionalization of dance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the mid-twentieth century, choreography became a tacitly borrowed resource for creators of physical theater. In the twenty-first century, choreography is seen as an expanded practice, having surged beyond the bounds of dance to the point that it can be used to organize the behavior of spectators such that they perceive themselves to be immersed.

The Scholar’s Conundrum

This chapter considers the controversy surrounding dance reconstruction. It begins by defining terms such as reconstruction, revival, and restaging. The method used in reconstructing Funeral March is explained, as are issues such as the myth of the original, maintaining the authenticity of dances from other eras, and the ethereal nature of all dances, whether remaining in the repertory or lost. Dance reconstruction, when correctly approached, is a vital part of dance history.

Finding Balanchine's Lost Ballets

Finding Balanchine’s Lost Ballets: Exploring the Early Choreography of a Master allows the reader to learn about one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists in a way that has not before been possible. Balanchine’s Russian ballets did not survive in the repertory, but this book demonstrates how some of these lost works need not be relegated to the pages of history but can and should be reconstructed, giving us a vision of our past as artists, scholars, and audiences. The book details the work of setting Balanchine’s first group ballet, Funeral March (Choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust), on the dancers of the Grand Rapids Ballet. It follows this project from archival studies to studio research with the dancers to a final performance. Through careful research on Balanchine’s earliest ballets, traditional research is brought from the archive into the studio, and finally, onto the stage. This visceral approach enables dance history to be studied in its most natural state, kinesthetically, through movement, allowing us to explore, examine, and above all, experience the earliest works of this master.