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.

Stepping to the fore: The promotion of Irish dance in Australia

This article contributes to scant literature on Irish dance praxis in Australia by demonstrating how the confluence of global and local factors have permitted Irish dance in Australia to step to the fore. Irish step dance is a globally recognizable genre that has dispersed through, first, the migration of Irish people throughout the world and, more recently, through itinerant theatrical troupes. In Australia, a significant node of the Irish diaspora, Irish step dance has managed to achieve unusual prominence in a dance landscape that has traditionally been dominated by genres from within the Western concert dance canon. Drawing on both extant literature and ethnographic data, this article examines three threads from the narrative of Irish dance in Australia. First, the general choreographic landscape of the nation is described, showing that the preferences of Australian dance audiences have been shaped to privilege styles that are popular onstage and on-screen, with the resulting marginalization of culturally-specific genera. Second, localized effects of the global contagion instigated by the development of the stage show Riverdance are explored. Here, the domains of aesthetics and decisive marketing strategies are discussed, showing how engagement with Australian audiences was achieved. Finally, the article introduces an idiosyncratic localized influence, the children’s musical group The Wiggles, which was conceived independently but which also promoted interest and enthusiasm for Irish dance in Australia by engaging with young children and presenting propriety of Irish dance as available to all, regardless of cultural ancestry.

Conclusion

This study has traced the relationship between training, dissemination, and choreography within a small community that identified itself as concerned with experimentation in contemporary dance. Applying insights about the body gleaned from earlier in the twentieth century, this group of artists and teachers slowly consolidated around their mutual disapprobation of modern and classical training regimens and their eager interest in exploring new paradigms based in the body’s anatomical truths. Referring to this aggregate of overlapping practices as Somatics, I have argued that dancers worked to achieve an unencumbered individuality that contrasted markedly with the more authoritative imposition of aesthetics in classical and modern concert dance. By focusing on the experience of dancing, Somatics encouraged practitioners to connect with their “unique” embodiment of natural principles and to retrieve an authentic self that was thought to be integral to the physical body. This notion that the dancer embodies individual authenticity by accessing a natural body is probably the major contribution that Somatics has made to Western concert dance compared with, for example, the technical excellence in the idealized vocabulary of classical ballet or the codification of emotional expression in modern dance. Yet, despite the seemingly progressive thrust of Somatics, dancers, in their pursuit of individual authenticity, actually fulfilled postwar liberal ideals that were central to American expansionism and that permeate contemporary capitalism. The postwar American government justified military, economic, and cultural expansion by insisting they were protecting and propagating a universal right to individual freedom; dancers invested in the same idea by touting, as universally applicable, the notion that individual creative freedom can be accessed through functional imperatives of the body. This study consequently argues that Somatic authenticity embodies a late twentieth-century capitalist ideal of propagating universal individual freedom....

Digital Media Marketing for Dance: Enhancing Audience Engagement with Ballet Companies and Concert Dance Performance

Digital media play increasingly important roles in daily life, including directly influencing users’ interactions with others. Digital media marketing has become an increasingly important tool for dancers and the dance industry. Audience members and observers of the dance industry have grown and larger demographics beyond the dance world have been engaged through digital media marketing efforts and social media platforms. Analyzing audience engagement on social media platforms can provide data to assist dancers, dance studios, dance companies, dance programs, etc. to define their target audience and push them to reach a larger and/or different audiences. In this paper the author (1) assesses the impact of digital media marketing on audience engagement in ballet dance companies and concert dance, and (2) how to effectively strategize to increase audience engagement, in dance.