New Research in Dance Studies
New Research in Dance Studies is an on-going lecture/demonstration series by established and emerging scholars, performance artists, and dancers on interdisciplinary approaches to dance and the body, invited by the Department of Dance to share their work with the larger academic community of UC Riverside.
Past events:
The V-Chip and Assumed Bodies
Raiford Guinnes, editor, Visual Studies
Tuesday, May 30, 2006 @ 12:45PM
Dance Studio Theatre, PE 102
Admission: free
Immobilization, and the Social Logic of White Supremacy
Dylan Rodriguez, Assistant Professor, UCR Department of Ethnic Studies
Tuesday, May 23 2006 @ 12:45PM
Dance Studio Theatre , PE 102
Admission: free
Dylan Rodriguez is engaged in a variety of progressive and radical intellectual circles, as well as socially engaged activist formations. He was part of the founding collective of the abolitionist organization Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex, which beginning in 1998 has convened thousands of people from across the world to form a movement that seeks a fundamental transformation of existing structures of racist criminalization, immobilization, policing, and punishment. He currently is an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Riverside, and has recently published the book Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the US Prison Regime ( Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2006).
The Mobile-Imaging Body: Autobiometry & the Biopolitics of Optimized Flesh
Heidi Cooley, Ph.D. candidate in School of Cinema-Television, Division of Critical Studies, USC
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 @ 12:45PM
Dance Studio Theatre, PE 102
Admission: free
Mobile-imaging (picture-messaging, multi-media messaging, MMS-ing) is an example of the cultural practice of “life-caching” and, consequently, is invested in the recording of “one’s entire life” “Life,” in this context, is not simply as the accumulation of moments experienced by a person, but also literally, “life” as an articulation of vital (biological) processes. Subsequently mobile-imaging, as it is currently implemented, will be considered as: (1) a technique in medical practice and (2) an aspect of an emerging logic of “healthful living.” This talk will propose that mobile-imaging becomes a means for the individual–the “calculable person”–to “maximize” his/her (quality of) life through concerted and more rigorous attention to his/her health. Mobile-imaging instantiates a modality of “wellness,” operating in relation to a general complex of processes aimed at securing the “health and well-being” of the population. Turning to Foucault’s “care of the self,” the talk will argue that mobile-imaging functions as a mode of “care for” the mobile-imaging body and, as such, mobilizes the bio-, i.e., life, upon which biopolitical strategies of management and control are trained.
Heidi Cooley is a PhD candidate in the School of Cinema-Television, Division of Critical Studies at University of Southern California, and she received a MA in Visual Studies at University of California, Irvine. Her scholarship is multidisciplinary, articulating visual studies, documentary film studies, media theory and philosophy of science and technology. She is the author of two articles, “It’s All about the Fit: The Hand, the Mobile Screenic Device, and Tactile Vision” (journal of visual culture) and “Identify’-ing A New Way of Seeing: Amateurs, Moblogs and Practices in Mobile Imaging” (Spectator). She is currently working on a dissertation entitled “The Body and Its Thumbnails: The Work of the Image in Mobile-Imaging.”
Diya Larasati
State Terror and the Female Dancing Form(mula) in Indonesia
April 25, 2006
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
This presentation will discuss post-genocide cultural reconstruction in Indonesia and its function as a form of domination over women's cultural identity formations, in particular, said "reconstruction's" resulting impact on dance choreography for and through the female form. With a focus on how state narratives of the 1965 ˆ1966 massacre were reproduced in society, both through sustained reproduction of a "fabricated memory" and through the suppression of any contesting or dissenting forms of memory by intimidation, the paper will analyze the state's appropriation of the female body during reconstruction as a manipulation of memory, emphasizing the paradox inherent within their response: on the one hand, demonizing and marginalizing the female dancing body and on the other hand, offering a refined, state aligned body as an ideal representation of the nation.
R. Diyah Larasati is a visiting scholar at UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies (2004-2006). She received the Lemelson Visiting Scholar, and her research focuses on Cultural Reconstruction Post Indonesian Massacre (1965-66). Her latest publication include: "Culture Reinvention: The Case of Indonesia and United States Relations" Forthcoming, May 2006: UCSB; and "Bukan Hanya Sebuah Pertunjukan Tentang Identitas dan Tradisi" (It is not Performing Identity and Tradition-only) in Kompas, 3-4, 2006. She also released three short Film documentaries in 2006 in collaboration with Koes Yuliadi and the Fowler Museum UCLA: "Women and Batik Madura," "The Spirit of Barong," and "Mama Si'I the Flores Ikat.” She is a PhD candidate in Dance History & Theory, at UC Riverside.
Mohamed Ghouse Nasuruddin
Dance in Malaysia: Lecture/Demonstration
April 18, 2006
Performance Lab
The Department of Dance at the University of California, Riverside, presents this event as part of a Malyasian/Californian Dance Exchange with Mohamed Ghouse Nasuruddin, Fulbright Scholar and Professor of Performing Arts from the Universiti Sains Malaysia, in Penang.
Mohamed Ghouse Nasuruddin has long been a researcher and activist/practitioner in the arts. As a dancer and choreographer trained in traditional Malay dances, classical ballet, modern dance and classical Indian Bharatanatyam dance, he has choreographed and performed internationally. He is also a playwright, a practitioner of traditional Malay music and an author of five books including The Malay Dance. He completed Masters and Ph.D. degrees at Indiana University in theater, dance and music and is currently a Fulbright Scholar in residence at SUNY Cortland, New York. His week residency at the UC Riverside campus is made possible by a grant from the UC Pacific Rim Research Program with assistance from the UCR Center for Ideas and Society
This residency continues an exchange initiated in October 2003 when Wendy Rogers, Professor of Dance at UC Riverside, was selected to participate as a guest choreographer in a Contemporary Dance Exchange sponsored by the U.S. State Department. The Malaysian-American Commission on Educational Exchange and Professor Mohamed Ghouse Nasuruddin at the Universiti Sains Malaysia hosted Rogers who, with dancer Jennifer Twilley, taught, performed and exchanged work with dancers in Penang and Kuala Lumpur. Rogers welcomes the opportunity to continue the dialogue and introduce the UC Riverside campus and Riverside community to the multifaceted research and performance work by Mohamed Ghouse Nasuruddin.
As a dancer and choreographer trained in traditional Malay dances, classical ballet, modern dance and classical Indian Bharatanatyam dance, Mohamed Ghouse Nasuruddin has choreographed and performed extensively in most ASEAN countries, London, Edinburgh, Greece and the United States. In 1998, he was appointed Dance Director for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is also a practitioner of traditional Malay music, playing the serunai and rebab in the Makyong and Wayang Kulit, two forms of traditional Malay theatres which integrate the three elements of dialogue, dance, and music. To date, he has written and directed 22 plays which have been performed throughout Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei Darussalam. Several of his plays have been made into television dramas. He also has acted for stage, television and film. In addition to his creative activities, he has written numerous articles on dance, music and theatre and has published four books: The Traditional Malay Music, The Malay Dance, Traditional Malay Theatre, and Traditional Music of Peninsula Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak. His new book about the playwright Syed Alwi, who is the recipient of the National Artiste Award, was published in 2005 by The Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage.
Ting-Ting Chang
Communist Tulles: Chinese Modern Ballet During The Cultural Revolution
November 16, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
This paper is based on a Chinese modern ballet production from the Cultural Revolution Period: Red Detachment of Women: the Woman Warrior (1970). It discusses how Chinese dance artists adopted ballet training into dance practices and productions, and examine how dance is used to represent Chinese communist ideology, and how it creates an idealistic national image for "New China."
Ting-Ting Chang is a choreographer, performer, and PhD student in Dance at UCR. Her research focuses on contemporary dance development in China, Taiwan & Hong Kong, and explores issues of Asian Diaspora. She holds an M.F.A. in Dance from UC Irvine and a B.A. in World Arts & Cultures from UCLA.
Lucy Burns
Departments of Asian American Studies and World Arts and Culture, UCLA
November 9, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
Through a performative and literal alteration of the Philippine national dress, the terno, contemporary Filipino American performance projects comment on gender formation, belonging, and the diaspora. These works interweave queer sexuality, feminist politics and performance methodology, and U.S. Filipino/a racialization. Their deployment of drag, as performance methodology, defamiliarizes feminine constructs that operate both in the nation and the diaspora.
Lucy Burns holds a joint position in UCLA's Departments of Asian American Studies and World Arts and Culture where she teaches courses on Filipino American studies, feminist performance and race, and race and gender in performance. She is a co-editor, with Roberta Uno, of The Color of Theater. She is currently working on a manuscript on the Filipino performing body.
Choreographer Ann Carlson and Video Artist Mary Ellen Strom
A Discussion of Collaborative Work
October 26, 2005
ARTS Performance Lab
Choreographer Ann Carlson and video artist Mary Ellen Strom discuss their past work as well as their current project CAke. CAke invites the public to examine the source-to-use trajectory of everyday products; investigating labor issues, and the environmental, cultural and economic impact of manufacturing and production through the use of site-based performance, dance, video projection. Surrounded by and embedded in an art and conceptual shopping experience, CAke intends to serve as a gathering point for the ethical complexities that face contemporary consumers.
From Lincoln Center to the dairy farm, the opera house to a public school, from the museum to the frozen pond, Ann Carlson's award winning work defies description and category while expanding the context of choreography and performance. Ann is a choreographer and performer who makes work as a solo performing artist, choreographs works for dance and theater companies, and works collaboratively to build large scale site specific works. Ms. Carlson's work is interdisciplinary, blending movement, voice, text, music and visual elements.
Dr. Sunil Kothari
Jawaharalal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
An Illustrated talk on the North Indian Classical Dance Form KATHAK
Context and Continuity: Screenings of slides of paintings and excerpts of Bollywood films
October 19, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
An illustrated talk on the North Indian classical dance form Kathak, as seen through the eyes of the British painters in the Colonial period. Featuring screenings of slides from the India Office Record Library, London; Dance of the Tawaifs; the Nautch girls; Context and Continuity: Screenings of excerpts from the following Bollywood films: Satyajit Ray's Shataranj ke Khiladi (The Chess Players), Umrao Jaan and Devdas.
Dr. Sunil Kothari is an eminent dance historian and critic from India. He has written over fourteen books on Indian dance and has a distinguished career as Chair and Professor of the Dance Department at Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata and as a Visiting Professor (Dance) School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharalal Nehru University, New Delhi. Currently Dr. Kothari is on a Fulbright visiting the United States.
Patrick Alcedo
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCR
Transgendering Faith in a Philippine Festival
June 1, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
May 25, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
Latin/a Refractions: Saints, Salsa, and Sex Appeal
This panel examines the multiplicity of ways that Latinidad can be theorized and set into motion by raced, classed, and gendered ( Latina) bodies.
Cindy Garcia
Department of World Arts and Cultures, UCLA
Choreographing the Un/Erotics of Latinidad in Los Angeles Salsa Clubs
Within Los Angeles nightclubs, Latinas/os imagine and enact their desired identities, in opposition to and in dialogue with dominant U.S. social, racial, and cultural hierarchies of belonging. This paper will analyze how Latinas negotiate the dynamics of salsa clubs and the un/erotic dimensions of U.S. Latinidad.
Cindy Garcia is a doctoral candidate in Culture and Performance within the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. In her dissertation, an ethnography of the politics of difference within salsa dance practices in Los Angeles, she analyzes hierarchies of otherness and gendered choreographies of Latinidad within nightclub economies.
Priscilla Ovalle
Department of Critical Studies, USC
Cosmetic Borders: The "Torrid" Dance of Rita Hayworth
This paper examines the racial hybridity of Rita Hayworth as a dancer in Hollywood film during the 1940s and 1950s. Rita Hayworth's persona was built upon cosmetic manipulation and specific dance performances, a complex hybrid of "whiteness" and "nonwhiteness" that resulted in mainstream success.
Priscilla Ovalle is an ABD in the Critical Studies Division at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television. Her primary research centers on the relationship between dance, race and sexuality through the representation of Latina bodies in Hollywood film. Ovalle has an extensive background in production, including work in film, video and multimedia.
Melissa Blanco Borelli
Department of Dance, UCR
The 'Venerated' One: A (Hi)Story of Cuban Mulatas and their Holy Hips
This paper presents a (hi)story of the mulata through references to the Yoruba goddess Osun (Ochun in Cuba) and the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, specifically connecting the marauding mulata sign and her hips to deities, geographies, histories, bodies, and maps.
Melissa Blanco Borelli is a doctoral candidate in Dance History and Theory at UC Riverside. Her dissertation examines the genealogy of the Cuban mulata and her dancing body through various lenses: class, skin tones, gender, and political economy. Additionally, it explores ways in which a specific body part, i.e., the mulata's hips, might become a site of cultural meaning making, redress, resistance, and pleasure. Her research in Cuba has been funded by a Humanities Research Grant, a Women in Coalition Grant, and a Dissertation Year Fellowship Grant.
 Jayna Brown |
 Anna Scott |
 Susan Rose |
 Eilleen Hayes |
 Anthony Macias |
Jayna Brown
Department of Ethnic Studies, UCR
The Erotic Economies of Black Bodies in Motion
May 18, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
Erika Suderburg
Department of Art and Program in Film and Visual Culture, UCR
Written on the Body
May 11, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
Erika Suderburg will discuss her work as a writer and an artist including excerpts from her feature length experimental documentary Somotography, which focuses on the queer body, urban topography, and leftist history as as "written" on the body.
Erika Suderburg is an artist and writer who works in film, video, installation and photography. Her work has been exhibited internationally including: the Pacific Film Archives-Berkeley, Capp Street Projects-San Francisco, MOMA-New York, MOCA-Los Angeles, Kunstlerhaus-Stuttgart, the Collective for Living Cinema-New York, New Langton Arts-San Francisco, International Video Festival-Bonn, and Simon Watson Gallery-New York. She is the co-editor of Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices, University of Minnesota Press, 1996, and the editor of Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art, University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Her work can be found on line at http://home.earthlink.net/~towerfilms/erikasuderburg/
Anna Scott
Department of Dance, UCR
A Theory of Maneuvers
May 4, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
Susan Rose
Department of Dance, UCR
No Balloons
April 27, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
Eileen Hayes
Music History, Theory, and Ethnomusicology, University of North Texas
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Music, UCR
Sounds of 'black' in the rainbow flag: Black women and the politics of inclusion in women-identified music
April 20, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
Co-sponsored by the Department of Music, UCR
Anthony Macias
Department of Ethnic Studies, UCR
Mojo in Motion: Mexican Americans and Popular Dance in Los Angeles, 1935-1968
April 13, 2005
Dance Studio Theatre (PE 102)
This presentation explores the role of popular dance in the development of a distinct Chicano expressive culture and stylistic aesthetic. As the key participants in multi-ethnic swing, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and Latin music dance scenes, Mexican Americans defied the racial containment of a segregated city and influenced American society as they struggled for postwar equality and prosperity. During a period of über-patriotism and anti-Communism, the communal vernacular dance traditions of blacks and Chicanos sustained egalitarian social relations, and helped secure the right to freedom of assembly in public spaces.
Anthony Macias is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside, where he teaches Chicano Studies and Chicano History. He is currently writing a book, titled Mexican American Mojo: Popular Music, Dance, and Urban Culture in Los Angeles, 1935-1968, forthcoming from Duke University Press.
Dominique Delorme
Artist/choreographer/dancer of Bharata Natyam
Lecture/Demonstration in Bharata Natyam
April 6, 2005
ARTS 300
In 1985, Dominique Delorme started learning Bharata Natyam from Malavika (a Paris-based Bharata Natyam dancer). In 1987, with a scholarship from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Indian Council for Cultural Relations, he pursued his advanced training under Guru V.S. Muthuswamy Pillai in Chennai. In 1989, Dominique started working under Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam on the Natya Shastra. In 2000, he was awarded the prestigious 'Villa Medicis Hors Les Murs' and the 'Romain Rolland' fellowships by the French Government to continue his research on Natya Shastra.
After performing traditional solo recitals in several countries, he toured his first solo production Nandanar in India and Europe and received critical acclaim and it has become his masterpiece. He continues teaching and conducting workshops on Karanas, the subject of his research, in France and other countries in Europe. Shiva Karanas, his latest work, premiered in 2001.