The Body, the Dance and the Text: Essays on Performance and the Margins of History

This collection of new essays explores the many ways in which writing relates to corporeality and how the two work together to create, resist or mark the body of the "Other." Contributors draw on their varied backgrounds to examine different movement practices in order to focus on movement as a meaning-making process. Authors creatively explore the choreographic act of writing through forms such as tap, flamenco, butoh, hip hop and postmodern dance. The challenges faced by marginalized bodies are discussed, along with timely topics such as cultural appropriation and the ability of a body to question, contest and re-write historical narratives.

Brynn Wein Shiovitz is a lecturer in the department of theatre at UCLA and dance at Chapman University in Orange County, California. Her writing about dance has appeared in Dance Chronicle, Dance Research Journal, Theatre Survey, Jazz Perspectives and Women and Performance.