3rd Edition
Contemporary Choreography A Critical Reader
General Introduction: Studying contemporary choreography
Jo Butterworth and Vicky Hunter
Section 1
Processes of Making
Section Introduction
Jo Butterworth
1. Choreography through a Somatic Lens
Campbell Edinborough with Hannah Buckley and Nita Little
2. Dancing identities: How dancers’ embodied knowledge underscores creative methods in contemporary dancemaking
Jenny Roche
3. ‘Finding the light’: Curiosity, texts and contemporary ballet in Helen Pickett’s The Crucible (2019)
Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel and Helen Pickett
4. “If you don’t keep it open, you close”: Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young’s Betroffenheit (2017) and the emotional and psychological implications of theatre dance
Lucia Piquero Alvarez
5. Creating Future Memories, NOW: FORWARD DANCE COMPANY by LOFFT - DAS THEATER and the reimagining of disability, diversity, and cultural memory
Gustavo Fijalkow
Section 2
Culture, Contexts and Intersections
Section Introduction
Jo Butterworth
6. Maybe You Could Close Your Eyes While I Dance: Age, Ageing, and in/visibility as choreographic drivers in Acting our Age
Yael Flexer and Galit Liss
7. Recomposing Thai Dance for Today’s World: Three Modes of Contemporary Choreographic Practice
Pornrat Dahrung and Lowell Skar
8. Gaga’s Aspirational Politics: Passepartout Bodies and Choreographic Passports
Melissa Melpignano
9. Dancing Culture, Talking Global
Subhashini Goda Venkataramani
10. Choreography in Ghana: evolving methods and techniques
Silvanus Kwashie Kuwor
11. Choreography as Research: Iteration, Object, Context
Ben Spatz
Section 3
Choreography, Politics and Power
Section Introduction
Vicky Hunter
12. Vulnerable practice: Thinking through discomfort and precarity in Project O’s Voodoo (2017)
Daniela Perazzo
13. Dancing Simply together: an example transdisciplinary research in arts and sciences
Maria João Alves, Adriana Gehres and Ana Leitäo
14. Prize-winning dances; choreography and the competition stage
Karen Schupp
15. Multifarious identity: Barbardian street dance on the concert stage
Rainy Demerson
16. Moving into Action: change-making through dance activism
Ruth Pethybridge with Sangeeta Isvaran and Jo Parkes
Section 4
Choreography and Interdisciplinary Arts Practice
Section Introduction
Vicky Hunter
17. Choreography as a practice of border crossing: ten insights into embracing the impossible in interdisciplinary dance practice
Alys Longley
18. HOMECOMING
emilyn claid
19. Beyond Dancing: The Choreographic Turn in the 2022 Taiwan Arts Biennial
I-Wen Chang
20. Dance in the Museum
Erin Brannigan
21. From Improvements to Care: gardening as choreographic dwelling
Mil Vukovic Smart
Section 5
Technology, Transmission and Immersion
Section Introduction
Jo Butterworth
22. Unlocking Touch
Lisa May Thomas and Carey Jewitt
23. Virtual Reality and Dance-Making: unbounding choreographic practice from the realm of real-time performance
Paula Guzzanti
24. Social Media and Choreographic Practice: Tools for collaboration, co-creation and creative practice
Sophy Smith
25. Shifts in Embodiment: Choreographic practice for Virtual Reality
Sarah Neville
Section 6
Choreographic Environments and Interventions
Section Introduction
Vicky Hunter
26. Navigating Diasporic ‘Third Spaces’ and (New) Borderlands through Dance and Choreography
Kiri Avelar and Andrew Ssebulime
27. Dancing Places: Sites, Situations, and Taking-Place
Vicky Hunter
28. Sensóriagrafia in Public Spaces: Dance and words as a relational sensory, poetic intervention
Diviane Helena
29. A Reservoir of Gestures, or Choreography is Relational
Alana Gerecke and Justine A. Chambers
30. Unlocking Liberation: Choreographing the ‘Club State’
Nick Nikolaou
Biography
Jo Butterworth was previously Professor of Dance Studies at the University of Malta.
Vicky Hunter is a practitioner-researcher and Visiting Research Fellow in Site Dance at Bath Spa University, UK.
