This innovative textbook applies basic dance history and theory to contemporary popular culture examples in order to examine our own ways of moving in—and through—culture.
By drawing on material relevant to students, Dance in US Popular Culture successfully introduces students to critical thinking around the most personal of terrain: our bodies and our identities. The book asks readers to think about:
what embodied knowledge we carry with us and how we can understand history and society through that lens
what stereotypes and accompanying expectations are embedded in performance, related to gender and/or race, for instance
how such expectations are reinforced, negotiated, challenged, embraced, or rescripted by performers and audiences
how readers articulate their own sense of complex identity within the constantly shifting landscape of popular culture, how this shapes an active sense of their everyday lives, and how this can act as a springboard towards dismantling systems of oppression
Through readings, questions, movement analyses, and assignment prompts that take students from computer to nightclub and beyond, Dance in US Popular Culture readers develop their own cultural sense of dance and the moving body’s sociopolitical importance while also determining how dance is fundamentally applicable to their own identity.
This is the ideal textbook for high school and undergraduate students of dance and dance studies in BA and BfA courses, as well as those studying popular culture from interdisciplinary perspectives including cultural studies, media studies, communication studies, theater and performance studies.
Chapter 11 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY 4.0 license.
Edited by:
Jennifer Atkins
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 710g
ISBN: 9780367819842
ISBN 10: 0367819848
Pages: 358
Publication Date: 21 July 2023
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Introduction Jennifer Atkins and Carlee Sachs-Krook PART I: Popular Dance as Primary Source 1. Locating Popular Dance and Dance in Popular Culture Jessica Ray Herzogenrath and Bhumi B. Patel Chapter 1 Case Studies: The Invented Choreographies of the Tomahawk Chop Kellen Hoxworth Popular Dance Cultural Masters Ariyan Johnson Do the Hustle: A Saturday Night Reclamation Abdiel Jacobsen Bestowing Blessings and Cultivating Community: Lion Dancing in Boston’s Chinatown Casey Avaunt ~POP CULTURE CONVERSATION~ Watching from Another Place: Outside Perceptions of American Popular Culture Elena Benthaus and Dara Milovanović Chapter 1: Next Steps and Your Move! 2. Describing Dance, Writing Moving Worlds Dahlia Li Chapter 2 Case Studies: In the Interest of Health and Cooperation: Women Dancing ""The Most Important College Interests"" Jessica Ray Herzogenrath Dammn Baby! Janet Jackson Dances Pop Feminism Elizabeth Bergman Resistance in Rhythm: The Shim Sham Shimmy Kat Echevarría Richter Queerness, Closure, and the Finale Dance in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Miya Shaffer Chapter 2: Next Steps and Your Move! PART II: Stereotypes and Spectatorship 3. Interpreting (Multi)racial Movements in Popular Dance Miya Shaffer Chapter 3 Case Studies: From a Black Cinderella and Filipino Prince to a Career in Commercial Dance Beverly Bautista Plasticity in Lexus’s Black Panther Commercial: Choreographing Blackness as Other through Visual Echoing Kelly Bowker Riverdance: Remaking Race Natasha Casey ~POP CULTURE CONVERSATION~ The Law of the Jungle: A Conversation with Philip Ancheta about Performing for Walt Disney World Chapter 3: Next Steps and Your Move! 4. Male Bodies and Masculinity in Popular Dance Brandon Calleja Shaw Chapter 4 Case Studies: Macho Sensibilities: A Dancer’s Autoethnographic Journey Yebel Gallegos The Nicholas Brothers: Dancing Masculinity in Down Argentine Way (1940) Pamela Krayenbuhl Manning the Pit: Techniques of White Masculinity in Hardcore Punk Moshing Emily Kaniuka Bey-Boy: Channing Tatum, Mimesis, and a Test of Masculinity Nicholas Richardson Chapter 4: Next Steps and Your Move! 5. Femininity and Female Empowerment in Commercial Dance: Shakira and J. Lo at Super Bowl LIV Juliet McMains Chapter 5 Case Studies: Subverting Body Ideals: Abject, Tactile Film Style in John Waters’s Hairspray Roxanne Hearn Dancing Girls and Dance Moms: Performing Femininity on the Dance Competition Stage Karen Schupp #Burberry and the Utility of Black Femininity Ronya-Lee Anderson Toying with Chauvinism: Parody in Anna Nikki’s Pole Classique Routine Carlee Sachs-Krook Chapter 5: Next Steps and Your Move! 6. Spectacle, the Gaze, and Agency in Popular Dance Colleen T. Dunagan Chapter 6 Case Studies: ""Fosse Meets Fetish"": When Fosse Goes (Really) Kinky Dara Milovanović Spectacular Choreographies of Epic Proportions: Ricki Starr the Ballet-Dancing Wrestler Laura Katz Rizzo Sparkling Subversion Catherine Cabeen Belly Dance as Restaurant Entertainment Somya Jatwani ~POP CULTURE CONVERSATION~ ""Far Across the Distance"": A Competition Judge’s Perspective from behind the Table Madeline Kurtz Chapter 6: Next Steps and Your Move! PART III: Recognitions and Revisions 7. Popular Dance and Intersectionality Jeremy Guyton and Celeste Landeros Chapter 7 Case Studies: Naomi Osaka’s Hafuness and Polycultural Dance Moves Maïko Le Lay ""Como La Flor"": Selena’s Animation of Intersectional Identity Anabel Bordelon Gender Is a Drag: Performing Hybridity on RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Maxi Challenge ""Prancing with the Queens"" Bhumi B. Patel ~POP CULTURE CONVERSATION~ Resistance, Resilience, Overcoming a Lot: Talking with NaTonia Monét about Performing in the Broadway Musical Tina Chapter 7: Next Steps and Your Move! 8. Mass Media and Social Circulations of Popular Dance Laura H. C. Robinson Chapter 8 Case Studies: ""They’re the Same Picture"": Repetition as Political Critique in Instagram Dance Memes Miya Shaffer Legitimization and Circulation of Hip-Hop Dance in ""Real Talk: Hip-Hop Education for Social Justice"" Maïko Le Lay ""Just Stick to the Flamenco"": Flamenco on NBC’s World of Dance Amy Schofield Dancing Doctors and TikTok Meme-ography: Pointing Toward Female Health Access Amanda Gabaldon ~POP CULTURE CONVERSATION~ Everybody has a Dream: Talking with Taz Loft about Filming In the Heights (2021). Chapter 8: Next Steps and Your Move! 9. Close Up: Step-Touch in New Orleans Popular Dance Rachel Carrico and Latanya D. Tigner Chapter 9 Case Studies: Is He… You Know… Aaron C. Thomas Meghan Trainor’s ""All About That Bass"": A White Girl’s Booty Anthem Colleen T. Dunagan B-Girl Sunny and the Performativity of the Gaze Sherril Dodds Varsity Spirit’s Propertied, White Settler Femininity Sammy Roth Chapter 9: Next Steps and Your Move! 10. The Politics of Popular Movements Irvin Manuel Gonzalez Chapter 10 Case Studies: New Deal Rhythm : Hollywood Chorus Girls Get Political Anna Waller ""To Exist is to Survive Unfair Choices"": The OA and Queer Acts of Protest Bhumi B. Patel Orderly Chaos: Moshing in SLC Punk! Adrian S. A. Manning Asserting Indigenous Agency Beyond Colonial Spatialities through RainbowGlitz’s Burlesque Love Medicine Evangelina Macias Chapter 10: Next Steps and Your Move! 11. Popularizing ""American-ness"" Tria Blu Wakpa Chapter 11 Case Studies: Ballet at the Movies or Dancing on the Limits of American-ness: Thalia Zanou Anna Leon Romanticizing the Old South in the Confederate Pageant Teresa Simone Experimenting with Lady J: A Trans Take on Drag J. Davenport, PhD Welcome to America: Reassigning Appropriation through Choreography in Soft Power Laura London Waringer ~POP CULTURE CONVERSATION~ closet disco: a meditation Jeremy Guyton Chapter 11: Next Steps and Your Move!"
Jennifer Atkins is an associate professor of dance at Florida State University.
