From Race Crisis to Race Celebration: Online Body Politics and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theateri

IF 0.1 0 LITERARY THEORY & CRITICISM
M. Alexandru
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract Throughout the history of the United States, there have been many critical times associated with racism. When other forms of crisis overlap the existing ones – as the Covid-19 pandemic – even more challenges appear, calling for a more complex artistic response. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is well known across the United States and the world not only through their innovative ballet style (which builds on classical choreography and enriches it with creatively processed blues, jazz, and Afro-Caribbean tones), but also through what Thomas F. DeFrantz calls Alvin Ailey’s “embodiment of African American culture” in the subtitle of his book (Dancing Revelations, 2004). This essay looks at Ailey Theater’s politics of the dancing body, with a focus on recent productions included in the Ailey All Access online project, meant to replace a Fall 2021 United States tour that could not take place because of the pandemic. I will argue that the company’s choreographic overcoming and even beautifying sorrow through dance expands Ailey’s healing narrative about African American history to the Covid-19 pandemic. Their recent projects propose a desirable post-racist world, in which those who have been through much sorrow can support those who have been through less, and thus promote a politics of human togetherness, hope, and reconstruction.
从种族危机到种族庆祝:在线身体政治和阿尔文·艾利美国舞蹈剧院
纵观美国历史,有许多与种族主义有关的关键时期。当其他形式的危机与现有的危机重叠时,比如Covid-19大流行,就会出现更多的挑战,需要更复杂的艺术回应。Alvin Ailey美国舞蹈剧院在美国和世界闻名,不仅是因为他们创新的芭蕾舞风格(建立在经典编舞的基础上,并通过创造性地处理蓝调,爵士和非洲加勒比色调来丰富它),而且还因为Thomas F. DeFrantz在他的书的副标题中称Alvin Ailey为“非裔美国文化的化身”(Dancing Revelations, 2004)。本文着眼于艾莉剧院的舞蹈身体政治,重点关注艾莉所有访问在线项目中的最新作品,该项目旨在取代2021年秋季美国巡演,该巡演因疫情而无法进行。我认为,该公司的编舞通过舞蹈克服甚至美化了悲伤,将艾莉关于非裔美国人历史的治愈叙事扩展到了Covid-19大流行。他们最近的项目提出了一个理想的后种族主义世界,在这个世界里,那些经历过很多悲伤的人可以支持那些经历较少悲伤的人,从而促进人类团结、希望和重建的政治。
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来源期刊
American, British and Canadian Studies
American, British and Canadian Studies Arts and Humanities-Literature and Literary Theory
CiteScore
0.20
自引率
0.00%
发文量
0
审稿时长
10 weeks
期刊介绍: Founded in 1999, American, British and Canadian Studies, the journal of the Academic Anglophone Society of Romania, is currently published by Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu. Re-launched in refashioned, biannual format, American, British and Canadian Studies is an international, peer-reviewed journal that sets out to explore disciplinary developments in Anglophone Studies in the changing environment forged by the intersections of culture, technology and electronic information. Our primary goal is to bring together in productive dialogue scholars conducting advanced research in the theoretical humanities. As well as offering innovative approaches to influential crosscurrents in contemporary thinking, the journal seeks to contribute fresh angles to the academic subject of English and promote shape-changing research across conventional boundaries. By virtue of its dynamic and varied profile and of the intercultural dialogue that it caters for, ABC Studies aims to fill a gap in the Romanian academic arena, and function as the first publication to approach Anglophone studies in a multi-disciplinary perspective. Within the proposed range of diversity, our major scope is to provide close examinations and lucid analyses of the role and future of the academic institutions at the cutting edge of high-tech. With this end in view, we especially invite contributions in the fields of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Area Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Language and Linguistics, Multimedia and Digital Arts, Translation Studies and related subjects. With its wide subject range, American, British and Canadian Studies aims to become one of the academic community’s premium scholarly resources.
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