Joanna D Das - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Joanna D Das

Routledge eBooks, Oct 15, 2018

Routledge eBooks, Nov 29, 2022

Oxford University Press eBooks, Jul 27, 2017

Routledge eBooks, Aug 2, 2022

Dance Research Journal, 2012

numerous possibilities for rereading well known and lesser-known dance works of the postwar perio... more numerous possibilities for rereading well known and lesser-known dance works of the postwar period. Thus Anna Sokolow’s Rooms (1952) is reconsidered with respect to the planned contemporary living spaces of Americans as seen by an “outsider” (115); Donald McKayle’s Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder (1959) is seen in the time of the Civil Rights Movement and the first sit-ins, and in relation to Talley Beatty’s and Katherine Dunham’s earlier works Mourners’ Bench (1949) and Southland (1951), respectively. A key chapter is the one on Pearl Primus, which develops Kowal’s (2007) research, for which she received the 2008 SDHS Gertrude Lippincott Award. Primus’s account of her trip to Africa in 1949 “offers a fuller picture of postwar diasporic subjectivity as a condition of defamiliarization: the feelings of belonging and not belonging to peoples and places she desired to call ‘home’” (149). This reader was particularly struck by the place of Paul Taylor within the book. A reader cannot fail to notice the photograph of a besuited Taylor (1957) on the cover. He strides toward you with great purpose—a man of action—and stirs memories of a different age. I saw Taylor’s Insects and Heroes (1961) in 1973 and 3 Epitaphs (1960) two years later, both during UK tours. The former dance was, to a young man four decades ago, quite baffling. Kowal’s analysis shines a new light on both these works and, by refracting this light through the broader culture of the period, reveals something fresh and vital that I had not seen before. She considers Taylor along with Cunningham in terms of found objects and the use of “ordinary movement (action) to highlight elements of everyday life that people typically glossed over in the course of experience” (175). Her detailed descriptions ring true: the way she revisits the contemporary critical reception and identifies Taylor’s innovations is a powerful response to any idea that the modern dance of the 1950s—3 Epitaphs appeared in its first version in 1956—was lacking in creativity. This example could stand for the rest of the book. Throughout, there is a most sophisticated rereading of dance of this period, and the dancers and their social situation appear refreshed, their relevance renewed. The changes in postwar American modern dance and in American society are most ably addressed in How to Do Things With Dance. This new history challenges the conventional view of the dance of this period and contributes well to dance research, which has begun to discover new depths in modern dance in America. It would be interesting to place the ideas that emerge here in a broader international context, with John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in mind.

The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, 2019

The Journal of African American History, 2020

Arts, 2020

This article reconsiders Josephine Baker’s legacy for the field of dance by emphasizing the princ... more This article reconsiders Josephine Baker’s legacy for the field of dance by emphasizing the principles of abstraction that she developed through performance. Although she is considered to be a modernist, Baker is rarely discussed as an abstractionist. Doing so requires a rethinking of the relationship between race and abstraction, a conversation revived by choreographer Miguel Gutierrez in 2018. Audiences in 1920s Paris described how Baker confounded identity categories to produce something new for the stage, but critics and scholars since have continued to define her by those very categories. Baker’s dancing prioritized the expression of kinesthetic energy over representation or narrative, clearly fitting within the purview of abstract dance. In building upon the work of Brenda Dixon Gottschild, I argue that Baker demonstrates how abstraction is not in opposition to Africanist dance aesthetics, but rather is a constitutive part of it.

Theatre Survey, 2020

ment practiced a combination of stubborn refusal to accept political realities and belief that su... more ment practiced a combination of stubborn refusal to accept political realities and belief that superior German cultural institutions would remain for all time. Theatre in Europe under German Occupation demonstrates the critical role performing arts played in Nazi Germany’s war effort. Although Goebbels’s desire to have National Socialist plays form the backbone of a new German repertory never materialized, Heinrich shows that the repertory (at first dominated by classical German, Greek, and Shakespearean works, and later by “light fare”) did not undermine the Nazi’s goals nor indicate a failure in dramaturgy, as stated by writers such as Konrad Dussel. Rather, the commitment to professionalism, quality productions, and the creation of a state-directed repertory throughout Europe that played to full houses indicate a successful program that strategically influenced and streamlined repertories. Heinrich asserts that the production of “the same Carl Laufs comedy, August Hinrichs farce, or Franz Lehár operetta all over Europe ... seemed a powerful symbol of German might,” making it problematic to play down the success and usefulness of popular theatre (238). Ultimately, Heinrich believes that cultural output and National Socialism cannot be separated, countering Bettina Schültke’s assertion in Theater oder Propaganda? that theatre during the era had little impact. As this study usefully demonstrates, this period, which is often considered artistically fruitless, merits further study.

Dance Research Journal, 2019

In 2016, director George C. Wolfe and choreographer Savion Glover created Shuffle Along, or, the ... more In 2016, director George C. Wolfe and choreographer Savion Glover created Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, a backstage musical about the 1921 show Shuffle Along, noted for its all-black cast and creative team. Although Wolfe proclaimed dance to be the most important aspect of the original musical, his production does not mention Shuffle Along’s original choreographer, Lawrence Deas, nor does it examine the labor of choreography. These omissions expose how dance on Broadway remains subordinate to other aspects of a musical, thus reproducing racist and sexist logics about embodied performance.