(Con)Sequences

Detailed Table of Contents

Editorial

Julia Hoydis: "Only the Dance is Sure."  Dance and Constructions of Gender in Modernist Poetry

Abstract: This essay focuses on some of the central innovations in early 20th century dance in relation to their influence on Anglo-American modernist poetry. Arguing that dance is an important source of inspiration that shapes the imagery in many works of T. S. Eliot, Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, and W. B. Yeats, it is also tied to constructions of gender, which engage with modernist aesthetics and reflect the body politics of the late Victorian era. Striking is the complex use of dance as a metaphor which epitomizes the tension between abstractness – an androgynous “impersonality” – and physicality, i.e. a sexualized femininity or masculinity. Noticeable is an ambivalent split between celebrating the body and de-humanizing it, between affirming its sensuality and an emerging spiritual ideal. Whereas this is most obvious in Eliot’s and Yeats’s poetry, Crane and Williams illustrate the search for an “authentic” form of expression, a new freedom and realism which is also represented in a more dynamic, rhythmical language. Although the poets differ in their symbolic use of and attitude towards dance, they bear literary testimony to its power and portray it in joyful, celebratory, erotic, or more spiritual, agonized tones.

Author's Bio: Julia Hoydis is assistant professor at the University of Cologne. Her PHD thesis “Tackling the Morality of History: Ethics and Storytelling in the Works of Amitav Ghosh” (University of Cologne, 2010), was published by Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg in 2011. She also holds an MA in English, Theatre- , Film-, and TV studies and Philosophy from Cologne as well as a diploma degree in Ballet and Contemporary Dance from the Rambert School/Brunel University in London. Currently she is conducting research towards her post-doc thesis on “Risk Perception and Management in the English Novel (1780-210)”. Other areas of interest/teaching include postcolonial theory, the New English literatures, ethical criticism, transculturalism, globalization, cultural studies, postmodernism, literature and science, literature and other art forms. She is assistant editor of the bi-annual journal ANGLISTIK: International Journal of English Studies.

Cherie Hill: Shifting Tides. A Multidisciplinary Creative Process Fusing Dance, Somatics and Black Feminist Theory

Abstract: In this article, I discuss my artistic intent and creative process for creating my Master of Fine Arts thesis concert, Shifting Tides, in a transcribed interview done by my friend and teacher, Nii Armah Sowah. As an artist, I am interested in human connection, and I am conceptually interested in exploring the ways connection heightens our self-awareness and understandings of cultural and gender difference. In addition to exploring means of connection, I explain how black feminist standpoint theory can be applied to choreography. The interview depicts how I pushed the performers to discover who they are on a deeper psychosomatic level, to develop self-awareness in their whole bodies, in order to cultivate a higher communal cognizance, while staying aware of their racial and gender biases. The essay displays how a multi-disciplinary performance process can be used to create growth, and to help communities shift into a higher consciousness based on the hypothesis that when we truly know ourselves, we can know each other and accept differences that are based on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality through the application of cultural narratives, holistic dance rituals, and feminist practices.

Author's Bio: Cherie Hill is a creative artist, dancer, performer, teacher and scholar, whose art explores human expression and how it is conveyed through the body in collaboration with nature, music and visual imagery. Cherie’s research on dance and somatic practices has been presented at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities (2010), as well as the International Association of Black Dance Conference (2009). An active scholar, Ms. Hill has published in the Sacred Dance Journal and Ujama. Cherie holds an MFA in Choreography and Performance from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a BA in Dance and Performance Studies/African American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mary Ann Maslak and Stanley M. Votruba: Two to Tango. A Reflection on Gender Roles in Argentina

Abstract: Art forms maintain a well-established history throughout the world. Dance, one art form, maintains a particularly rich historical tradition, grounded in the local environs of socially accepted norms that have evolved both over time and through the influence of external social forces. Argentine tango, in particular, has been recognized as an international art form deeply rooted in local culture. The purpose of this article is to critically examine the roles of the man and woman in this dance rooted in Argentine culture.

Author's Bio: Mary Ann Maslak is an associate professor of education at St. John’s University. Her research focuses on gender and international studies, with a focus on females and their lived experiences. She has published two books and numerous articles that have been the product of anthropological fieldwork in the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Turkey and the Republic of India. These works examine the ways in which formal, informal and nonformal education influences current living conditions of, opportunities for, and experiences in girls’ and women’s lives. She has studied and danced Argentine tango for three years. Stanley M. Votruba has a background in classical ballroom dance. His immersion into Argentine Tango began in 1999. Since that time, he has studied with many of the world’s greatest tango masters, and has performed and taught classes in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Europe and the United States. Currently, in partnership with Jr. Cervila, his company, Show Dance Productions, seeks to spread the tradition of dance on the world stage.

Linda White and Jonathan Miller-Lane: Ungendered Interactions and the Practice of Aikido

Abstract: In Aikido training ki, or as it is known in Chinese, chi, is understood as a fundamental life force unrestricted by the physical boundaries of the body. During training an emphasis on the development and use of ki, makes movement and experience in the body seem at times beyond gender. We argue that this ungendered experience arises from certain conditions present in Aikido training including, lack of competition and an agreement to cooperate with other bodies, an awareness of the connection between participants based in ki or chi energy, and the development or performance of power that is neither masculine nor feminine. By seeking to understand this phenomenon from the body up, rather than from theory down, we challenge formulations of gender as total and inevitable and offer specific examples of the disconnection between gender and the body.

Author's Bio: Linda White is an Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College. Her research examines Japanese feminism, the ethics of organ transplants, and the relationship between gender and the body. She began her Aikido training in 1982. Jonathan Miller-Lane is an Assistant Professor of Education at Middlebury College. His teaching and research examine the critical attributes of citizenship education and the potential of Aikido to inform the skills of constructive disagreement. He began his Aikido training in 1995.

Wanda Coleman: Two Poems from “Night Coffee”

Abstract: Two Poems from Coleman's new lyrical collection Night Coffee

Author's Bio: Born in 1946, Wanda Coleman grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. She is the author of Bathwater Wine (Black Sparrow Press, 1998), winner of the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. A former medical secretary, magazine editor, journalist and scriptwriter, Coleman has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation for her poetry. Her other books of poetry include Mercurochrome: New Poems (2001);Native in a Strange Land: Trials & Tremors (1996); Hand Dance (1993); African Sleeping Sickness (1990); A War of Eyes & Other Stories (1988); Heavy Daughter Blues: Poems & Stories 1968-1986 (1988); and Imagoes (1983). She has also written Mambo Hips & Make Believe: A Novel (Black Sparrow Press, 1999) and Jazz and Twelve O'Clock Tales: New Stories (2008).