Description

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Employing a cultural theory approach, this book explores the relationship between popular dance and value. It traces the shifting value systems that underpin popular dance scholarship and considers how different dancing communities articulate complex expressions of judgment, significance and worth through their embodied practice.

About the Author

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SHERRIL DODDS Head of the Department of Dance, Film and Theatre at the University of Surrey. She leads the Performances of the Popular research group and co-organizes the POP MOVES research events. She is also author of Dance on Screen: Genres and Media from Hollywood to Experimental Art.

Praise For…

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"This is a very well-researched, thoughtful, and thoroughly argued study, which should have a significant impact on the dance studies field. Dancing on the Canon contextualizes the reasons for popular dance's traditionally "low" status and provides much needed discussion about the potential of popular and social dance scholarship." - Julie Malnig, Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance Performance, New York University, USA

"...Dodds here contextualizes and challenges the traditionally low value accorded popular social dances within dance scholarship...Including 19 photographs, useful endnotes, and an extensive bibliography, this book will be a worthwhile resource for those interested in dance, gender and sexuality, and popular culture. Summing Up:Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty, professionals." - CHOICE

"...a vital and very well-written contribution to critical dance scholarship and pedagogy as well as a good starting point for dance educators and students interested in phenomena of popular dance." – Stefanie C. Boulila, Research in Dance Education

"Dancing on the Canon's success lies in its ability to provoke conversations about the cultural implications of popular dance with dance and cultural studies scholars alike, about the myth of multiculturalism and what constitutes grotesque dancing bodies, or the perception that popular dance is devalued or neglected by academia at large… Those interested in incorporating popular dance into an academic dance curriculum will find much of value here, as will individuals studying the role of aging in performance, sexuality and created communities… The monograph is [also] useful to those conducting contact observation within created communities and scholars interested in best practices for blending practitioner interviews with an extensive discussion of methodology… For graduate students, reading Dancing on the Canon offers assurance that changes in perspective and process accompany large-scale projects, that the difficulties that arise are a normal part of scholarly life, and that the ability to synthesize research with new theories and concepts is essential." – Rachel E. Mansfield, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism