Full Description
In the twenty-first century, values of competition underpin the free-market economy and aspirations of individual achievement shape the broader social world. Consequently, ideas of winning and losing, success and failure, judgment and worth, influence the dance that we see and do. Across stage, studio, street, and screen, economies of competition impact bodily aesthetics, choreographic strategies, and danced meanings. In formalized competitions, dancers are judged according to industry standards to accumulate social capital and financial gain. Within the capitalist economy, dancing bodies compete to win positions in prestigious companies, while choreographers hustle to secure funding and attract audiences. On the social dance floor, dancers participate in dance-offs that often include unspoken, but nevertheless complex, rules of bodily engagement. And the media attraction to the drama and spectacle of competition regularly plays out in reality television shows, film documentaries, and Hollywood cinema. Drawing upon a diverse collection of dances across history and geography, The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Competition asks how competition affects the presentation and experience of dance and, in response, how dancing bodies negotiate, critique, and resist the aesthetic and social structures of the competition paradigm.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Competition Culture: Winning and Losing at Dance
Sherril Dodds
PART I: Economic and Social Currencies of Competition
1. Taking the Cake: Black Dance, Competition, and Value
Nadine George-Graves
2. You've Got to Sell It! Performing on the Dance Competition Stage
Karen Schupp
3. Competitive Capers: Gender, Gentility, and Dancing in Early Modern England
Emily Winerock
4. Endangered Strangers: Tracking Competition in US Federal Dance Funding
Sarah Wilbur
5. Marking Your Territory: The Struggle to Work in Flamenco
Kathy Milazzo
PART II: Re-Choreographing and Re-Presentation for the Competition Frame
6. Re-appropriating Choreographies of Authenticity in Mexico: Competitions and The Dance of the Old Men
Ruth Hellier-Tinoco
7. Above and Beyond the Battle: Virtuosity and Excess within Televised Street Dance Crew Competitions
Laura Robinson
8. Shifting Dynamics: Sean Nós Dancing, Vernacular Expression, and the Competitive Arena of the Oireachtas
Catherine E. Foley
9. Visible Rhythms: Competition in English Tap Practice
Sally Crawford-Shepherd
PART III: Winning, Participation, and the Negotiation of Meaning
10. The International Dancehall Queen Competition: A Discursive Space for Competing Images of Femininity
Celena Monteiro
11. Congratulations, We Wish You Success: Competition and Community Participation in Romanian Dance Festivals
Liz Mellish
12. Non-Competitive Body States: Corporeal Freedom and Innovation in Contemporary Dance
Nalina Wait and Erin Brannigan
13. Reclaiming Competitive Tango: The Rise of Argentina's Campeonato Mundial
Juliet McMains
14. Dance-off or a Battle for the Future: Dance Reality Shows in India
Pallabi Chakravorty
PART IV: Judging, Spectatorship, and the Values of Movement
15. Miss Exotic World: Judging the Neo-Burlesque Movement
Kaitlyn Regehr
16. Rapper Dance Adjudication: Aesthetics, Discourse, and Decision Making
Jeremy Carter-Gordon
17. Dismantling the Genre: Reality Dance Competitions and Layers of Affective Intensification
Elena Benthaus
18. Why Are Breaking Battles Judged? The Rise of International Competitions
Mary Fogarty
19. Not Another Don Quixote! Negotiating China's Position on the International Ballet Stage
Rowan McLelland
PART V: Losing, Failing, and Auto-Critique
20. Dancing with the Asian American Stars: Margaret Cho and the Failure to Win
Yutian Wong
21. Loss of Face: Intimidation, Derision, and Failure in the Hip Hop Battle
Sherril Dodds
22. Making Play Work: Competition, Spectacle, and Intersubjectivity in Hybrid Martial Arts
Janet O'Shea
23. You Can't Out-do Black People: Soul Train, Queer Witnessing, and Pleasurable Competition
Melissa Blanco Borelli
PART VI: Hidden Agendas and Unspoken Rules
24. Freedom to Compete: Neoliberal Contradictions in Gaga Intensives
Meghan Quinlan
25. We'll Rumble 'em Right: Aggression and Play in the Dance-Offs of West Side Story
Ying Zhu and Daniel Belgrad
26. Dancing Like a Man: Competition and Gender in the New Orleans Second Line
Rachel Carrico
27. Man and Money Ready: Challenge Dancing in Antebellum North America
April F. Masten
Afterword: Who is Competing?
Susan Leigh Foster
