Full Description
The challenges that young women go through in order to be successful in the world of dance are well known. However, little is known about the experiences of young men who choose to take dance classes in non-professional settings.
Dancing Boys is one of the first scholarly works to demystify the largely unknown challenges of adolescent males in dance. Through an ethnographic study of sixty-two adolescent male students, Zihao Li captures the authentic stories and experiences of boys participating in dance classes in a public high school in Toronto. Accompanied by the boys' artwork and photographs and supported by a documentary-style video, the study explores their motivations for dancing, their reflections on masculinity and gender, and the internal and external factors that impact their decisions to continue to dance professionally or in informal settings. With the author's reflections on his own journey as a professional dancer woven throughout, Dancing Boys will spark discussion on how and why educators can engage adolescent males in dance.
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter one: I am a Dancer
Chapter two: Boys in Dance
Chapter three: Where Are the Dancing Boys?
Chapter four: The Voices of the Dancing Boys
Chapter five: Transformation
Chapter six: Invisible Barriers
Chapter seven: Dance Experience & Class
Chapter eight: Show Time
Chapter nine: Dancing Through Our Lives
Chapter ten: Video Documentary on Adolescent Male Dance Students
References
Endnotes
