Movement as Culture
This website was authored by the students of “Movement as Culture,” an undergraduate dance studies course taught at Scripps College in the Fall of 2019, taught by Prof. Meiver De la Cruz.
Each section or chapter in this online book was written and creatively designed by one student, to highlight specific aspects of their research taking advantage of the functionality of Scalar as a platform that allows multi-medial engagement with dance.
Here, the students have shared extended annotations of their sources (which range from academic books, doctoral dissertations, academic journal articles, media news sources, statistical data, YouTube videos and personal interviews). These are the materials they are drawing from to write their final papers. These annotations are meant to work as a “literature review enhanced by technology,” with the added advantage that it can be shared in a public platform without a paywall.
The site works to:
1. Highlight the broad possibilities of considering “data” when researching non-Western dance forms, going beyond academic published accounts, creatively engaging a variety of information and data mediums.
2. Exemplify the interdisciplinary nature of dance studies, in combining a range of materials to tell embodied, political, and moving histories and accounts.
3. Expand the focus of the academic dance cannon to include a broader range of materials, experiences and locations.
4. Make space for the creative use of technology in the classroom, as each student designs their contribution reflecting both their own interpretation of data and their vision of how their project should be seen by others.
5. And lastly, it exemplifies the possibilities of putting academic resources to the service of the public, creating broader accessibility to knowledge and knowledge production.
In sum, we collectively harnessed our labor to create a resource library for the Scripps community, and the world, with the findings of student’s collective final research projects. We did this in collaboration with our Libraries and Digital Humanities staff, and store our findings in this online space (see “Acknowledgements” page). Enjoy the visit!
About the Course: Movement as Culture, Dance in the Middle East, North Africa and the Diaspora
The course comprises a broad survey of dance forms from the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT) as well as the diasporic and hybrid forms of these dances found in the US (70% reading/writing and 30% movement/practice). The readings attend to the many questions that histories of colonialism, and concerns around the performance of race, gender, and sexuality – bring to the global spaces of performance and circulation of these dance forms. Readings draw from the fields of Dance Studies, Anthropology, Post-Colonial/Decolonial Studies and Dance Ethnography, as well as first person accounts written by dancers. We compliment the texts with an assortment of video and sound objects that we will collectively enjoy and discuss. The course examines how various people and groups throughout the world use dance to (re)present highly politicized (gendered, raced, classed, national and transnational, diaspora, sub-cultural, intersecting, hybrid) identities. The thematic inquiry of the seminar investigates the concepts of Orientalism, authenticity, transnational feminisms, innovation in dance, Western vs. Eastern understandings of virtuosity in movement, cultural appropriation, sexuality and gender in dance, and the politics of representation through dance.
Course Units:
Unit I: What is dance Research? How does one do and read dance and about Dance?
Unit 2: Discourses of Antiquity, Dancing “The Oldest Dance(s)”
Unit 3: Imperial Domination and The Colonial Gaze
Unit 4: Orientalism as Lens and Practice
Unit 5: Dance and the Formation of States and National Identities in the MENAT
Unit 6: Urban Intersections of Contemporary Religious and Dance Cultures
Unit 7: Dance and the Modern Middle East
Unit 8: Women’s Bodies and The Public Sphere
Unit 9: Gender, Feminism, and Sexuality: Belly Dance and Beyond
Unit 10: Transculturation of Folk Dances: Middle Eastern Dance and Global Diasporas
Feel free to reach out with feedback or requests for more information.
Prof. De la Cruz
