21 September, 2023 | by Rushi P
Call for Research Articles for a special edition of
Dance Chronicle: Studies in Dance and Related Arts
Submission date: 15th August 2020
Movement Arts in Dance, Theatre, and Intermedial Performance
The physical role of the body on stage holds equal fascination for dance and theatre scholars and practitioners. On the one hand, particular genres such as commedia dell’arte and poor theatre have emphasized the agility, rhetorical gestures, kinesthetic equipage, and raw physicality of players. In actor training, Stella Adler famously commanded actors to “physicalize” in order to develop the sense of a character in a particular scene. On the other hand, the historic development of Western concert dance tells a story of transition from court to theater, with the elements of theatre—including drama, design, voice, and spoken texts—often assuming surprising proportions. In various periods and places throughout the world, practitioners have intertwined the theatrical roots of dance and the dancelike, ritual roots of theatre in productive ways.
We invite contributions addressing how performers, directors, choreographers, and designers have explored the immediacy of the body and the power of presence in movement arts and intermedial performance. Articles may address, but need not be limited to, subjects such as:
How have various forms of physical theatre, including commedia dell’arte, pantomime, vaudeville, and circus, merged elements of dance and theatre to produce innovative intermedial genres and artists: Mummenschanz, Cirque de Soleil, Michael Motion, Complicité ?
In what ways do forms of Asian dance drama exhibit rich intermingling of dance and theatre: Noh, Kabuki, Kathakali, etc.?
How have the puppet theatre practices and the construct of the puppet reflected and refracted human movement in the West and the East?
How have the robot and cyborg (half-human, half-machine) affected movement arts, including usages on screen and digital media: German Expressionist film, etc.?
How have practices in theatre intersected with dance or dancelike phenomena: Stanislavsky method, Meyerhold’s biomechanics, Jerzy Grotowski’s poor theatre, etc.?
How have hybrid forms of dance/theatre evolved in the 20th and 21st centuries: dance plays, Tanztheater, etc.
How have particular choreographers and genres of dance displayed strong linkages with theatre: Antony Tudor, Martha Graham, ballet theatre, Tanztheater, performance art, ballet d’action, etc.?
How have dance and theatre practices intersected in musical theatre to blur the lines between high art and popular forms: Hamilton, Spring Awakening, etc.?
Dr Clare Lidbury
Executive Editor, Dance Chronicle