DANCE history research Sylvia Roberts sroberts@sfu.ca

TOPIC SELECTION: “First you need a focus, which could be a question, an argument, a position, an opinion, or a point of view. Whatever it is, this stance must be stated close to the beginning of the essay and then developed, argued, supported, or perhaps even discredited along the way, eventually leading to some form of conclusion at the end.” Veiled dancer, ancient Greek terracotta figurine from Myrina, ca. 150–100 BC. Louvre Museum

Dance history – scope OF TOPICS: Makers: Dancers, Choreographers Significant works Purpose (ritual, cultural, social) Context: time, place, participants Form / Design elements space, time, force / energy types of movements number of people, relationships / formations Costumes, Lights, Sets Accompaniment / Sound Technological innovations (e.g. recording, notation) Thematic elements Supporting arts (visual arts, music, literature)

Dance Consortium. (n. d. ) Dance Timeline. Retrieved http://www By Bboymor-E - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15955577

Generating topic ideas OVERVIEWS International encyclopedia of dance Moving history, dancing cultures : a dance history reader No fixed points : dance in the twentieth century Society of dance history scholars Series: Studies in Dance History (books at SFU) Dancing: The Individual and Tradition Included in Dance in Video “more than 250 performances and documentaries by the most influential performers and companies of the 20th century”

dance within Indian cinema cultural significance and gender representation in documentary films featuring Indian dance? Parallels to concert dance for the stage? Historical perspective / comparison Who is making the films and their perspective on dance? History of classical indian dance? role of women in classical indian dance as performers, as symbols (objects of desire, representative of the sacred)? dance within Indian cinema By Vineet Radhakrishnan Eesha Deol - Bollywood Actress. https://www.flickr.com/photos/vineetradhakrishnan/5417797912/. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

dance within Indian cinema Do you need to focus your research to a specific type of dance? Or a specific case study? How is dance represented? Is the representation historically accurate? THE DANCERS? THE PERFORMANCE? THE SETTING? THE COSTUMES? Is this consistent with traditional role of classical dance in indian culture?

Sources for Dance scholarship Primary sources (experienced directly) Autobiography / interviews eyewitness accounts / reviews choreography notes Performances Secondary sources (Synthesis / interpretation of primary sources) Writings of researchers and scholars, including opinions, points of view In-depth discussions, histories, critical overviews

Finding sources (books): Browse books by subject heading, for example: Dance History Ballet History Dance India History Dance Europe History Dancers United States Biography Duncan, Isadora, 1877-1927

Finding sources (articles): journal indexes for DANCE ** International Index to the Performing Arts ** Google Scholar JOURNALS: Dance research journal Dance Research Dance Chronicle Conference on Research in Dance (CORD) conference proceedings Ballet review (in print) Dance international (in print)

Using one good article to find others Shresthova, Sangita. “Swaying to an Indian Beat... Dola Goes My Diasporic Heart: Exploring Hindi Film Dance”. Dance Research Journal 36.2 (2004): 91– 101. Web. Mine reference lists of scholarly sources Citation searching using key sources and google scholar

Citing your sources “You must have a separate page or pages with your bibliographic references at the end of the essay. “ MLA citation style (SFU Library GUIDE) “A Dancer's Life: Act One.” YouTube, uploaded by Soleil Smile, 1 Oct 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA91fGV9LEo. Accessed 24 Jan. 2017. Dancing Program 7: The Individual and Tradition (DVD 7): Dancing: The Individual and Tradition. Prod. Rhoda Grauer, Muffie Meyer, and Ellen Hovde. ArtHaus Musik, 1993. Dance Online: Dance in Video, Volume I. Web. 24 Jan. 2017.