Have you ever wondered how dance critics think? What dance scholars do? And why either relates to your experience of watching (or making) dance? If you live in the Bay Area, now’s your rare opportunity to find out. The Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS) and the Dance Critics Association (DCA), the two leading organizations of dance writers, will hold their annual conferences together next week at Stanford University and San Francisco’s ODC Dance Commons. As host to the world’s dance studies event of the year—a four-day gala of dance writing, open to the public—the Bay Area will welcome over 150 presentations of major pieces of research, discussions of pressing issues facing all members of the dance community, film screenings, lecture-demonstrations, and a performance featuring 17 local companies.
SDHS president Janice Ross, professor in Stanford’s drama department, notes that the June 19-22 conference will be the first time in over two decades that dance historians gather in the area for a large-scale symposium. Ross, whose professional work spans both dance history and criticism and includes a past presidency of DCA, introduced what will be the first joint conference in the two organizations’ more than 30-year histories. One reason it made sense to hold these normally separate conversations together is that there is a huge overlap in membership.
When asked to host the SDHS conference in the Bay Area, Ross saw an opportunity to bring the leading and emerging members of the field to a region that is commonly left out of the larger narrative of dance history. For the local dance community—including audiences and artists—the conference offers the chance to participate in a serious forum that’s far more commonplace in cities such as New York, Paris and London, where dance scholars are generally drawn. Ross says of these kinds of conferences, “That’s how you up the ante in a community about people’s knowledge and sophistication about how to receive art, how to make art, [and] how to talk about it.” Importantly, she remarks, “That’s all been missing here with an exception of a few moments.” One event taking place next Sunday at ODC places critics, historians, artists and audiences in direct communication: the 17 companies presenting performance excerpts will be followed by a reflection panel inclusive of several perspectives on viewing and writing about dance to discuss current work—which, Ross points out, constitutes “the future pieces of dance history.”
The nature of this year’s conference lineup, integrating academic disciplines with performance practices, acknowledges the relation, and even interdependency, among scholars, critics and artists. Clare Croft, one presenter at the conference, is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin and a critic for the Austin American-Statesman. Her dissertation focuses on U.S. State Department sponsorship of international tours as a form of cultural diplomacy, with a particular interest in dancers’ experiences traveling abroad. For the conference, she will draw from her first chapter, which looks at New York City Ballet’s 1962 tour to the Soviet Union and the impact dancer Arthur Mitchell, celebrated by the Soviet public, had as an African-American man traveling as an official representative of the American government. In a panel with Croft are Sara Wolf, a graduate student at UCLA presenting on Bill T. Jones’ Blind Date, and dance artist Andrew Simonet (via Skype) of Headlong Dance Theater in Philadelphia, discussing the making of his work THRASH. Croft and Wolf found they had a common interest in issues of American identity and nationalism, and felt it was important to include an artist’s perspective in their discussion. Some participating scholars are also working artists.
While only a small number of universities offering graduate degrees in dance studies, much important dance scholarship is taking place in other academic departments such as performance studies, world arts and cultures, art history and English. The conference’s keynote address, “Movements Between Performance, Theater and Dance,” delivered by Peggy Phelan, professor and chair of Stanford’s drama department, speaks to this crossover. The title of this year’s SHDS conference—Topographies: Sites, Bodies, Technologies—alludes to the many locations dances and dance scholarship can live. Conference committee chair Katherine Mezur imagined the topic to include fluid definitions of contemporary dance, involving somatic studies and new media as well as traditional modes of dance practice and scholarship.
Context is the name of the conference. Next week, the Bay Area stars as a significant place dance is made and talked about. One subject of discussion among historians is, necessarily, the future of the field. Former Village Voice dance editor Elizabeth Zimmer, who will be holding her noted Kamikaze Writing Workshop over the weekend, is concerned about the state of dance criticism at a time when all newspapers are facing hardship. It’s timely that this year’s conference includes both the critics and the scholars. Croft emphasizes, “I couldn’t write dance history if people hadn’t written so many intelligent reviews and previews in the eras that I focus on; dance criticism is absolutely essential to what I do.” Further, she says, “If artists didn’t make work, I wouldn’t have anything to write about.”
More than a crisis of what’s missing, the SDHS conference is a celebration and a serious study of what is happening—in the Bay Area and elsewhere. Onsite conference registration is available all weekend. Ross compares the experience to “walking through the dance section of the best library in the world and having people read aloud to you choice passages.” You might discover something you never knew, or rediscover a subject you know very well.
Emily Hite is a writer in San Francisco. She received her BA in art history from Stanford University.
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