Publications / Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies

Network of Pointes

2015 | XXXV

Guest Editors: Drs. Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel and Jill Nunes Jensen

Contemporary ballet in 2015 is undoubtedly a recognizable genre for most dancers: bare legs, leotards-as-costumes, hyperextensions, drags and slides in place of overhead lifts and partnered pirouettes, parallel positions, side attitudes, and a look that is assured but not in that enthusiastic way that many of us grew up understanding to be de rigueur stage presence. It is identifiable. It appears to be flourishing. It has a bit of an “it factor.” It piques our students’ interest. But, what IS contemporary ballet? Does it need classification and definition so that we can historicize this moment in dance? Is it too much to suggest another label when there are variances in looking at ballet worldwide? Expanding the scope of our own research on Mauro Bigonzetti and Alonzo King—both choreographers who are identified (by critics) as working in this genre—we formulate questions here about the shape of this developing discourse. Does redefining the form require a new name? If so, how does contemporary ballet distinguish itself? Do dancers who work in this genre view its differences, or, has contemporary ballet simply become ballet? If the latter is so, at what point did it happen and is the term used uniformly across the globe? read more

Title

Author

pp. 3

A Word from the Guest Editors

Drs. Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel and Jill Nunes Jensen

pp. 5

Spirit of the New: William Forsythe and theDisruption of Ballet’s Structural Organization

Ann Nugent

pp. 10

Illuminations

Julia Gleich

pp. 13

The Contemporary Ballet Menu: A RegionalRepertory Concert Practice in the 1970s

Caroline Sutton Clark

pp. 17

Wry Subversion

Ann Murphy

pp. 20

Contemporary Ballet: Inhabiting the Past While Engaging the Future

Gretchen Alterowitz

pp. 24

Sowing Curiosity

Merideth Webster

pp. 25

In Conversation with Eric Underwood

pp. 26

Contemporary Ballet and theFemale Body Politic

Samantha Parsons

pp. 29

“To move is to stir”: Romeo and Juliet inContemporary Ballet

Maura Keefe

pp. 34

Survivor: The Ballet Edition

Jennifer Fisher