The Aging Body in Dance: A cross-cultural perspective

by Nanako Nakajima (Author), Gabriele Brandstetter (Author)

What does it mean to be able to move? The Aging Body in Dance brings together leading scholars and artists from a range of backgrounds to investigate cultural ideas of movement and beauty, expressiveness and agility.

Contributors focus on Euro-American and Japanese attitudes towards aging and performance, including studies of dancers from Yvonne Rainer, Martha Graham and Anna Halprin to Kazuo Ohno and Kikuo Tomoeda, and directors such as Romeo Castellucci. The theoretical and artistic discourses by European, American, and Japanese thinkers are presented not as an East-West comparison but are interwoven within chapters, working to overcome ethnocentric discourses and extend beyond cross-cultural horizons and postcolonial critiques. The selection of dancers discussed in this book provides readers with a global view on dance, puts into question ontological difference between dance and dancer, and reveals the cultural politics of dance.

The first aesthetic, political, and cross-cultural study of its kind, The Aging Body in Dance offers an invaluable resource for scholars and practitioners interested in global dance cultures and their differing responses to the world's aging population.

About the Author

Gabriele Brandstetter is Professor of Theater and Dance Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research focus is on: History and aesthetics of dance from the 18th century until today, theatre and dance of the avant-garde; contemporary theatre and dance, performance, theatricality and gender differences; concepts of body, movement and image. Winner of Germany's most prestigious research funding prize, Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Prize 2004. Since 2008 she has been co-director of the International Centre "Interweaving performance cultures."

Nanako Nakajima is a dance researcher, dance dramaturg, traditional Japanese dance teacher Kannae Fujima, a Jacobs Pillow Dance festival 2006 Research Fellow, visiting scholar at Tisch School NYU 06. She is currently a fellow of International Research Center »Interweaving Performance Cultures«, Freie Universitaet Berlin and lecturer at Aichi University, Japan. She curated and organized international dance symposia entitled "The Aging Body in Dance" in Berlin (2012) and in Tokyo (2014), and gave lectures on aging and dance at various venues including Dance Congress 2013.