Introduction to The Other 'D': A Forum on Dance Studies in Canada

Seika Boye; T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko; Heather Fitzsimmons Frey; Evadne Kelly

Seika Boye Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto
T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, University of Toronto
Heather Fitzsimmons Frey Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, University of Toronto
Evadne Kelly Dance, York University

Abstract

A document of ongoing conversations about the importance of dance-friendly academic spaces in Canada begun at the symposium The Other 'D': Locating Dance in Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies in Canada, held in January 2016, at the University of Toronto's Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, this forum engages with an understanding of dance as the movement of bodies through space and time, equally corporeal and consequential, as it plays out in the academy. Exploring the inter- and transdisciplinary fields of dance and dance studies through their history and historiography, archive, and future, this forum's authors--Megan Andrews, Seika Boye, Henry Daniel, Emma Doran, Evadne Kelly, Allana Lindgren, Susan Manning, Stefanie Miller, Gdalit Neuman, and MJ Thompson--present a vast and differentiated perspective both on the effect dance's incorporation into the academy has had on it, and the pedagogical, methodological, and social effects dance has had on the academy.

Author Biographies

Seika Boye, Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto

Seika Boye is a PhD candidate and Lecturer in the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto, where she also serves as Director of the Centre for Dance Studies.

T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko, Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, University of Toronto

T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko is Associate Professor at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. She coedited TDR’s special issue “Caught Off-Garde: New Theatre Ensembles in NYC (mostly)” with Mariellen R. Sandford in 2010, and, with Isabel Stowell-Kaplan and Didier Morelli in 2015, a special issue of CTR entitled “Performing Products: When Acting Up Is Selling Out,” and she has published articles in Performance Research, Theatre Journal, Theatre Research in Canada, CTR, and TDR. She is also an occasional dramaturge, having collaborated on productions in New York, Toronto, Chicago, and Morelia, Mexico. Her first book, Learning How to Fall: Art and Culture after September 11, engages the skewed relationship between 21st-century media technologies, perception, and pop culture, and her current research explores what she considers to be a trending nihilism, or #nihilism, within literal and metaphoric climate change.

Heather Fitzsimmons Frey, Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, University of Toronto

Heather Fitzsimmons Frey's research interests include performance for/by/with young people (in historical and contemporary contexts), non-dominant cultural identity performances, dance in theatre for young audiences, and girlhood. Her dissertation "Victorian Girls and At-Home Theatricals: Performing and Playing with Possible Futures" won the Clifford E. Leech Dissertation Award and the AATE Distinguished Dissertation Award. Her edited collection of plays Ignite: Illuminating Theatre for Young Audiences(Playwrights Canada Press, 2016), is being used as a textbook at four universities. She also co-edited (with Art Babayants) Theatre and Learning (2015). She has several book chapters, including "There is the 'Me' That Loves to Dance," forthcoming in Reflections of Critical Multiculturalism and Dance in Canada, edited by Allana Lindgren, Clara Sacchetti Dufresne, and Batia Stolar. Her research is also found in Canadian Theatre Review, Girlhood Studies, Research in Drama Education (RiDE), and Youth Theatre Journal. She is a core-collaborator and administrative associate with the Centre for Dance Studies at the Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, she is the scholarly events programmer for the WeeFestival, and her creative practice includes dramaturgy and directing, and she danced for thirteen years with Joyce Boorman, Sally Carline, and Ann Kipling-Brown.

Evadne Kelly, Dance, York University

Evadne Kelly is an artist-scholar with a PhD in Dance Studies from York University. Dr. Kelly has presented and published on topics relevant to the fields of anthropology and dance studies with a particular focus on danced experience and expression. Dr. Kelly’s research centers on the political and social dimensions of trans-locally performed dance traditions, and investigates danced expression as a source of social change. Publications of her research can be found in Pacific Arts Journal, The Dance Current, and Fiji Times. Her book, Dancing Spirit, Love, and War: Expressing the Trans-Local Realities of Contemporary Fiji, is under contract with University of Wisconsin Press. Research for her book received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral award and builds on her 20 years of professional experience as a performer, teacher, and rehearsal director for celebrated choreographer and co-founder of Toronto Dance Theatre, David Earle. Dr. Kelly developed her manuscript as an invited participant in the 2015 Mellon funded Dance Studies summer seminar at Northwestern University.