New German Dance Studies

Introduction: New Dance Studies/New German Cultural Studies

Introduction New Dance Studies/ New German Cultural Studies Susan Manning and Lucia Ruprecht New German Dance Studies offers fresh histories and theoretical inquiries that will resonate not only for scholars working in the field of dance, but also for scholars working on literature, film, visual culture, theater, and performance. The volume brings together essays by scholars working inside and outside Germany, by established leaders in the field as well as new voices. Topics range from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theater dance to popular social dances in global circulation, although emphasis falls on twentieth- and twenty-first–century modern and contemporary dance. Three research clusters emerge: Weimar culture and its afterlife, a focus that is still particularly strong in German studies outside Germany; the GDR (German Democratic Republic), where our contributions work toward filling a persistent gap in East German cultural history; and conceptual trends in recent theater dance that are only slowly finding an audience outside continental Europe. This introductory chapter sketches the intellectual and artistic trends over the last thirty years that have shaped the scholarship featured in New German Dance Studies. This overview follows the broadly chronological organization of the volume as a whole: opening essays on theater dance before 1900; then research clusters on Weimar dance, dance in the GDR, and conceptual dance; and a closing reflection on the circulation of dance in an era of globalization. Throughout we emphasize the complex interplay between dance-making and dance writing, as well as interrelations between dance practice and research and artistic and intellectual trends in German culture at large. Although we cannot detail all these interconnections, we remain aware that the essays collected in New German Dance Studies participate in broader cultural transformations even while documenting and narrating how these transformations have impacted dance research. i-xii_1-284_Mann.indd 1 4/5/12 3:29 PM 2 introduction From Germanistik to Kulturwissenschaft Over the past decades, the emergence of a new type of German cultural studies (Kulturwissenschaft) has replaced more traditional separations between disciplines . Kulturwissenschaft has opened the academic field of German literature (Germanistik) to transdisciplinary inquiries on a broad range of research topics, demonstrating a new awareness of historical contexts and theoretical questions without necessarily abolishing a strong philological grounding. Mindful of the analytical demands posed by social and political structures, practitioners of German cultural studies acknowledge their British and American predecessors while maintaining strong interests in specific areas such as historical discourse analysis, the formation of knowledge, and theories of performance—all interests represented in this volume. Kulturwissenschaft does not constitute yet another trend within the methodological and theoretical debates of the late twentieth century but shows how current research operates both informed by and “after” theory. Cultures of the body have contributed to this new kind of research, both as textlike objects for study and as alternative models to the textual paradigm. Dance studies can have a prime impact here, and it is this volume’s aim to encourage and further the inclusion of dance scholarship in the broadened spectrum of research enabled by the turn of Germanistik toward Kulturwis­ senschaft. As Gabriele Brandstetter suggests: “It is one of dance studies’ tasks to provide historical research and theoretical positions for choreographers and dancers, but also for cultural studies at large.”1 Christina Thurner’s essay, “Affect, Discourse, and Dance before 1900,” demonstrates what can be gained from a transdisciplinary approach. Her analysis of aesthetic treatises historicizes claims that see dance as an art of expression that projects emotions in an immediate fashion. As she notes, such a mythical understanding often prevails up to today. Thurner emphasizes that important aspects of a major event in the history of dance—ballet reform in the eighteenth century—were actually prescribed in aesthetic discourse before their implementation on stage. Her essay also provides crucial historical background to the renewed interest in expression in dance after 1900. Claudia Jeschke’s essay, “Lola Montez and Spanish Dance in the 19th Century ,” narrates the career of a performer who trafficked in staging the Spanish dancer as a figure of otherness on the stages of nineteenth-century Europe.­ Jeschke addresses both performative qualities and written discourse, in particular Montez’s own writings, as strategies for self-fashioning. Here, discourse itself gains a performative potential, pronouncing into being a successful persona that relied on a variety of marketing tactics. Jeschke casts new light on dance history by exploring how a dilettante female performer used constructions of gender and alterity to forge a star identity...