Traversing Popular Dance Histories: Mediation and Re-creation
PoP Moves, an international network of popular dance researchers, invites proposals for a Special Topics Issue of The Journal of Popular Culture on the topic of mediating popular dance histories. For well over a century, popular dance has been present across changing media technologies: from printed instruction manuals in magazines and newspapers to radio, film, and television to digital platforms and social media, dancing has circulated between different bodies, cultural communities, and across geographical and social boundaries. The notion of popular dance, broadly construed as dances performed by the people and/or that are popular in mass media, might also be defined by practitioners and/or audiences as folk, vernacular, social, street, and commercialized forms. What happens to these dances when they are created, displayed, disseminated, received and, indeed,“mediated” through the popular media technologies of the day? What happens when social dances that spring up in local communities become “popularized” and marketed for commercial consumption? How do we write the histories of popular dance, which itself is constantly shifting, changing, borrowing, reinventing, to create the next hot sensation?
Articles can address, but are not limited to, the following ideas/themes and questions:
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How different forms of media construct and disseminate popular dance histories (i.e. written texts, broadcast or film technologies, social media)
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Political dynamics and historiographic implications of popular archives (Who has access? Who owns the archives? Are there counter-archives to official ones?)
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Oral history practices within various popular dance cultures and communities
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Hauntological studies of popular dance practices
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Methodological particularities and challenges of conducting historical research on popular dance
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How do we write, or rewrite, the history of popular dance?
Examples might include:
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Explore how different forms of media, from early silent films to modern social media platforms like TikTok, have shaped and disseminated popular dance histories and cultures
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Critically examine ideas of performing masculinity throughout popular dance history using films like Dirty Dancing, Magic Mike, and the Step Up franchise
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Explore methodological challenges of conducting historical research on drag, voguing, waacking communities and performances
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Consider how the white press (and media of the day) constructed ideas about race in ragtime dance of the 1910s and early 1920s
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Trace how dancers active in local and trans-local communities of popular dance practice, such as lindy hop, salsa, merengue, hip hop, tango, kizomba, bhangra, drag, or neo-burlesque scenes, engage with archival material related to past celebrity performers, respected elders, or renowned forebearers of their respective forms and traditions
How to Apply:
PoP Moves welcomes proposals for full-length articles. Proposals should be approximately 300 words, indicating methodology. Please include a brief bibliography and a 50-word biography identifying all authors.
Please send abstracts to popmovesamericas@gmail.com by September 15, 2024 at 11:59pm (EST). Authors will be notified of the acceptance status of their papers by September 30, 2024. Authors are required to submit their full papers by the stipulated deadline of January 15, 2025.
Please note that articles should be formatted in the Chicago Manual of Style. Articles should be written per TJPC’s submission guidelines. Articles are subject to peer review, and therefore their selection does not automatically ensure publication to the journal.
Guest Editors:
Dr. Julie Malnig, Professor at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study
Dr. Elizabeth June Bergman, Assistant Professor of Dance in the Theatre and Dance Department of Muhlenberg College
Deanne Kearney, Ph.D. Candidate in Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at York University