Concert dance occupies a unique vantage point when considering the power dynamics surrounding gender in western society. With a history of gender transgression and many connotations of "performing" gender on stage, dance can model and embody transformation of the concept of gender, and ensuing interactions between individuals. Existing only in the moment of its transmission and reception, the power of a concert dance work exists in the present, in the connection between performer and audience described as kinesthetic empathy. This paper will problematize the relationship between power, understood as the potential for physical or psychological action upon others, and empathy, which posits the necessity of mutual exchange. The concepts of power and empathy are each bogged down by associations with masculinity and femininity. Concert dance works will be proffered as a location to exemplify conflating power with empathy via shared experience, rewriting the gendered nuances affecting life beyond the stage.
|Presenter:||Hannah Seidel (Graduate Student)|
|Location:||Strasser Dance Studio Hartwell|
|Time:||3 pm Session IV|
Poetry Out Loud Recitation Competition
6 pm - 8 pm
American Democracy Project Lecture: Janet Poppendieck
5 pm - 5:45 pm