Table Of ContentMoving Sites
Moving Sites explores site-specifi c dance practice through a combination of
analytical essays and practitioner accounts of their working processes. In
offering this joint effort of theory and practice, it aims to provide dance
academics, students and practitioners with a series of discussions that shed
light both on approaches to making this type of dance practice, and
evaluating and refl ecting on it.
This edited volume combines critical thinking from a range of perspectives
including commentary and observation from the fi elds of dance studies,
human geography and spatial theory in order to present interdisciplinary
discourse and a range of critical and practice-led lenses through which this
type of work can be considered and explored. In so doing, this book
addresses the following questions:
• How do choreographers make site-specifi c dance performance?
• What occurs when a moving body engages with site, place and
environment?
• How might we interpret, analyse and evaluate this type of dance practice
through a range of theoretical lenses?
• How can this type of practice inform wider discussions of embodiment,
site, space, place and environment?
This innovative and exciting book seeks to move beyond description and
discussion of site-specifi c dance as a spectacle or novelty and considers site-
dance as a valid and vital form of contemporary dance practice that explores,
refl ects, disrupts, contests and develops understandings and practices of
inhabiting and engaging with a range of sites and environments.
Victoria Hunter is a Senior Lecturer in Dance at the University of Chichester,
UK.
(cid:55)(cid:75)(cid:76)(cid:86)(cid:3)(cid:83)(cid:68)(cid:74)(cid:72)(cid:3)(cid:76)(cid:81)(cid:87)(cid:72)(cid:81)(cid:87)(cid:76)(cid:82)(cid:81)(cid:68)(cid:79)(cid:79)(cid:92)(cid:3)(cid:79)(cid:72)(cid:73)(cid:87)(cid:3)(cid:69)(cid:79)(cid:68)(cid:81)(cid:78)
Moving Sites
Investigating site-specifi c dance
performance
Edited by Victoria Hunter
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 selection and editorial matter, Victoria Hunter; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Victoria Hunter to be identifi ed as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hunter, Victoria (Senior lecturer in dance)
Moving sites : investigating site-specifi c dance performance / by
Victoria Hunter.
pages cm
Includes index.
1. Choreography. 2. Dance--Stage-setting and scenery. 3. Dance--
Social aspects. 4. Dance--Study and teaching. I. Title.
GV1782.5.H86 2015
792.8’2--dc23
2014034251
ISBN: 978-0-415-71017-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-71325-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-72495-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Baskerville
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on contributors x
Introduction 1
VICTORIA HUNTER
PART I
Approaching the site: experiencing space and place 23
1 Experiencing space: the implications for site-specifi c
dance performance 25
VICTORIA HUNTER
2 Sited conversations 40
FIONA WILKIE, WITH CAROLYN DEBY AND STEPHEN HODGE
3 Between dance and architecture 62
RACHEL SARA IN COLLABORATION WITH ALICE SARA
4 Atmospheric choreographies and air-conditioned bodies 79
DEREK P. McCORMACK
5 Embodying the site: the here and now in site-specifi c
dance performance 95
VICTORIA HUNTER
PART II
Experiencing site: locating the experience 115
6 Homemade circus: investigating embodiment in
academic spaces 117
CAMILLA DAMKJAER
vi Contents
7 Sharing occasions at a distance: the different
dimensions of comobility 131
JEN SOUTHERN AND CHRIS SPEED
8 Video space: a site for choreography 147
DOUGLAS ROSENBERG
9 Placing the body in mixed reality 162
SITA POPAT
10 Spatial translation, embodiment and the site-specifi c
event 178
VICTORIA HUNTER
PART III
Engaging with the built environment and urban practice 197
11 City of lovers 199
CAROL BROWN
12 Dancing the history of urban change in the Bay and
beyond 223
CAROLINE WALTHALL
13 Site-specifi c dance in a corporate landscape: space,
place, and non-place 239
MELANIE KLOETZEL
14 Stop. Look. Listen. What’s going on? 255
KATE LAWRENCE
15 Witnessing dance in the streets: Go! Taste the City 274
KATRINKA SOMDAHL-SANDS
PART IV
Environmental and rural practice 293
16 Dancing the beach: in between land, sea and sky 295
VICTORIA HUNTER
17 ‘Moving beyond inscription to incorporation’: the four
dynamics of ecological movement in site-specifi c
performance 310
SANDRA REEVE
Contents vii
18 Strategies of interruption: slowing down and becoming
sensate in site-responsive dance 328
NATALIE GARRETT BROWN
19 Diving into the wild: ecologies of performance in Devon
and Cornwall 342
MALAIKA SARCO-THOMAS
20 Spectacle, world, environment, void: understanding
nature through rural site-specifi c dance 364
NIGEL STEWART
PART V
Sharing the site: community, impact and affect 385
21 From urban cities and the tropics to site-dance in the
world heritage setting of Melaka: an Australian
practitioner’s journey 387
CHERYL STOCK
22 Dancing in place: site-specifi c work 407
JOSIE METAL-CORBIN
23 Activating intersubjectivities in site-specifi c
contemporary dance 423
APRIL NUNES TUCKER
24 Site of the Nama Stap Dance 440
JEAN JOHNSON-JONES
25 Moving sites: transformation and re-location in
site-specifi c dance performance 459
VICTORIA HUNTER
Index 477
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: ‘Experiencing space’ – V. Hunter – permission granted from
Butterworth, J. and Wildschutt, L. (eds) (2009) Contemporary Choreography:
A Critical Reader, London: Routledge.
Chapter 5: ‘Embodying the Site’ – V. Hunter – permission granted from
New Theatre Quarterly.
Chapter 8: ‘Video Space: A Site for Choreography’ – D. Rosenberg –
permission granted from Leonardo journal.
Chapter 10: ‘Spatial Translation’ – V. Hunter – permission granted from
New Theatre Quarterly.
Chapter 13: ‘Site-Specifi c Dance in a Corporate Landscape’ – M. Kloetzel
– permission granted from New Theatre Quarterly.
Chapter 22: ‘Dancing in Place: Site-Specifi c Work’ – Josie Metal-Corbin –
permission granted from Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance,
Volume 83, Issue 4, pp. 31-37.
Chapter 25: ‘Moving Sites’ – V. Hunter – permission granted from
Contemporary Theatre Review.
As with any project of this nature, the work results from a collaborative
effort and I would like to fi rstly thank the book’s contributors who have
produced a wonderful collection of chapters in a generous and supportive
manner. Thank you to all for demonstrating such commitment to the
project and for sharing my enthusiasm and passion for site-specifi c dance in
all its permutations.
I would like to thank a number of people who have offered encouragement,
support and advice throughout the development of this project over a
number of years. In particular my colleagues from the School of Performance
and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds where the idea for this
publication was fi rst proposed, and greatly supported by Sita Popat and
Jonathan Pitches. A special thank you also to my colleague, mentor and
friend Joanne Butterworth for her sage advice, encouragement and support.
Thank you to my colleagues at the University of Chichester, in particular
Cathy Childs and Jane Bacon, for their support and to external colleagues
Acknowledgements ix
Fiona Wilkie and Nigel Stewart for providing valuable feedback on the
planning and development stages of the project.
Thank you to the many dancers, production crew, designers and
collaborators who have contributed to the development of my own practice-
based research over the years, the refl ective accounts of which feature here
in this volume.
Thank you also to the individuals and organisations who have been kind
enough to allow certain materials to be reproduced herein. Particular
thanks are due to New Theatre Quarterly, Leonardo and to the editors of
Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader (Routledge 2009).
Finally, a huge thank you to Scott, Finlay, Molly, Maureen and Malcolm
for their support, patience and encouragement.
