Dancing on common ground. Labor and aesthetics in European contemporary dance from center to periphery and back again

Dansen op gemeenschappelijke grond. Arbeid en esthetiek in Europese hedendaagse dans van centrum naar periferie en weer terug
Start - End 
2019 - 2022 (completed)
Department(s) 
Department of Art, music and theatre sciences
Research Focus 

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Abstract

Contemporary dance in the Eastern European periphery is still at the very onset of the process of institutionalization and its particular working modes and (kin)aesthetics are largely understudied and until today remain under-documented, at least in English and in academia. Equipped with an interdisciplinary approach at the intersection of dance studies and cultural sociology, this project aims to fill this signaled gap in knowledge further by conducting empirical research in the contemporary dance scene of Belgrade (Serbia). Located in South-Eastern Europe and capital of former Yugoslavia, Belgrade forms a unique case owing to its specific history of Yugoslav socialism and self-management. It has matured into a representative center in the periphery since the bottom-up foundation of the dance institution Stanica and its embedding in the Nomad Dance Academy network in 2005. This project scrutinizes how the current generation of contemporary dance artists in this peripheral environment (= artworld) works, how the local working conditions and modes (= art work) affect the dance performances (= artwork), and why they are hardly featured on Western European stages. The research openly questions the Western hegemony on cultural and knowledge production and its circulation by developing an in-depth understanding of the relationship between labor and (kin)aesthetics in Europe’s center and periphery and the overall power mechanisms at play in the artworld as well as in academia. 

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