Polly Jacobs
Research | Rinse | Repeat
I am a researcher fascinated by the intersection of dance, anthropology, and history. History is constantly being written, but it does not always write itself. As artists, it is our obligation to mitigate erasure and ensure an all-encompassing, authentic documentation of a collective credo in order to pave a pathway for the next generations of artists to explicate, confront, and innovate.
Defining Contemporary Dance:
The Temporality of Method and the Embodiment of History
Final Thesis for Master of Arts degree to the Gallatin School of Individualized Study New York University
By Polly Jacobs (May 2023)
Abstract
Contemporary dance in the United States is in the midst of a reconfiguration due to a crisis of representation pertaining to its cultural value and cultural production. This emerging and emergent field has failed to secure the economic and cultural capital required to not just survive, but flourish in the performing arts. Compared to contemporary dance companies in European countries, there is an institutional discrepancy between the cultural value of the performing arts and the sustainability of an arts economy in the US. This project aims to elucidate this situation with a nuanced understanding of the field for the benefit of dancers, choreographers, and dance scholars alike.
The purpose of this research is to: (1) Define contemporary dance; (2) Explicate the crisis of representation of contemporary dance in the US; and (3) Examine the economics of performing today. Engaging with anthropology, dance history, dance theory, and cultural studies, this research illuminates the difference between general contemporaneity and what “contemporary” indicates in contemporary dance. Rather than continuing to attempt a definition based on aesthetic tendencies as is commonplace in scholarship on the field, this project establishes the temporal and corporeal experience of conceptualizing, choreographing, and consuming contemporary dance as the defining characteristics that establish the stakes for creation and legitimize the field. The zine that accompanies this project is the culmination of wanting to create a shared resource for contemporary dancers and choreographers to connect and think through current issues in the field.
Responding to Poor Dancer’s Almanac: Managing Life & Work in the Performing Arts, edited by Lise Friedman, Tia Tibbits Levinson, and David R. White in 1993, this artistic work picks up where the almanac left off thirty years prior. The zine is an artistic commentary on pertinent issues such as the availability of space, complications in the field, and modes of cultural production in order to anchor individuals in the present moment and inspire new conversations in the field of contemporary dance; it will be circulated digitally and physically at rehearsal and performance spaces.
***Thesis manuscript available upon request