In recent years dance has become a vital and vibrant site of democratic discourse. Choreographers such as Bill T. Jones and Liz Lermanaddress pressing social/political issues and engage communities in the dance-making process. Increasingly, the stage is a self-conscious civic space, where differences are imaginatively and emphatically investigated. What is the relationship of performing arts to a free democratic society? How does dance open out the possibilities for productive civic dialogue? What models exist for developing and sustaining such dialogue? How can we claim studios and theatres as community meeting places? How are civic issues related to aesthetic concerns? How can dance criticism extend the discourse? And how do market forces and funding trends impact the potential of dance as a meaningful civic space?
Moderator
Ann Daly, Associate Professor of Performance Studies at the University of Texas at Austin
Participants
Ann Daly
Benjamin Barber, Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society and Wilson H. Elkins Professor of Government and Politics, University of Maryland
Leah Kreutzer, Artistic Director of LKB DANCE
Liz Lerman, Artistic Director of the LIZ Lerman Dance Exhange
Bill T. Jones, choreographer