Multiculturalism and Dance cfp

[Allana Lindgren]

Dear Colleagues:

CALL FOR PAPERS: Critical Reflections on Multicultural Dance in Canada, edited collection
Eds. Allana C. Lindgren, Clara Sacchetti and Batia Stolar

We are seeking proposals and contributions for a collection of original, 5000-7000 word essays entitled Critical Reflections on Multicultural Dance in Canada (“Multicultural Dance”). As the first scholarly collection of its kind, Multicultural Dance explores the ways in which groups and individuals in Canada practice, organize, perform, and reproduce different forms and styles of dance that are considered part of an ethno-cultural tradition and heritage. The aim of the collection is to interrogate how culture, identity, community, and nationalism relate to folk, ethnic, national, and popular dance in Canada from the late 19th century to the present. The book unapologetically reflects upon and engages with the concept of multiculturalism, and in so doing dialogues with notions of cosmopolitanism, interculturalism, hybridity, creolization, transculturalism, diaspora, and the like. 

We highlight the concept of multiculturalism because it has been, and continues to be, an important element in Canadian society, public policy, and nationhood. This is true even though it has been roundly challenged for its lack of attention to issues of social inequality (i.e., gender, class, and race), promotion of ethno-cultural stereotypes, denial of peoples’ agency, and representation of ethno-culture as homogeneous, bounded, and fixed. These criticisms are embedded, as well, in the scholarship on folk, ethnic, and national dance – all part of what we are referring to as the multicultural dance literature. Yet, there is very little, extensive, and systematic work on the topic in the Canadian scene. A collection of essays that critically explores the production, representation, and function of multicultural dance in Canada is thus long overdue. 
 
Contributors are encouraged to consider the questions below from a variety of critical approaches and theoretical perspectives. We welcome papers that employ different methodological approaches: ethnographic (interviews with various stakeholders involved in the production and consumption of contemporary multicultural dance); historical (archival and oral historical approaches that might involve questions about “past-ness,” memory, and what is saved in archives, etc.); visual cultural studies (analysis of multicultural dance images, both content and composition, in photographs, moving images, sketches and the like); and experiential (a focus on autobiographical knowledge of multicultural dance by dancers and choreographers directly involved in the bodily practice of a specific multicultural dance form). 

Possible questions include, but are not limited to:
•	How do individuals, groups, and policy makers involved in multiculturalism use the terms folk, ethnic, or national dance?
•	How do we define multicultural dance? How might it differ from folk, ethnic, or national dance? How might it be the same?
•	How do the creators and performers of multicultural dance engage in the notion of authentic cultural expression? 
•	What informs the notion of the choreographer and choreography in multicultural dance?
•	What are the connections between a sense of “group-ness” and kinetic expressions in multicultural dance?
•	How does the costuming used in multicultural dance inform a sense of ethno-cultural difference?
•	How do various segments of an audience respond to multicultural dance?  
•	Are there differences in the ways in which professional and non-professional multicultural dance and dancers are constituted? 
•	Is there a pedagogical element in multicultural dance?  
•	How do multicultural dance organizations frame themselves as multicultural?
•	What are the current funding issues for multicultural dance organizations?
•	What are the issues involved for “outsider” dancers/choreographers who do not belong to the cultural group of a particular dance organization they wish to join?
•	Do folk festivals ghettoize multicultural dance?
•	How does multicultural dance relate to questions of gender, race, and class?

We do not yet have a publisher. We will be submitting a proposal to a university press publisher and need to include extensive paper abstracts as well as detailed biographical information from each author. If you are interested in being considered for publication in Multicultural Dance, please send a 400-500 word abstract and a 200-word bio as email attachments (in Word) by October 31st, 2011 to all of the editors listed below. Once we have determined which essays to include in the collection, we plan to submit the book proposal by January 31st, 2012.  If we are successful, the tentative deadline for the completion of essays (after acceptance) will be August 2012. Author submission guidelines will be provided at a later date.

Please submit your abstract and bio by October 31st, 2011 to:

Allana C. Lindgren: aclind at uvic.ca
Clara Sacchetti: csacchet at lakeheadu.ca
Batia Stolar:  bstolar at lakeheadu.ca

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. 
Many thanks.

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Dr. Allana C. Lindgren
Assistant Professor
Department of Theatre
University of Victoria
PO Box 1700, STN CSC
Victoria, British Columbia
CANADA   V8W 2Y2
Phone: (250)721-8005
Email: aclind at uvic.ca
Web: www.phoenixtheatres.ca