Choreographing Discourses

This collection gathers writings that Mark Franko first published between 1996 and the present. Many pieces appeared in languages other than English, and some have never been translated, so the volume makes them available to English-speaking scholars. The editorial choices show how the field of dance and performance studies has shifted over that period.

The essays focus on dance artists and choreographers from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including Oskar Schlemmer, Merce Cunningham, Kazuo Ohno, William Forsythe, Bill T. Jones and Pina Bausch. These figures come from Europe, the United States and Japan, and they are among the most prominent names of the last hundred years. The writings also examine two disputes that changed the discipline, Still/Here and Paris is Burning, and they connect dance scholarship with performance theory, film, and visual and public art.

The book opens with the first critical evaluations of Franko's work, written by André Lepecki and Gay Morris, and includes an interview that traces his life and how it shaped his research and his own work in dance and choreography. Throughout, the essays raise questions about ethics, embodiment and performativity. The collection is designed for undergraduate and graduate courses and invites readers into wide-ranging debate.