Claire Lefèvre & Eike Wittrock
Queer Dance History 101

Can you name a single straight choreographer? Because we can’t. Merce Cunningham, Yvonne Rainer, Josephine Baker, Suleika Aldini, Loie Fuller, Katherine Dunham… The list of dance makers ranging from bold bisexuals to raging dykes, proud perverts, trans icons and flamboyant faggots is seemingly endless. Yet, it is rarely, if ever, taken into consideration how people’s gender or sexual orientation affected the way they lived, worked, and moved through the world as choreographers.

In this theory workshop choreographer Claire and dance history professor Eike introduce key concepts and figures of queer dance history. They will talk about prominent and less prominent queers in dance, from celebrated darlings to obscure starlets, proposing a reading of the archive that moves away from straight lineages and towards a complex web of affections and trans-temporal sensibilities. This is an invitation to enter the messy storage closet of dance history: a portal that can be a sweaty darkroom to flirt with ghosts of the past, a labyrinth of mirrors to get lost and found, but also the neon-lit, cold state archive where you might only find traces of your ancestors in the glitches, the omissions, and the in-betweens.

We will discuss what to do with the baggage of the past and question the issues that come with projecting queerness backwards. Acknowledging both the thrilling and violent potentials of the archive, we will look at how dance history was straightened and white-washed and ask how the story could be told in a different way? What is the shape of a queer archive? If it doesn’t spark joy, should we throw it all in the bin or are there sustainable recycling strategies for queer moves?

The working language will be English. There will be no glitter, but there will be PDFs. We will use video and photo material and introduce some short optional somatic practices to get into the body. Participants will be given a reader with key texts and references if they wish to further engage with the material. No prior knowledge of dance history or theory is required. Please share your access needs in advance.