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Emerging Frameworks for Engaging Precarity and “Otherness” in Greek Contemporary Dance Performances

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2019

Natalie Zervou
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Abstract

At the dawn of the European refugee crisis, and in the middle of the ongoing sociopolitical and financial crisis in Greece, Greek choreographers started creating dance works that engaged immigrants and refugees. In most such initiatives, improvisation became the tool for bridging the disparity between the professional dancers and the “untrained” participants, who were often the vulnerable populations of refugees and asylum seekers. In this essay, I question the ethics and aesthetics of these methodological approaches utilized for staging encounters between natives and migrants through dance. In particular, I consider the significance of improvisation as potentially perpetuating hierarchical inequalities in the framework of Western concert dance, while I also highlight the ways that such artistic endeavors end up presenting immigrants and refugees as “Others.”

Keywords

Greececontemporary dancerefugee crisisfinancial crisisprecarityimprovisation
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 51 , Special Issue 1: Work With(Out) Boundaries: Precarity and Dance , April 2019 , pp. 20 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Dance Studies Association 2019 

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References

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