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Curtain Calls in Dance: Negotiating the Terms of Disengagement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2023

Caroline Sutton Clark
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Abstract

Through curtain calls in Eurocentric theatrical dance forms, dance artists, audience members, and staff coordinate how dance concerts end and participants disperse. Nevertheless, despite the widespread use of such practices, the rituals of bows and applause have largely eluded critical inquiry. This article offers dance practitioners choices toward thoughtfully negotiating the processes of engagement and disengagement in groups contingently assembled for dance events. A brief historical inquiry introduces how such behaviors may enact deeply embedded, power-laden agendas of relationship. Then, curtain calls are revealed as complex spaces of intersubjective negotiations, iterative of numerous possible functions at work.

Keywords

applauseaudienceAustinbowsclappingcurtain callsdanceperformanceritual
Type
Article
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 55 , Special Issue 2: Assembly, Gathering and Being with Dance , August 2023 , pp. 58 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Dance Studies Association

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