Special issue: ArtsCross/Danscross: transcultural dialogues, Choreographic Practices, Volume 7 Number 2, ISSN 2040-5669
- Submitting institution
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Middlesex University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 1555
- Type
- B - Edited book
- DOI
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-
- Publisher
- Intellect
- ISBN
- 0000000000
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- December
- Year of publication
- 2016
- URL
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http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/31428/
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Producing this dual special edition (Chinese/English versions) of Choreographic Practices drew on curatorial practices involved in the Danscross/ArtsCross project itself. Contextual area knowledge informed the curation of an enabling, non-judgemental space inspired by translation studies scholar Cheung’s ‘pushing hands’ theory of exchange. This references a T’ai Chi exercise, a constant interplay of dynamic, interdependent forces offering ‘an alternative to the dichotomous mode of thinking that characterizes so much of research practice and theoretical discourse in academic disciplines across the humanities’.
Maintaining a non-dichotomous, dialogic exchange involved a constructive ambiguity to describe artists and academics as being from ‘mainland China, Taiwan and the UK’ allowing Taiwan to be understood as an independent sovereign state or as an integral part of China. Such sensitivities were foundational for this individual and collective effort; weaving the rich range of perspectives required negotiating what Welton referred to in this special edition as an ‘agonistic space reflecting seven decades of near conflict between two competing Sinophone cultures’ (p245).
The project’s five years of shared dialogue sustained the transition into words and translation between languages, allowing differences, dissonances and resonances to be acknowledged. These bilingual publications present the voices and perspective of Sinophone and Anglophone artists and academics with currently no comparable account through dance and dialogue of these tangled histories and present realities.
The sole-authored editorial attempted to both set out the content and context of the project, referencing the papers but eschewing a conventional introduction to them, rather reflecting on the ‘abyss’ in Western knowledge and understanding of East Asian history and culture, which extends well beyond the project’s academic disciplines and art forms. An obfuscating meta-narrative is posited, inhibiting Anglosphere comprehension of the significance of Sinophone achievements both in history and in the present day.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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