Gender Studies 372 Winter 2013 Prof.

Manning Office Hours: Mondays 2-3, Tuesdays 4-5 and by appointment Office: University Hall 406 Phone: 847.491.5120 Email: s-manning@northwestern.edu MEN DANCING Revised Course Description This course takes an historical approach to its examination of men dancing on stage and on screen in diverse genresblackface and black minstrelsy, ballet and tap, modern and postmodern dance. The inquiry will focus on the intersection between gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and nationality in theatrical performances from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries. Readings will be complemented by visual documentation and by live performance. Resources and Requirements The Norris Bookstore has copies of two required textbooks: Jane Desmonds edited anthology Dancing Desires: Choreographing Sexualities On & Off the Stage (2001) and Peter Stoneleys A Queer History of the Ballet (2007). A course reader with additional essays is available at Quartet Copy, 825 Clark Street. Required titles for viewing are accessible via the course Blackboard site. Students must complete all readings and viewings before class and come prepared for active engagement in class discussion. To facilitate this, students will post a comment and/or question on Blackboard by 10 a.m. on the days marked on the calendar. These postings should never run more than 100 words and should be formulated to elicit response from other participants. Rigorous preparation for and attentive participation in class count for half the final grade. In order to synthesize the course material, students will complete extended takehome and final exams. Prompts for the exams will take up themes discussed in class and will require essays 1000-1500 words in length. Given the structure of the syllabus, no late exams will be accepted unless the student has requested an extension in advance. Standards of academic integrity will be strictly enforced. This means that students must work totally on their own in writing the take-home and final exams. Each exam counts for 25 points on a 100-point scale.

Students are strongly encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity to view John Neumeiers Nijinsky and to attend the panel discussion at the Arts Club, although students will not have points deducted from their grade if they are unable to do so. However, missing class and failing to post discussion comments and questions will result in a lower grade. Each Blackboard posting counts for 4 points on a 100-point scale so missing two classes/postings will lower students grade one full grade. If students are sick and have to miss class, they should consult with the professor on how to make up the missed work. Graduate students must complete an independent research project in addition to the other course requirements. Graduate students should consult with the professor by mid-quarter to develop their independent project. It may take different formats: an annotated bibliography or review of the literature, a course syllabus and related materials, a conference paper, a dramaturgical notebook, or even a formal research paper. However, this course does not allow for a performance option, mostly for practical reasons: we are meeting in the Video Theatre in the University Library, the professor cannot judge such contributions with the rigor that she brings to other formats, and there are a number of other courses that encourage the performance option. For graduate students, one-third the final grade is based on the independent project; one-third on class participation; and one-third on the take-home and final exams.

Calendar Jan 7 Jan 9 Introduction to Course Starting Points: Blackboard posting #1 READ Jane Desmond, Introduction: Making the Invisible Visible: Staging Sexualities through Dance to Dancing Desires READ Thomas DeFrantz, Simmering Passivity: The Black Male Body in Concert Dance in course reader Jan 14 The Male Dancer on the 19th c Stage in Europe: Blackboard posting #2 READ Marian Smith, The Disappearing Danseur in course reader READ Stephen Johnson, Gender Trumps Race? Cross-Dressing Juba in Early Blackface Minstrelsy in course reader Jan 16 The Male Dancer in Tsarist Russia: Blackboard posting #3 READ libretto for Swan Lake in course reader READ Peter Stoneley, A Queer History of the Ballet, pp. 1-21, 46-65 VIEW Marius Petipa/Lev Ivanovs Swan Lake as staged by The Royal Ballet via Blackboard Jan 21 Jan 23 Martin Luther King Dayno classes Russian Ballet Comes to Europe: Blackboard posting #4 READ Peter Stoneley, A Queer History of the Ballet, pp. 66-92 READ Lynn Garafola, Reconfiguring the Sexes in course reader VIEW Michel Fokines Petrouchka via Blackboard

Jan 28

Nijinsky as Choreographer: Blackboard posting #5 READ Penny Farfan, Man as Beast: Nijinskys Faun in course reader VIEW Nijinskys Afternoon of a Faun via Blackboard

Jan 30

John Neumeiers Nijinsky If possible, in-class screening of Annette Von Wangenheims documentary Nijinksy & Neumeier Do online research on Neumeiers Nijinsky in preparation for viewing work and attending panel discussion with Neumeier Topics distributed for mid-term exam

Feb 1

$20 tix available for performance of John Neumeiers Nijinsky by the Hamburg Ballet at 7:30 at the Harris Theater at Millenium Park; accessible via Purple Line express (Randolph Street stop); sign up in class to claim your subsidized ticket; if you require additional subsidy, see Professor Manning during office hours class invited to attend lunch and discussion with John Neumeier from 11:30 to 1:00 at the Arts Club, 201 East Ontario Street; 15 minute walk from NU Shuttle stop; no admission after discussion begins at 12:15; sign up during class for free event mid-term exam due in class Back to Mid-Century US: Men in Modern Dance: Blackboard posting #6 READ Julia Foulkes, Dance is for American Men: Ted Shawn and the Intersection of Gender, Sexuality and Nationalism in the 1930s in Dancing Desires READ Susan Manning, Metaphorical Minstrely II: Ted Shawns Negro Spirituals, 1933-40 and A Queer Left: New Dance League Presents Men in the Dance, 1935-36 in course reader VIEW Charles Weidman: On His Own via Blackboard

Feb 4

Feb 6 Feb 11

Feb 13

Mid-Century US: Tap and Black Musicals: Blackboard posting #7 READ Thomas DeFrantz, Being Savion Glover: Black Masculinity, Translocation and Tap Dance in course reader VIEW Stormy Weather, 1943 black-cast musical featuring Bill Robinson, Nicholas Brothers, Lena Horne, Fats Waller, and Katherine Dunham via Blackboard

Feb 18

Mid-Century US: Gene Kelly: Blackboard posting #8 READ Brett Farmer, Fantasmatic Escapades: Gay Spectatorships and Queer Negotiations of the Hollywood Musical in course reader VIEW The Pirate with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland via Blackboard

Feb 20

Beyond Modernism: Michael Jackson: Blackboard posting #9 READ Andreana Clay, Working Day and Night: Black Masculinity and the King of Pop in course reader VIEW Michael Jackson Number Ones via Blackboard

Feb 22

extra credit for attending panel from 9 to 10:30 am on Charles Weidmans Lynchtown at Dance Center of Columbia College Beyond Modernism: Bill T. Jones: Blackboard posting #10 READ Gay Morris, What He Called Himself: Issues of Identity in Early Dances by Bill T. Jones in Dancing Desires VIEW Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane D-Man in the Water via Blackboard

Feb 25

Feb 27

Beyond Modernism: Lloyd Newsom and DV8: Blackboard posting #11 READ Ramsay Burt, Dissolving in Pleasure: The Threat of the Queer Male Dancing Body in Dancing Desires VIEW Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men via Blackboard

Mar 4

Beyond Modernism: Matthew Bourne: Blackboard posting #12 READ Susan Leigh Foster, Closets Full of Dances: Modern Dances Performance of Masculinity and Sexuality in Dancing Desires READ Peter Stoneley, A Queer History of the Ballet, pp. 153-65 VIEW Matthew Bournes Swan Lake via Blackboard

Mar 6

Course Summary Topics for take-home exam distributed

Mar 7

If sufficient interest, professor will arrange for group tix to see Stephen Petronios company at The Dance Center, Columbia College Chicago; sign up in class take-home exams and final independent projects due in University Hall 215; sign-in at front desk before 4 pm If sufficient interest, professor will arrange for group tix to see Marie Chouinards Nijinsky program at the Museum of Contemporary Art; sign up in class

Mar 18

Mar 21

Gender Studies 372 Winter 2013 Prof. Manning MEN DANCING Table of Contents for Course Reader 1. Thomas DeFrantz, Simmering Passivity: The Black Male Body in Concert Dance, in Moving Words: Re-Writing Dance, ed. Gay Morris (London and New York: Routledge, 1996): 107-20. 2. Marian Smith, The Disappearing Danseur, Cambridge Opera Journal 19:1 (2007): 33-57. 3. Stephen Johnson, Gender Trumps Race? Cross-Dressing Juba in Early Blackface Minstrelsy, in When Men Dance: Choreographing Masculinities across Borders (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009): 220-47. 4. Libretto for Swan Lake in Roland John Wiley, Tchaikovskys Ballets: Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985): 321-27. 5. Lynn Garafola, Reconfiguring the Sexes, in The Ballets Russes and its World, ed. Lynn Garafola and Nancy Van Norman Baer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999): 245-68. 6. Penny Farfan, Man as Beast: Nijinskys Faun, South Central Review 25: 1 (Spring 2008): 74-92. 7. Susan Manning, Metaphorical Minstrely II: Ted Shawns Negro Spirituals, 193340 and A Queer Left: New Dance League Presents Men in the Dance, 1935-36, in Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004): 20-29, 75-83 8. Thomas DeFrantz, Being Savion Glover: Black Masculinity, Translocation and Tap Dance, Discourses in Dance 1: 1 (2002): 17-28. 9. Brett Farmer, Fantasmatic Escapades: Gay Spectatorships and Queer Negotiations of the Hollywood Musical, in Spectacular Passions: Cinema, Fantasy, Gay Male Spectatorship (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2000): 68-109. 10. Andreana Clay, Working Day and Night: Black Masculinity and the King of Pop, Journal of Popular Music Studies 23: 1 (2011): 3-18.