{"id":134,"date":"2017-05-09T07:56:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T07:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/?p=134"},"modified":"2018-10-11T10:13:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T14:13:50","slug":"spotlight-on-two-emerging-dance-scholars-jackie-kosoff-and-jamelaih-cunningham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/2017\/05\/09\/spotlight-on-two-emerging-dance-scholars-jackie-kosoff-and-jamelaih-cunningham\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight on Two Emerging Dance Scholars \u2013 Jackie Kosoff and Jamelaih Cunningham"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

[On\u00a0April 28, 2017,<\/strong>\u00a0two senior Dance majors,\u00a0Jackie Kosoff<\/strong>\u00a0(mentored by Dr. Neil Baldwin), and\u00a0Jamelaih Cunningham<\/strong>\u00a0(mentored by Dr. Elizabeth McPherson), presented papers at\u00a0Session A\u00a0<\/em>of the\u00a0Montclair State University Student Research Symposium<\/strong>:\u00a0Gender Images and Political Commentary in Arts and Media<\/em>. The Creative Research Center www.montclair.edu\/creativeresearch is delighted to publish the two essays herewith.]<\/p>\n

\n

The Intersectionality of Feminism and Dance<\/em>, by Jackie Kosoff<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am a twenty-two year old, Caucasian, working-class woman from South Central Pennsylvania who is currently studying dance in college. I introduce myself with these labels as an explanation of where I come from causing me to see the world the way I do, integral to the\u00a0standpoint feminism theory.<\/strong>\u00a0 I grew up surrounded by sisters and a strong, divorced mother which was part of my early belief that I was a feminist, although now I know I had nearly no understanding of the full weight of that word. My lived experience as a dancer and woman has strengthened my understanding and role in feminism as it pertains to the vital concept of\u00a0intersectionality<\/strong>, \u201cthe interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

This term, created by civil rights activist and scholar Kimberle Crenshaw, is often used in tandem with feminism. Crenshaw elaborates upon the necessity of intersectionality in her work,\u00a0Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity, Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color<\/em>: \u201cIt highlights the need to account for multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have grown to realize the interconnected nature of my own social categorizations and identities through my lived experience as a dancer and feminist. I started studying dance seriously at the age of sixteen when I attended an arts high school in inner-city Harrisburg in 2011. I danced, learned, and created with students of different races, cultures, and socioeconomic standings. I began not only to understand the way people other than myself viewed the world, but also the way the world made them feel.<\/p>\n

I entered Montclair State University as a freshman dance major in the fall of 2013. College influenced me as a student, dancer, artist, and woman as I continued to experience people who were different than myself as we got to know each other by communicating nonverbally with the art of dance. I started to understand that my feeling of my classmates\u2019 oppressions and struggles that I did not personally face had a name: empathy. In that regard, the recent study \u201cEngagement in dance is associated with emotional competence in interplay with others\u201d by a team of Swedish dance scholars points out that \u201cDance is a fundamental form of human emotional expression \u2026 Dance activity and training seems to be involved in the body\u2019s emotional interplay with others. There\u2019s a more developed awareness of emotional processing and higher ability to interpret the emotions others in dancers than in non-dancers.\u201d I also grew as a \u201cthinking dancer,\u201d in that I became more knowledgeable and articulate about my art.<\/p>\n

I took part for the past three years in a highly-selective workshop seminar for dance majors,\u00a0Danceaturgy,<\/em>\u00a0where we conceptualized what we physicalized by writing, speaking, and advocating for our art form. I began studying the Limon technique of modern dance in the 2015-2016 school year and this way of movement led me to change not only how I move but also how I approach dance on a personal and emotional level. The sensitivity of the technique allowed me to become a more open mover and person.<\/p>\n

This deeply rooted connection was the breakthrough of intersectionality in my life. I felt a strengthening in my artistic voice as a\u00a0dancer<\/strong>, I also felt a strengthening in my\u00a0political<\/strong>\u00a0voice. My growth was blurring lines between the different parts of my life and bringing them together. \u00a02016 was also the first year I was eligible to vote in an election and took the opportunity to do so, as I felt that my singular voice was necessary. Pertinent to my political voice is the article \u201cIntersectionality and Feminist Politics<\/em>\u201d by scholar Nira Yuval-Davis, who mentions Radhika Coomaraswamy, a special rapporteur of the UN Secretariat on violence against women. Coomaraswamy spoke at the World Conference Against Racism where \u201cthe term \u2018intersectionality\u2019 had become tremendously popular and was used in various UN \u2026 forums.\u201d This subsequently led to the 58th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, where the resolution on the human rights of women stated in its first paragraph that it \u2018recognized the importance of examining the intersection of multiple forms of discrimination, including their root causes from a gender perspective. \u2018(Resolution E\/CN.4\/2002\/L.59)\u201d \u00a0I realized that, for me, intersectionality within politics allows for an evolution that crosses boundaries of social locations and identities.<\/p>\n

During this past school year, I performed in a new work by Christian von Howard which centers on a coven of five witches, entitled\u00a0to the teeth<\/em>. Not only did the piece investigate the mysticism of darkness, it specifically focused on a group of powerful women. This choreography and theme allowed me to explore the power I have as a woman, even in a mystical and fictional sense while articulating it through my movement and performance.<\/p>\n

When I look back now, as a senior, on my\u00a0journey of intersectionality<\/strong>, one of my first memories from college was taking a freshman level writing course and tentatively raising my hand to the question \u201cWho here is a feminist?\u201d Very few others around me did the same. This question played an important early role in establishing the interconnectedness of dance and feminism for me. Scholar Anthea Kraut articulates the unity of dance with feminism in\u00a0Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender, and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance:\u00a0<\/em>when she says, so powerfully, that\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u201c\u2026 gender never functions in isolation from other axes of difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citations<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bojner Horwitz, E., Lennartsson, A. K., Theorell, T. P., & Ullen, F. (2015) Engagement in dance is associated with emotional competence in interplay with others.\u00a0Frontiers in Psychology, 6,\u00a0<\/em>1096.<\/p>\n

Crenshaw, Kimberle. \u201cMapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.\u201d\u00a0Stanford Law Review<\/em>\u00a043.6 (1991): 1241. Web.<\/p>\n

Kraut, Anthea.\u00a0Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender, and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance<\/em>. Oxford, UK: Oxford UP, 2016. Print.<\/p>\n

Yuval-Davis, N. \u201cIntersectionality and Feminist Politics.\u201d\u00a0European Journal of Women\u2019s Studies<\/em>\u00a013.3 (2006): 193-209. Web.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[On\u00a0April 28, 2017,\u00a0two senior Dance majors,\u00a0Jackie Kosoff\u00a0(mentored by Dr. Neil Baldwin), and\u00a0Jamelaih Cunningham\u00a0(mentored by Dr. Elizabeth McPherson), presented papers at\u00a0Session A\u00a0of the\u00a0Montclair State University Student Research Symposium:\u00a0Gender Images and Political Commentary in Arts and Media. The Creative Research Center www.montclair.edu\/creativeresearch is delighted to publish the two essays herewith.] The Intersectionality of Feminism and Dance, by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-research-center-guest-essay","tag-guest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":812,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}