17572

Witch Dances

Lindsey Drury

Comments

This seminar explores how a literary history of “witch dances” has informed dance narration of embodiment, gender violence, and ideations of alterity. We begin with the modern classic Caliban and the Witch, in which Sylvia Federici built a transatlantic, Marxist history that tied colonial oppression of Indigenous peoples to religious oppression of women in late-medieval Europe. The witch, she argued, is a repeating trope wielded over centuries by colonial and church authorities against the body sovereignty of the lowest classes and local systems of care, including medicinal practices, midwifery, and sacred and ceremonial rites. As the seminar continues, we go through the record, critically analysing the trope of the “witch dance” over the centuries. We move from the paranoid, bombastic, and sexually explicit witch treatises of the late-medieval and early modern periods, through colonial condemnations of Indigenous performance and dance practices as acts of “witchcraft”, into the “witch dances” of Ausdruckstanz artists that drew on European-historical materials, and the experimental dance and performance scene that emerged among “wiccan” and neo-pagan movements of 1970s California feminists and Queer artist communities. Our work will consistently inquire how dance makers continue to interact with the trope of the “witch dance”, especially in explorations of alterity and persecution. Our work on “witch dances” will bring up questions of time and history and investigate the ways that dancers have (in the past) and do (at present) interact with coloniality, misogyny, and the commodification of bodies through the “witch dance” trope. close

16 Class schedule

Regular appointments

Tue, 12:00 - 14:00 16 Class schedule

Tue, 2025-10-14 12:00 - 14:00

Lecturers:
Lindsey Drury