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Ownership and Imitation: White Supremacy in America’s Cakewalk and the Erasure of Black Artistry


Music Division, The New York Public Library. “Drake’s cake walk” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1909.

Student Name:
Madeleine Wood

Project Link:
https://mediathread.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/s/CUdnce3985/project/41056

Statement:  The following project explores the political, social and cultural threads found within the cakewalk that proposes an alternative history to dance and race. The erasure of blackness as a result of whiteness complicates the reality for contemporary race relations found in today’s racial climate. Does dance provide us another way to study race in America? Using Ted Shawn’s Dances of the Ages and images found in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Special Collections, I seek to understand the hazy terrain where respectability seems to end. As white becomes black and high becomes low, somewhere buried under choreography exists a history, a structural and informative account of how America deals with race.

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Redefining Dimensions of Femininity: Agency in Anna Pavlova’s Cultivated Persona


George Arents Collection, The New York Public Library. “Anna Pavlova.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

Student Name:
Nadia Halim

Project Link:
https://mediathread.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/s/CUdnce3985/project/40993

Statement: The growth of digital humanities research in the field of dance reframes analytical approaches to viewing and understanding dance by incorporating visual argumentation. As a tactile art form, choreographic work lends itself to the nature of visual juxtapositions and media manipulation in visually directed arguments. Through conducting archival research at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts as well as in-depth visual analysis of Anna Pavlova’s filmed performances at the Museum of Modern Art, my own written arguments contextualizing Pavlova’s sociohistorical and art historical influences found root in actual images and film. This course, Digital Footprints, traces dance history for the modern scholar.

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Influence and Adaptation: A digital exploration of Ted Shawn’s Dances of the Ages


Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. “Ted Shawn in Egyptian Ballet.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1915.

Student Name:
Sophia Pellegrom

Project Link:
https://mediathread.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/s/CUdnce3985/project/40866

Statement:  When choosing a final research topic for this course, I was determined to give an argument almost completely through visual digital media without relying on a written supplement. I have previously had trouble with written dance research, criticism, and analysis because of an underlying belief that dance often speaks for itself and should not need to be translated into written word for it to be analyzed legitimately. The ideas of movement translation and influence have always been interesting to me but, again, difficult to explore through written word. Why translate both movements into written word to compare when you can simply watch them juxtaposed side by side? This class and the technology we used made this research a possibility. Throughout the process my burgeoning thoughts about academic dance having the capability to exist without written word were validated and were inspiring to think about the digital future of dance and dance research.

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Discovery of Physical Beauty & Masculinity in Ted Shawn’s Male Dancer


Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. “Ted Shawn in Death of Adonis.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1923.

Student Name:
Kosta Karakashyan

Project Link:
https://mediathread.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/s/CUdnce3985/project/41064

Statement:  The course gave me the opportunity to spend time with important dance works from the past and really understand the contributions that Ted Shawn, Anna Pavlova and Loie Fuller have had on dance today. Aside from deepening my historical knowledge and analytical skills, I think the course inspired me creatively, empowering me to look for influences, understand other artists better and develop dance projects that can digitally pay homage to these very classical, physical works.

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Anna Pavlova, the Embodiment of the Past and the Future


Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. “Anna Pavlova in Russian dress” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1910.

Student Name:
Halima Mossi

Project Link:
https://mediathread.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/s/CUdnce3985/project/40754 

Statement:  I argue that Anna Pavlova took ballet from an imperial, restrictive Russia and made it a global, accessible phenomenon. She transformed ballet into a freeing, lively style, adapting it to reflect 20th century aspirations and innovations. This course has taught me to think creatively and consciously about how best to represent dance in scholarly projects. Embedding photos and video into my composition enhanced my argument on Pavlova, in that it brought her energy and enthusiasm to share dance with as many people as possible to life. Pavlova is a great subject to integrate new digital technology with because she focused on adapting ballet to suit the new technologies, like film, in her era.

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Serpentine Dance: A Restoration and Visualization of the Technique and Choreography of the Body


Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. “Two images of Loie Fuller dancing in a white costume.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1895.

Student Name:
Kennedy Thomas

Project Link:
https://mediathread.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/s/CUdnce3985/project/40874 

Statement:  Throughout my project I continued to ask myself what could I achieve with technology that I couldn’t accomplish through conventional research methods. Thus, I went about my project from a creative lens, hoping to gain a better understanding of Loïe Fuller and how she fits into the modern dance canon through traditional and archival research as well as through my own choreographic analysis. Being able to juxtapose and superimpose images and videos in real time enabled me to deepen my understanding about how I was understanding and interpreting what I saw on screen. Not only was I making an oral, written argument, but I had to continually think about how my visual evidence shaped narratives and formed arguments in their own right. This added dimension ultimately enabled me the ability to delve into my material with a critical lens that would not be possible using traditional research methods.

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Anna Pavlova’s Relationship with Classical Ballet Technique


Student Name:
Lexa Armstrong

Project Link:
https://mediathread.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/s/CUdnce3985/project/41048

Statement:  Looking at 20th-century ballerina Anna Pavlova’s pointe shoes at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts sparked my curiosity around the ethereal nature she embodied in such narrow, light, and supple shoes. I began to analyze a variety of visual depictions of Pavlova, from lithographs and other artistic renderings, to still photographs created in portrait studios, to moving images of her dancing. By comparing these images to some of her contemporaries and predecessors in the field, I recognized Pavlova’s creation of a unique technical aesthetic in classical ballet, and how not adopting certain expectations allowed her to rise to the level of recognition and fame she still enjoys today. This in-depth analysis would be possible without digitization and the tool of juxtaposition. The ability to “zoom in” on digitized images, not just figuratively but literally, fueled my continued study of her relationship with traditional ballet technique.