Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T07:21:51.635Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

CORD Awards Panel 2014: “Celebrating the Scholarship of Deidre Sklar—Can Sklar-Lore Be Brought to Its Senses?”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2015

Extract

I am both honored and humbled to comment about the impact of Deidre Sklar's work on my research and teaching. More than anything, I consider Dr. Deidre Sklar a kind of dance ethnology big sister. I first learned of her when I was a student at the University of California Los Angeles's (UCLA) internationally recognized former dance ethnology program, where Deidre had attended nearly a decade before me. Those of us who went through this unique and intensive program often felt as if we knew each other, even if we had never met. The program was a kind of nation of black sheep; we were kindred spirits in our love and participation of different kinds of global movement practices at a time when ballet and modern dance were exclusively the norm. Also, our mentors, Allegra Fuller Snyder and Elsie Ivancich Dunin, made it a point to share the distinctive investigations of our predecessors. So I think it was in this context that I first learned of Deidre. Over the years, I recall short but poignant conversations with her which left me pondering for months afterwards. Some of our fleeting encounters occurred in the bustling dark hallway of an American Anthropology Association (AAA) conference hotel in San Francisco, taking in the arid air outside of the Cross-Cultural Dance Resources (CCDR) meeting space in Flagstaff, or smelling fire-baked tortillas and hearing cocoon rattles as we stood observing the awe-inspiring Yaqui Easter ceremony in Tucson. As a newbie dance ethnologist in those years, I found Deidre's strong, direct ways, her laser sharp insights, thought provoking questions, and bold comments somewhat intimidating—all features I have grown to admire and value now.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Miriam Phillips 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Davida, Dena, Ed. 2011. Fields in Motion: Ethnography in the Worlds of Dance. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.Google Scholar
Ness, Sally Ann. 1992. Body, Movement, and Culture: Kinesthetic and Visual Symbolism in a Philippine Community. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Novack, Cynthia J. 1990. Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Miriam (Sarada Phillips, Miriam). 1991. “Both Sides of the Veil: A Comparative Analysis of Kathak and Flamenco Dance.” Graduate thesis, University of California at Los Angeles—Dance.Google Scholar
Phillips, Miriam. 2012. “D'mba Lost and Found: The Discovery, Destruction, Construction and Reconstruction of Baga Masked Dance in Traditional Villages of Guinea, West Africa.” In Dance, Gender and Meanings/Contemporizing Traditional Dance, edited by Dunin, Elsie Ivancich, Stavělová, Daniela, Gremlincová, Dorota, 179186. Prague: Academy of Performing Arts in Prague Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, Miriam. 2013. “Becoming the Floor/Breaking the Floor: Experiencing the Kathak-Flamenco Connection.” Ethnomusicology 57(3): 396427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, Miriam. 2014. “Beauty and the Beast: The San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival's Global Stage.” In Dance, Place, Festival, edited by Ivancich Dunin, Elsie and , Catherine , E. Foley, 271277. Limerick, Ireland: Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick.Google Scholar
Phillips, Miriam. Forthcoming. “Omnipresent D'mba: Celebrating Female Grace and Ancestral Memory in Baga Performance.” In Dancing with D'mba: Icon of Beauty and Power in West Africa, edited by Lamp, Frederick J.. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 1983. “Decroux and Prometheus: Applying the Dance Ethnology Model to a Contemporary Artist.” Graduate thesis, University of California, Los Angeles—Dance.Google Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 1991. “On Dance Ethnography.” Dance Research Journal 23(1): 610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 1994. “Can Bodylore Be Brought to Its Senses?Journal of American Folklore 107(423): 922.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 2000. “Reprise: On Dance Ethnography.” Dance Research Journal 32(1): 7077.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 2001a. Dancing with the Virgin: Body and Faith in the Fiesta of Tortugas, New Mexico. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 2001b. “Five Premises for a Culturally Sensitive Approach to Dance.” In Moving History/Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader , edited by Dils, Ann and Cooper Albright, Ann, 3032. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Sklar, Deidre. 2008. “Remembering Kinesthesia: An Inquiry into Embodied Cultural Knowledge.” In Migrations of Gesture, edited by Noland, Carrie and Ann Ness, Sally, 85111. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar