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Allegories of Passing in Bill T. Jones

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2012

Randy Martin
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As we move we change. How could it be otherwise? The direction and consequence of change is far from assured. Dance inscribes movement in the world as a practical accomplishment. It legibly affirms, even if ephemerally, fleetingly, that some immediate difference has been made when the outcome of movement in life might still be in doubt. As a means for registering what movement can be, dance shows us how we pass from one state to another. It does this literally, as bodies configure their realms of space and time, and allegorically, as a touchstone to what it means to be passing through this world. Dance reports on the art of passing, telling us how to dwell amongst so many departures and arrivals. It also instructs us in passing as self-representation, convincing us in performance that it is dancers we see. Such a lovely tale, this. Yet in a nation of immigrants, all are compelled to move, but not all get to pass. Those who lived by the land were evicted in the name of property. Those who were designated property were affixed to the land in bondage. Others worked off their debts of passage. Still more were promised mobility from migration.

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , Winter 2008 , pp. 74 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2008

References

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