5/14: Doran George

Please join us at our next Chew on This
Tuesday, May 14 at 12pm
Kaufman Conference room

DORAN GEORGE

Tearing down The Final Curtain: Performing Communities of Radical Pleasure.

My editorial for the last of Britain’s Dance Theatre Journal focuses upon the influence of sex radical culture on performance and dance in San Francisco. I argue that prudish art praxis became so entrenched throughout the 20th century that working with sex takes labor, and erotic performance and dance struggle to achieve the status of art. Yet independent alternative sexual practice is crucial for performance now that state and commercial interests have appropriated feminist and queer representational strategies. Critical attention to the Bay Area sex/art community is important because as alternative sexual practice has appeared to enter the mainstream, patriarchal heterosexual ideals have replaced rank and file critical cultures. In broad strokes I compare key influences in San Francisco with emphases in London dance performance that impose a chaste culture. Yet I suggest that if sexual experimentation is seen as a queering of the pioneer narrative, complex racial and national discourses that cut across California are erased.

Doran George is a scholar and artist completing a doctorate on ‘Somatics’ in contemporary dance. His scholarship is published in dance, film, and art journals including chapters in forthcoming Oxford University press volumes, and his artist’s images and writing is found in art publications. Doran has chaired academic conferences, presented symposia, as well as programmed performance, all with a focus on identity deconstruction. He has been funded as an artist by: L.A. Cultural Affairs, London Arts Board, Arts Council of England, British Council, Finnish Arts Council and others. Doran has danced for various choreographers, works as a professional mentor, and leads participatory projects such as working with people diagnosed with terminal illness and those experiencing bereavement. He teaches in art colleges, universities and professional arts contexts in Europe and the US. Doran trained at the European Dance Development Center (NL) and completed a Feminist Performance MA at Bristol University (U.K.)

NEXT Chew on This

Tuesday, 5/21: Sharna Fabiano
Conference room

Friday, 5/24: Laurel Tentindo and Kevin Williamson
Room 200