Lecture: The History of Staging Dance with Anthony Shay

⁠About the Lecture:  
The History of Staging Dance 
The staging of folk dance and traditional dance, like much of the world, began in the 1930s. In this presentation I will address such questions as how at began and with whom, and its further development beginning in the 1950s with the founding of the two national ensembles under the influence of the success of the Moiseyev Dance Company. In addition, I will address its beginnings in the United States. The reason to address staged dance is that this is the form in which most people experience it.

⁠

Bio:⁠⠀⁠⠀⁠⠀⁠
Anthony Shay is professor of Dance and Cultural Studies in the Theatre and Dance Department of Pomona College, Claremont, CA. He is the author of seven monographs, and author or co-author of four volumes, the latest (with Barbara Sellers-Young), the Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity (2016). He authored two recent monographs, The Dangerous Lives of Public Entertainers: Dance, Sex, and Entertainment in the Middle East (2014) and Ethno Identity Dances for Sex, Fun, and Profit: Staging Popular Dances Around the World (2016). His latest book is The Moiseyev Dance Company: Dancing Diplomats (Intellect Books, in press 2018). He has recently lectured on “What is Music? What is Popular Persian Music?” at Yale University, First Symposium on Persian Popular Music, January 27, 2018, and “The History of Staged Folk Dance” at Siamsa Tire, the Irish National Folk Theatre, Tralee, Ireland, May 11, 2018. He was founder and artistic director and choreographer of the AMAN Folk Ensemble and the AVAZ International Dance Theatre during which he created over 200 choreographers. He received several NEA choreographic fellowships, California Arts Council Lifetime Achievement Award, and a James Irvine Choreography Fellow.

Learn more about Anthony Shay on the Pomona Website