Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T13:31:59.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Choreographic Interface: Dancing Facial Expression in Hip-Hop and Neo-Burlesque Striptease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2014

Sherril Dodds
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the face possesses potent social and symbolic meaning, the “dancing face” is rarely addressed in dance scholarship. In spite of its neglect, the face participates choreographically in the realization of aesthetic codes and embodied conventions that pertain to different dance styles and genres. I therefore turn to Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's (1987) theory of “faciality” to understand the semiotic coding of the face in relation to the Busby Berkeley chorus girl. Although their work offers an important critique of universalist theorizations of facial expression, I argue that “facial choreography” offers scope to dismantle the legibility of the face that is produced through the overcoded “abstract machine of faciality.” To do so, I introduce the concept of a “choreographic interface” to explore how facial expression enters into a choreographic relationship with other faces and bodily territories. With this in mind, I explore two dancing bodies that engage the face in ways that complicate existing modalities of facial expression. I analyze a hip-hop battle and a neo-burlesque striptease number to show how the mobility and ambiguity of facial choreography opens a dialogic space through which meaning is generated and social and political critique take place.

Keywords

Busby Berkeleychoreographic interfaceDeleuze and Guattarifacial expressionfacialityhip-hopneo-burlesque striptease
Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 46 , Issue 2: Body Parts: Pelvis, Feet, Face, Hips, Legs, Toes, and Teeth , August 2014 , pp. 39 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2014 

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

Adair, C. 1992. Women and Dance: Sylphs and Sirens. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Auslander, P. 2006. “Musical Personae.” The Drama Review 50(1): 100–19.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. 1962, 1975. How to Do Things with Words. 2nd ed. Edited by Urmson, J. O. and Sbisà, M.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M. 1984. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Isowolsky, Hélène. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Barthes, R. 1973. Mythologies. London, UK: Paladin.Google Scholar
Brannigan, E. 2011. Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brophy, J. 1946. The Human Face. New York: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Burt, R. 1995. The Male Dancer: Bodies, Spectacle, Sexualities. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Butler, J. 1999. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Byun, M., and Badler, N.. 2002. “FacEMOTE: Qualitative Parametric Modifiers for Facial Animations.” Presented at the Symposium on Computer Animation, San Antonio, TX, 65–71. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.337.8803&rep=rep1&type=pdf.Google Scholar
Caughie, J., and Kuhn, A.. 1992. The Sexual Subject: A Screen Reader in Sexuality. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Coates, P. 2012. Screening the Face. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Cushman, E. 2005. “Faces, Skins, and the Identity Politics of Rereading Race.” Rhetoric Review 24(4): 389–95.Google Scholar
Daly, A. 1988. “Movement Analysis: Piecing Together the Puzzle.” The Drama Review 32(4): 40–52.Google Scholar
“Dames (1934)—Title Musical Sequence.” N.d. YouTube [online]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akET7aP01_8 (accessed June 7, 2013).Google Scholar
Darlinda Just Darlinda. N.d. Darlinda Just Darlinda Web site. http://darlindajustdarlinda.com/.Google Scholar
Darlinda Just Darlinda. 2013. “Feminist Neo-Burlesque Speech from 10/26/07.” http://darlindajustdarlinda.com/darlinda-just-darlinda-bio-and-press/feminist-neo-burlesque-speech-from-102607/ (accessed March 7, 2013).Google Scholar
Darwin, C. 1872, 1998. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. 3rd ed.London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Davies, V. A. 2007. “Creative Endurance and the Face Machine: RoseAnne Spradlin's Survive Cycle.” The Drama Review 51(3):156–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deleuze, G. 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement Image. Translated by Tomlinson, H. and Habberjam, B.. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Deleuze, G., and Guattari, F.. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Dimitriadis, G. 2012. “Hip-Hop: From Live Performance to Mediated Narrative.” In That's the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, 2nd ed., edited by Forman, M. and Neal, M. A., 580–94. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dodds, S. 1997. “Dance and Erotica: The Construction of the Female Stripper.” In Dance in the City, edited by Thomas, H., 218–33. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Dodds, S. 2011. Dancing on the Canon: Embodiments of Value in Popular Dance. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekman, P., and Rosenberg, E., editors. 1997. What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Farnell, B. 1999. “Moving Bodies, Acting Selves.” Annual Review of Anthropology 28: 341–73.Google Scholar
Feder, A. 1994. “‘A Radiant Smile for the Lovely Lady’: Overdetermined Femininity in ‘Ladies’ Figure Skating.” The Drama Review 38(1): 62–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foley, B. 2005. Undressed for Success: Beauty Contestants and Exotic Dancers as Merchants of Morality. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foster, S. 1986. Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Frank, M., Ekman, P., and Friesen, W.. 1997. “Behavioral Markers and Recognizability of the Smile of Enjoyment.” In What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), edited by Ekman, P. and Rosenberg, E., 217–38. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Franko, M. 2002. The Work of Dance: Labor, Movement and Identity in the 1930s. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Gosselin, P., Kirouac, G., and Doré, F.. 1997. “Components and Recognition of Facial Expression in the Communication of Emotion by Actors.” In What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), edited by Ekman, P. and Rosenberg, E., 243–67. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hanna, J. L. 2011. Naked Truth: Strip Clubs, Democracy and a Christian Right. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Hejmadi, A., Davidson, R., and Rozin, P.. 2000. “Exploring Hindu Indian Emotion Expression: Evidence for Accurate Recognition by Americans and Indians.” Psychological Science 11(3): 183–7.Google Scholar
Kesner, L. 2007. “Face as Artifact in Early Chinese Art.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 51: 33–56.Google Scholar
Kirstein, L. 1983. “Classical Ballet: Aria of the Aerial.” In What Is Dance?, edited by Copeland, R. and Cohen, M., 238–43. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kracauer, S. 1963, 1995. The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. Translated by Levin, Thomas Y.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lepecki, A. 2007. “Machines, Dances, Neurons: Towards an Ethics of Dance.” The Drama Review 51(3): 119–23.Google Scholar
Liepe-Levinson, K. 2002. Strip-Show: Performances of Gender and Desire. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Loh, M. 2009. “Renaissance Faciality.” Oxford Art Journal 32(3): 341–63.Google Scholar
Lott, E. 1993. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Magli, P. 1989. “The Face and the Soul.” In Fragments for a History of the Human Body: Part Two, edited by Feher, M., 87–127. New York: Zone.Google Scholar
Mair, M. 1975. “What Do Faces Mean?” Royal Anthropological Institute News 9: 1–6.Google Scholar
McNeill, D. 1998. The Face: A Natural History. Boston: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Mellencamp, P. 2002. “Sexual Economics: ‘Gold Diggers of 1933’.” In Hollywood Musicals: The Film Reader, edited by Cohan, S., 65–76. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mules, W. 2010. “This Face: A Critique of Faciality as Mediated Self-Presence.” Transformations 18. http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_18/editorial.shtml.Google Scholar
Mulvey, L. 1989. Visual and Other Pleasures. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Osumare, H. 2007. Power Moves: The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Pelachaud, C., Badler, N., and Steedman, M.. 1991. “Linguistic Issues in Facial Animation.” Computer Animation, Geneva, Switzerland, June. http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=hms.Google Scholar
Pelachaud, C., Badler, N., and Steedman, M.. 1996. “Generating Facial Expressions for Speech.” Cognitive Science 20(1): 1–46.Google Scholar
Rameau, P. 1728. The Dancing Master, or The Art of Dancing Explained. London: P. Rameau.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, E. 1997. “Introduction: The Study of Spontaneous Facial Expression in Psychology.” In What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), edited by Ekman, P. and Rosenberg, E., 3–20. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rushton, R. 2002. “What Can a Face Do? On Deleuze and Faces.” Cultural Critique 51: 219–37.Google Scholar
Schechner, R. 1988. Performance Theory. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Schininá, G. 2004. “Here We Are: Social Theatre and Some Open Questions about Its Developments.” The Drama Review 48(3): 17–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sklar, D. 1991. “On Dance Ethnography”. Dance Research Journal 23(1): 6–10.Google Scholar
Stokes, A. 1983. “The Classical Ballet.” In What Is Dance?, edited by Copeland, R. and Cohen, M.. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vigarello, G. 1989. “The Upward Training of the Body from the Age of Chivalry to Courtly Civility.” In Fragments for a History of the Human Body: Part Two, edited by Feher, M., 149–99. New York: Zone.Google Scholar
Volinsky, A. K. 1983. “The Vertical: The Fundamental Principle of Classical Dance.” In What Is Dance?, edited by Copeland, R. and Cohen, M., 255–7. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Waksman, S. 1999. Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar