ABSTRACT
Press, 1993 Dance studies have a complex relationship to women’s studies and the field of feminist scholarship. Of all the fine arts, dance is the one in which women are most central as leading creators and participants, and as figures of representation. Consequently, historical and aesthetic studies in dance have often examined individual women’s lives or emphasized the aesthetic dimensions of feminized attributes, such as beauty and grace. This traditional gendering of research has been reinforced by the mind/body dualism conventionally attributed, on the one hand (mind), to the intellectual functions of analysis and criticism, and on the other (body), to the corporeal activity of dancing. Feminist and poststructuralist approaches to knowledge have modified this terrain, and dance studies has recently become a significant focus for academic research.
