Part I Education | Schooling Masculinity in Dance Education and Training
2 Understanding the Community College Male Dance Experience
Valerie Alpert
3 Generalist Elementary Male Teachers Advocating for Dance and Male Dancers
Peter Cook
4 Listening to Why Boys (Don’t) Dance: Creating Inclusive Dance Experiences for Boys
Helen Keane
5 Boys and Men Negotiating Dance, Masculinity, and Sexuality
Andria Christofidou
Part II Culture | Gendering Dance Participation, Performance, and Pedagogy
6 Parental Perspectives on Their Sons’ Motivations to Dance
Lucie Clements and Helen Clegg
7 Masculinities and Performativities in Native American Dance
Robin Prichard
8 Dancing Between Queer Failure and Participatory Pedagogy
Hamish McIntosh and Ralph Buck
9 How Do Dance Organizations Market Dancing to Boys and Men?
Craig Owen and Vicki Harman
10 Fear, Coping, and Peer Support in Male Dance Students’ Reflections
Kai Lehikoinen and Isto Turpeinen
Part III Identity | Moving Identities in Dancing Bodies
11 A Course on Movement Enhancement Skills for Men
Vincent Thomas
12 Black Bodies Dancing Defiance: Deez Nuts!
C. Kemal Nance
13 Pink Feathers: The Ballet Closet and Three Gay Remakes of Swan Lake
Joseph Mercier
14 Hypermasculinity Makes the Queer Boy Faint
Anthony Alterio
15 Dancing a Love/Hate Relationship: A Case Study on Lingering Aspirations
Doug Risner and Hannah Andersen
Afterword Jennifer McNamara
Index
Doug Risner is Professor of Dance and Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Wayne State University, and conducts research on the sociology of dance education, gender in dance, and humanizing dance pedagogies. His books include Stigma & Perseverance in the Lives of Boys Who Dance (2009); Hybrid Lives of Teaching Artists in Dance and Theatre Arts (2014); Dance & Gender: An Evidence-Based Approach (2017 ); and Ethical Dilemmas in Dance Education (2020) which in 2021 received the Susan W. Stinson Book Award for Dance Education and the NDEO | Ruth Lovell Murray Book Award.
Beccy Watson is Reader in the Carnegie School of Sport, Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her research focuses on feminist/critical epistemologies, social inequalities and intersections across leisure, sport and dance contexts. She is a co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure and Physical Recreation (2018).
This unparalleled collection, international and innovative in scope, analyzes the dynamic tensions between masculinity and dance. Introducing a lens of intersectionality, the book’s content examines why, despite burgeoning popular and contemporary representations of a normalization of dancing masculinities, some boys don’t dance and why many of those who do struggle to stay involved. Prominent themes of identity, masculinity, and intersectionality weave throughout the book’s conceptual frameworks of education and schooling, cultures, and identities in dance. Incorporating empirical studies, qualitative inquiry, and reflexive accounts, Doug Risner and Beccy Watson have assembled a unique volume of original chapters from established scholars and emerging voices to inform the future direction of interdisciplinary dance scholarship and dance education research. The book’s scope spans several related disciplines including gender studies, queer studies, cultural studies, performance studies, and sociology. The volume will appeal to dancers, educators, researchers, scholars, students, parents, and caregivers of boys who dance. Accessible at multiple levels, the content is relevant for undergraduate students across dance, dance education, and movement science, and graduate students forging new analysis of dance, pedagogy, gender theory, and teaching praxis.
Doug Risner is Professor of Dance and Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Wayne State University, and conducts research on the sociology of dance education, gender in dance, and humanizing dance pedagogies. His books include Stigma & Perseverance in the Lives of Boys Who Dance (2009); Hybrid Lives of Teaching Artists in Dance and Theatre Arts (2014); Dance & Gender: An Evidence-Based Approach (2017 ); and Ethical Dilemmas in Dance Education (2020) which in 2021 received the Susan W. Stinson Book Award for Dance Education and the NDEO | Ruth Lovell Murray Book Award.
Beccy Watson is Reader in the Carnegie School of Sport, Leeds Beckett University, UK. Her research focuses on feminist/critical epistemologies, social inequalities and intersections across leisure, sport and dance contexts. She is a co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Feminism and Sport, Leisure and Physical Recreation (2018).