The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen

This anthology offers contemporary perspectives on dance in the context of the popular screen. It analyzes the role played by the dancing body in popular culture and its multi-layered meanings in film, television, music videos, video games, commercials, and Internet sites such as YouTube. It explores how dance and choreography function within the filmic apparatus, and how the narrative, dancing bodies, and/or dance style set in motion multiple choreographies of identity such as race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation. It also considers the types of bodies that are associated with specific dances and their relation to power, access, and agency, as well as the role(s) of a specific film in the genealogy of Hollywood dance films. The book is divided into five sections that examine dance in films such asMoulin Rouge!, Dance Girl Dance, Dirty Dancing, and Save the Last Dance; the different aspects of commercial dance films in the context of identity politics, technology, commercialism, and the politics of moving bodies; how dance and its practice are constructed in films as a form of self-discovery and individual expression; the impact of music videos on popular dance and its dissemination; and how dance video games such as Dance Central influence concepts of choreography, embodiment, and dance pedagogy.