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by ALYSSA BOYER
Intern Lifestyles Reporter
To award-winning author and performer Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, dance is more than just an art form. It’s a way of life.
“I like to say that I am a thinking body and a dancing mind,” Dixon-Gottschild said. “I hope that my words have enough life and movement in them that they actually dance on the page, even though it’s research.”
Dixon-Gottschild is a senior consultant and writer for Dance Magazine and taught dance at Temple University for many years.
 Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, author of "The Black Dancing Body - A Geography from Coon to Cool," will be at Appalachian State University Tuesday to give a lecture at 7 p.m. in 114 or Belk Library & Information Commons. Photo Hellmut Gottschild
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Her research has
earned her a plethora of prestigious awards, including the Congress on
Research in Dance Award for Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research in
2008.
In 2004,
she received the de la Torre Bueno Prize for scholarly excellence in
dance publication after writing “The Black Dancing Body–A Geography
from Coon to Cool.”
Tuesday, Dixon-Gottschild will be at Appalachian State University.
She will
give a lecture, “Researching Performance: The Black Dancing Body as a
Measure of Culture” at 7 p.m. in 114 of Belk Library & Information
Commons.
Students
are invited to the Valborg Theater at 9 a.m. Wednesday to participate
in a discussion on the relationship between dancing, choreographing and
writing and reading history.
At 2 p.m., a book reading and signing will take place in the University Bookstore.
The
arrangements for Dixon-Gottschild’s visit were made by Ray F. Miller,
theater and dance professor, with funding provided by the Office of
Arts and Cultural Programs.
“We’re
excited about it because the funding that they’re giving us is to bring
somebody in that will not only enhance the [dance] program, but will
allow us to engage the university in a broader conversation,” Miller
said.
Miller
has seen Dixon-Gottschild speak and believes her message is one that
all students should hear, whether they study dance or not.
“She uses dance as a metaphor as a way in which to talk about things that are sometimes difficult to talk about,” he said.
Dixon-Gottschild tackles issues that deal with race, gender and body image.
She
strives to increase awareness of the black influence on all types of
dance, from hip-hop to ballet, and continues to perform what she calls
“movement theater discourse,” theater that “talks about where we are
now.”
To get inspiration for these performances, Dixon-Gottschild draws from her research, personal experiences and observations.
“[It’s
about] being present to everything in your environment, not only the
most obvious things that you think would be important for your dance
career, because we never know what really is going to be important,”
she said.
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