Dance, Political Violence, and Ethnography in the Archive

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5216/ac.v11i1.82639

Abstract

This article considers how dance and performance studies’ emphasis on experiences of embodiment and investment in research methodologies as themselves a form of political practice inform dance studies’ orientation toward personal collections research. I link the ethics and practices of performance ethnography to personal collections research to contend that close attention to the embodied nature of working in personal collections offers 1) methodological reflection broadly applicable to the use of personal collections in dance research and 2) a way for articulating the impact and resonances of personal collections research beyond published scholarship and/or public-facing digital collections.

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Author Biography

Victoria Fortuna, Reed College (RC), Portland, Estados Unidos, fortunav@reed.edu

Victoria Fortuna is a dance studies scholar and contemporary dance practitioner. Her teaching and research interests include Latin American concert and social dance, dance as a mode of political engagement and community organization, collaborative creation methods, and cultural histories of dance in transnational perspective. She founded and directs the Community Dance at Reed project, which brings together members of the Reed and broader Portland communities. Her book, Moving Otherwise: Dance, Violence, and Memory in Buenos Aires (Oxford UP, 2019), examines the relationship between Buenos Aires based contemporary dance practices and histories of political and economic violence in Argentina from the mid-1960s to the mid-2010s. She is currently working on two projects: a digital humanities project focused on the use of personal collections in dance studies research and a book length project that examines the relationship between concert dance and the construction of race in Argentina during the twentieth century. Her articles appear in publications including Dance Research Journal, Performance Research, and The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Politics. She has received grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, New York Public Library, Fulbright, Society of Dance History Scholars, American Society for Theatre Research, and Latin American Studies Association. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Dance Studies Association. Victoria holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University and an MA and PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.

References

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Published

2025-09-02 — Updated on 2025-09-13

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How to Cite

FORTUNA, Victoria. Dance, Political Violence, and Ethnography in the Archive . Art on Stage Journal, Goiânia, v. 11, n. 1, p. 48–67, 2025. DOI: 10.5216/ac.v11i1.82639. Disponível em: https://revistas.ufg.br/artce/article/view/82639. Acesso em: 5 dec. 2025.

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1 (2025): Historiographies on the move

Section

Thematic Dossier

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Copyright (c) 2025 Victoria Fortuna

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