Politics of Otherness in Contemporary Concert Dance: (In)visibilities on Stage and the White Gaze
Funder
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025
HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF-01-01
Project team
PI: Susanne Foellmer, Professor in Dance Studies
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow: Claire Vionnet, Assistant Professor Research
Coventry University
Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE)
Value
£208,278
Duration
16th June 2025-16th June 2027
Project overview
This research addresses the experience of Otherness in Swiss contemporary concert dance, exploring the mechanisms of Othering/exclusion. Drawing on the under-representation of Black dancers in Swiss theatres, contrasted with their prominence in Sub-Saharan African dances and Hip-Hop (and on international stages), the research focuses on the few dancers who have managed to carve out a place within these predominantly White dance institutions. It aims at understanding how their bodies are perceived under the White gaze. The near absence of African female dancers, the racial challenges faced by Black female dancers born in Switzerland, and the growing demand for recognition of queer identities in Swiss art are crucial aspects of this study. A special focus lies on the double exclusion faced by Black sexual minority identities. Rooted in social anthropology and dance studies, this inquiry combines choreographers’ and dancers’ perspectives with performance narratives and dance institutions’ discourses.
Project objectives
The project aims at uncovering the imaginaries embedded in the White gaze projected onto dancing Black bodies, examining the disruptive strategies used by dancers/choreographers considered as ‘Others’ to subvert dominant norms, and assessing the presence of structural racism in dance institutions. As Black dancers increasingly assert their visibility, and as diversity policies recently emerged in Switzerland, this research aims to contribute to an understanding of oppressive mechanisms, as well as the agency of dancing subjects in disrupting these othering norms.
The overall aim of the project is to theorize imaginaries of Otherness in terms of race, with a specific focus on gender, while accounting for intersectional dimensions. By doing so, it seeks to conceptualize the processes of exclusion and (in)visibility of bodies perceived as ‘Other’ within contemporary dance.
Objective 1: Uncover the imaginaries embedded in the White gaze.
Objective 2: Examine whether structural racism impacts performance and visibility, and if so, conceptualise the processes through which it works in an intersectional perspective.
Objective 3: Unveil empowerment and disruptive strategies that aim to subvert dominant norms and received identities.
Objective 4: Propose a relevant concept of Otherness that can be extended to other areas of research within the performing arts.
Impact statement
Devoted to what has hitherto been a marginal theme of research in Switzerland, this project will have an academic impact by addressing a significant gap in European scholarly research on contemporary concert dance, providing a rare and much needed contribution to the neglected study of discrimination in the performing arts.
Taking a critical perspective on Whiteness within scholarship—and on my own positionality as a White scholar—, the research is likely to contribute to a more nuanced discussion about interrogating Whiteness (and the ‘Other’) and notions of the White (and Othering) gaze within the Swiss ‘non-colonising’ and postcolonial contexts, shedding light on an under-researched topic in an allegedly non-colonial country.
The social impact aims to increase awareness of inequalities in the Swiss dance scene, primarily by enhancing choreographers and dance/theatre venues’ attention towards these issues. Through a policy paper on anti-discrimination policies and a set of clear recommendations for cultural state institutions, this project also seeks to have a significant economic impact by improving the presence and working conditions of Black artists.
Image credit: ‘Our intimate hands’ by Christelle Becholey Besson & Claire Vionnet. September 2021. Photo: Christelle Becholey Besson.
