Susan Manning Wins 2022 ASA Selma Jeanne Cohen Prize in Dance Aesthetics

  The American Society for Aesthetics is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2022 Selma Jeanne Cohen Prize in Dance Aesthetics is Susan Manning, Professor of English, Theatre, and Performance Studies and Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities, Northwestern University. Her prize-winning article is "Cross-Viewing in Berlin and Chicago: Nelisiwe Xaba’s Fremde Tänze" published in TDR: The Drama Review, Volume 64, Number 2, Summer 2020 (T246) , pp. 54-72.

The article, available in Project Muse, was selected  by a review panel of three senior ASA members from thirteen articles nominated this year. The abstract:

Viewing Nelisiwe Xaba's Fremde Tänze (2014) in Berlin and Chicago revealed differing levels of meaning in the work. In Berlin the work exposed and parodied the white gaze of the black female dancer, while in Chicago the work vivified the gap between the responses of black and white spectators. The reception of Fremde Tänze in the two cities demonstrates the workings of "cross-viewing" the moments when spectators from distinct social locations watch one another watching.

As the ASA review committee noted:

Susan Manning’s ‘Cross-Viewing in Berlin and Chicago: Nelisiwe Xaba’s Fremde Tänze’ is a captivating, convincing and original article. Manning reflects on and rigorously interrogates differing responses to Xaba’s work Fremde Tänze, highlighting how race and gender intersect in the work, and carefully examining the critical responses it invokes in the literature. The elaboration of her notion of ‘cross-viewing’ to think through how individual identities, histories and contexts shape responses to the performance is of particular significance for dance scholarship and spectatorship. Manning’s description of Xaba’s work is particularly detailed and clear, and alongside the images of the work helps the reader to follow the analysis and discussion with ease. Xaba’s work is central to the article throughout and Manning’s interrogation foregrounds its value. The article makes a distinctive contribution to dance scholarship in terms of its theme, as well as being a valuable example of performance analysis. It stands as an exemplary example of how reflecting on and theorising individual experience can cultivate important theoretical insights. Crucially, the paper also highlights how discussing our readings of a performance might lead to nuanced understandings of other people’s experiences and important conversations on the nature of the intersection of race and gender. The writing throughout is excellent, captivating the reader with its clear and personal tone.

This year's prize was for articles or chapters published May 1, 2020 - February 28, 2022. The prize in 2023 will be for monographs published May 1, 2021 - February 28, 2023. The submission deadline is March 1, 2023. For complete guidelines: https://aesthetics-online.org/admin/news/news_item_edit.asp?id=610299

The Prize in Dance Aesthetics is made possible by a generous bequest from Selma Jeanne Cohen. Previous winners:

Anna Pakes (2021): Choreography Invisible: The Disappearing Work of Dance (Oxford, 2020).

Thomas F. DeFrantz (2020): "What Is Black Dance? What Can It Do," in Thinking Through Theatre and Performance, edited by Maaike Bleeker, Adrian Kear, Joe Kelleher, Heike Roms (Methuen Drama, 2019).

Halifu Osumare (2019): Dancing in Blackness: A Memoir (University Press of Florida, 2018).

Anna Pakes (2018): "Reenactment, Dance Identity, and Historical Fictions," in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment, edited by Mark Franko (Oxford, 2017).

Anthea Kraut (2017): Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender, and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance (Oxford, 2016).

Chantal Frankenbach (2016): "Dancing the Redemption of French Literature: Rivière, Mallarmé, and Le Sacre du Printemps," Dance Chronicle 38:2 (2015), 134-160.

Ann Cooper Albright (2014): Engaging Bodies: The Politics and Poetics of Corporeality (Wesleyan University Press, 2013).

Graham McFee (2012): The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance and Understanding (Dance Books, 2011).

Marcia B. Siegel (2010): Mirrors & Scrims: the Life and Afterlife of Ballet (Wesleyan University Press, 2010).

Ann Hutchinson Guest (2008): Lifetime Achievement Award.

Ivor Guest (2008): Lifetime Achievement Award.

Sally Banes (2008): Lifetime Achievement Award.