Melissa Melpignano Wins Selma Jeanne Cohen Prize in Dance Aesthetics

The American Society for Aesthetics is pleased to announce that Melissa Melpignano has won the 2024 Selma Jeanne Cohen Prize in Dance Aesthetics for her article, "A Necropower Carnival: Israeli Soldiers Dancing in the Palestinian Occupied Territories,"  TDR: The Drama Review, Volume 67, Number 1 (2023). Melpignano is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Texas at El Paso. 

Sixteen nominations were received, making for an unusually competitive review. The decision was made by three ASA members specializing in dance aesthetics. The winner receives a prize of $1000 plus travel to the 2024 Annual Meeting. The next competition will be for the outstanding book published March 1, 2023 - February 28, 2025. Complete guidelines: https://aesthetics-online.org/page/CohenPrize This prize is made possible by the generous bequest to the ASA from Selma Jeanne Cohen.

The panel review stated:

The panel felt that this paper offers an important multidisciplinary and multidimensional approach to articulating the significance of dance as a momentary relief from the existential crisis that encompasses the lived experiences of the Israeli soldiers. The subject [a central video and supporting examples] constitutes a crystal clear and undeniable example of how dancing (as opposed to choreography) is mobilized as a persuasive force within Israel's politics, and how the dancing and the military body has become interdependent in that culture and its political aims. The ideas of how dance humanizes and civilianizes the soldiers are articulated convincingly and compassionately. The examples used emphasize the author's sentiments around the individuals' humanity, carefully addressing the ongoing situation in Israel. This is extremely insightful and so pressing in this historical moment. It raises important questions around nationhood and contemporary dance that are distinguished from the thick North American discourse around this nexus, and also the cultural profile of dance, on an international scale via social media. The paper is very clear, well-written and rigorously argued. The structure is very logical and allows for a highly coherent articulation of the central argument. The claims are well-evidenced through the integration of detailed dance analysis, solid contextualization and convincing and original theorization. Overall, the article offers an exciting contribution to the literature on the philosophy of dance and authoritative insight into a timely political debate.