Yes? No! Maybe…

Yes? No! Maybe . . . Seductive Ambiguity in Dance is a book about performing and watching dance. Using a unique combination of historical, academic and autobiographical voices, it covers 50 years of British dance, from Margot Fonteyn in the 1950s to innovative contemporary practitioners such as Wendy Houstoun, Nigel Charnock, Lloyd Newson, Javier de Frutos and Fin Walker. Emilyn Claid’s thought-provoking investigation of performing presence is illuminated by episodes from her own history as founder member of X6 Dance Space, the experimental dance collective, and as one of the UK’s most radical and exciting practitioners. Using the 1970s revolution of new dance as a hinge, the author looks back to ballet and forward to British independent dance, which is new dance’s legacy. This book explores the shifting dynamic between performer and spectator through feminist, psychoanalytic, post-structuralist and queer theoretical perspectives. In the process, the concepts of seduction, androgyny and ambiguity are re-figured as embodied strategies with which to enliven performer–spectator relations.

The Author

Emilyn Claid is Director of Choreography at Dartington College of Arts, Devon. She was a founder member of X6 Dance Space (1976–80) and in the 1980s was Artistic Director of Extemporary Dance Theatre. As an independent dance artist in the 1990s, she choreographed for dance companies such as Phoenix and CandoCo and performed her own shows including Witch One (1992), Virginia Minx at Play (1993) and Laid Out Lovely (1994). Emilyn is Director of PAL Dance Labs (Performing Arts Labs) and m&,de@dartington (music and dance exchange).