Renegade Bodies: Canadian Dance in the 1970s

Edited by Allana C. Lindgren and Kaija Pepper
Comprising 15 essays by Canadian writers and scholars, Renegade Bodies is a book that embraces lively discussion about artistic and cultural shifts along with the social and political transformations of the 1970s. How were dance and its practitioners affected by the vigorous and varying beliefs, the principles and key societal trends of the times?

During the decade, dance literally exploded onto the scene as audiences, worldwide, flocked to performances. The times were defined in Canada by public debate inspired by second-wave feminism, gay rights, multiculturalism, separatism and nationalism. And dance finally found an intellectual home in universities across the country.

Renegade Bodies: Canadian Dance in the 1970s queries how the art form contributed to and was informed by this dynamic zeitgeist. From, for example, Newfoundland’s spirited cultural revolution, to the sometimes frictioned start-up of dance degree programs in Canadian post-secondary institutions, to the artists who challenged the status quo at 15 Dance Lab, to the ground-breaking and liberating performances in a gay Vancouver night club, to the infighting within the country’s first dance service organization – readers get fresh insights into the characters and conditions of the times.

The writers provide insightful, sometimes surprising and always thoughtful accounts of dance during the 1970s – presenting a lively record of a lively time and bringing a pivotal decade in the country’s cultural history into sharp focus.

About the Editors
Allana C. Lindgren, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre at the University of Victoria, has received grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her articles have appeared in several journals, including Dance Chronicle, Circuit and Theatre Research in Canada. She is the author of From Automatism to Modern Dance (Dance Collection Danse Press/es, 2003) and is the Dance Subject Editor for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.

Kaija Pepper contributes criticism and essays to several publications, including the Globe and Mail, Queen’s Quarterly and thedancecurrent.com. The Man Next Door Dances: The Art of Peter Bingham, her third book of Canadian dance history, was a finalist for the 2008 City of Vancouver Book Award. Pepper has an MA in Liberal Studies from Simon Fraser University, where she teaches Critical Writing in the Arts. Currently, she is writing about dance within the frame of memoir.