Framing Dance Writing

Dance, as a specialist discipline, is examined in the context of research in Corpus Linguistics that suggests that the lexicon used by those in a specialist discipline offers insight into the concepts and ideologies of that discipline. In this book dance writing is analysed through empirical data generated by a corpus of written dance texts. Lexical patterns, conceptual metaphor, and an ontological hierarchy are discussed in context within the discipline of Dance. Findings are tested through empirical data generated by a case study of one choreographer, Bill T. Jones, and from a corpus of texts about Jones' work, Still/Here (1994). Data generated from descriptive and interpretive analyses of Still/Here with a consideration of the work as autobiographical narrative provides a basis for a discussion of the shift in context from the dance work to a review written by one critic, Arlene Croce, and the privileging of interpretation over description in dance writing.