This Is Where We Dance Now: COVID-19 and the New and Next in Dance Onscreen — CFP for The International Journal of Screendance

This Is Where We Dance Now: COVID-19 and the New and Next in Dance Onscreen

Guest editor: Harmony Bench (The Ohio State University)

Teaching technique on Zoom, holding online dance film festivals, DJing house parties on Instagram, streaming archival performance documentation, making TikToks—2020 has rapidly rewritten the playbook for dance onscreen and dance online. This is a call for papers and provocations for volume 12 of the International Journal of Screendance, which will critically examine the changes to dance and screendance practices unfolding in the current era of quarantine and social distancing. COVID-19 is impacting the dance field at every level, from artistic creation to performance and audience engagement to pedagogical practices. The long-term implications of this upheaval remain to be seen, but for the moment, we are seeing the culmination of a trend that has been unfolding over the past two decades or more: now all dance is screendance.

This call for contributions extends to any dance practice, any platform, any screen. We understand that some dance artists have long viewed the Internet as a primary platform for sharing their work within vibrant online communities, while others are grappling with sudden and radical changes to their practices. Although IJSD is an English-language publication, COVID-19 is global, and this volume seeks to represent a wide range of perspectives from around the world and across disciplines.

Topics could include but are not limited to:

  • Adapting or developing new screendance festivals for online delivery
  • Dance and community in on- and offline spaces
  • Dance fads, challenges, and viral videos specific to quarantine
  • Emerging dance practices and pedagogies, including modes of delivery and perceived successes and failures
  • Historical precedents, whether from dance and screen cultures of the recent past or those from previous epidemics or times of crisis
  • Manifestos for the futures of dance onscreen

Schedule:

  • Preferred but not required: Expression of interest and short proposal sent to bench.9@osu.edu with the subject line “This Is Where We Dance Now”: 15 June 2020
  • Preliminary submission deadline on journal platform: 1 September 2020
  • There may be an opportunity to participate in an online symposium, details TBA
  • Publication date: May/June 2021 following the peer-review and editorial process

For enquiries please email the IJSD guest editor Harmony Bench at bench.9@osu.edu.

 

Further information about the International Journal of Screendance:

  • Scholarly articles (3500–6000 words) are peer-reviewed in a fully anonymous process. All other contributions will be reviewed by the editorial board. We are also interested in publishing Interviews (2000–3000 words), Reviews of books, films, or events (750–1000 words) and Provocations and Viewpoints (750–1000 words). For the purposes of review, please indicate which of the above categories best characterizes your contribution.
  • If you are interested in submitting a contribution that does not fall into the above categories, please contact the guest editor for additional direction.
  • Authors must register with IJSD at https://screendancejournal.org/ in order to upload submissions. All submissions should be uploaded by authors in .docx or .rtf format.
  • Please use the IJSD style guide – https://screendancejournal.org/about/submissions – authorGuidelines – to correctly format your document.
  • Example article (to help with formatting and style guide questions): https://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijsd.v5i0.4423
  • Publications in all sections are indexed, but only scholarly articles are peer-reviewed. Please see IJSD’s Editorial Policies for more information.
  • IJSD is published via the Open Journal System.
  • IJSD is published in English and uses American spelling and punctuation.
  • IJSD is published as PDF and HTML files and is fully open access. We serve the screendance field as a whole; therefore, there are no fees for submission, processing, publication, or access to IJSD.