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Dancing the Long Nineteenth Century

Co-Chairs: Olivia Sabee ([email protected]) and Lynn Brooks ([email protected])

This working group serves as a forum for scholars interested in the history of dance during the long nineteenth century.

This working group is a forum for scholars interested in the history of dance during the long nineteenth century. We welcome scholars with a focus on any geographic area and dance form, and our interests include, but are not limited to, the following subjects: 

  • theatrical dance and artistic issues
  • social and popular dance
  • intersections between dance and other art forms
  • intersections between dance and other fields of knowledge
  • the relationship between dance and politics
  • the flows of and interaction between national and regional forms and variants of dance practice

This caucus of scholars, including those interested in the reconstruction and performance of nineteenth-century works, meets at our annual conferences to share ideas and information. Our goals include:

  1. welcoming interdisciplinary examination of the arts in this century, inviting scholars from related disciplines (music, literature, philosophy, architecture and the visual arts, theatre history, cultural history, and so on) to submit appropriate papers to DSA conferences.
  2. sharing ideas on research strategies and information on new sources of materials.
  3. sharing information on publication outlets for work on the 19th century.
  4. proposing panels and/or coordinating paper proposals.
  5. providing networking opportunities and introducing graduate students to experienced scholars working in areas of common interest.
  6. overall, increasing the visibility of research being done on nineteenth-century dance and providing support for peers and colleagues engaged in this work.

Mentoring in Dance History

The DSA working group, Dancing the Long Nineteenth Century, is developing a program of mentoring in dance history (in and beyond the nineteenth century). We invite prospective participants to fill out the linked form, identifying yourself, your status as either mentee or mentor, the current field in which you work (i.e., sixteenth-century dance history, baroque dance reconstruction, French modernism, etc.), the specific area of focus that would be the subject of the mentoring (i.e., developing an article manuscript on X for possible publication, exploring Argentinian archives for X themes…), a statement of a few sentences about what draws you to participate in this program, and any time constraints (such as periods you might be unreachable, etc.). If you will be working in a language other than English, please note that in your form.

It is our hope to serve as matchmakers between those seeking and those offering mentorship, based on areas of interest and experience. We propose that these mentoring partnerships begin with a 3- or 4-session period, at intervals the participants choose, after which they can decide to continue or to conclude their work.

Our view of a mentor is adapted from the Council of Graduate Schools:
‘An advisor, a person with career experience willing to share knowledge; a supporter; one who gives specific feedback on the mentee’s performance or work; one who offers sources of information about, and aid to assist the mentee in fulfilling a particular objective or opportunity; a model of the kind of person the mentee might become as a scholar or professional.’

Once mentor–mentee pairings are established, we will offer examples of mentoring agreements to be signed by each participant before the sessions themselves begin. The agreement will include a statement of goals, and the expectation of starting with 3 or 4 meetings of roughly 1 hour, held within a period of 3 months to a year of agreement-signing, after which the pairs decide if/how to pursue more meetings.

Participants should be mindful that this project is not institutionally based, no one is compensated for this work, and the mentorship is not about the mentor serving as a dissertation reader, nor a recommender, nor a therapist or director.

If you are interested in participating, please fill out and submit the linked form by 15 December 2025. We anticipate that mentorships will begin early in 2026.