Toni Shapiro-Phim – författare

Responding to recent evolutions in the fields of dance and religious and secular studies, The Oxford Handbook of Jewishness and Dance documents and celebrates the significant impact of Jewish identity on a variety of communities and the dance world writ large. Focusing on North America, Europe, and Israel in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this Handbook highlights the sometimes surprising, often hidden and overlooked Jewish resonances within a range of styles from modern and postmodern dance to folk dance and flamenco. Privileging the historically marginalized voices of scholars, performers, and instructors the Handbook considers the powerful role of dance in addressing difference, such as between American and Israeli Jewish communities. In the process, contributors advocate values of social justice, like Tikkun Olam (repair of the world), debate, and humor, exploring the fascinating and potentially uncomfortable contradictions and ambiguities that characterize this robust area of research.

Dance, Human Rights, and Social Justice: Dignity in Motion presents a wide-ranging compilation of essays, spanning more than 15 countries. Organized in four parts, the articles examine the regulation and exploitation of dancers and dance activity by government and authoritative groups, including abusive treatment of dancers within the dance profession; choreography involving human rights as a central theme; the engagement of dance as a means of healing victims of human rights abuses; and national and local social/political movements in which dance plays a powerful role in helping people fight oppression. These groundbreaking papers—both detailed scholarship and riveting personal accounts—encompass a broad spectrum of issues, from slavery and the Holocaust to the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; from First Amendment cases and the AIDS epidemic to discrimination resulting from age, gender, race, and disability. A range of academics, choreographers, dancers, and dance/movement therapists draw connections between refugee camp, courtroom, theater, rehearsal studio, and university classroom.