In this anthology, fundamental research in dance studies on the topic of ‘autobiographies as sources of dance historiography’ is made accessible to a scholarly public and also to a wider readership interested in dance and/or in autobiographies.
The book analyzes a broad corpus of dance practitioners’ autobiographies, i.e. from the beginnings of dancers’ autobiographies identified as such in the 19th century until the 21st century. One focus is on autobiographies published in book form; these are supplemented by products of a broader understanding of ‘Auto_Bio_Graphy’ (in the sense of recording (graphy) one's own (auto) life (bio)), such as film adaptations and exemplary stage productions.
Auto_Bio_Graphies are established as sources with regard to performative ego-constitutions, and concepts of authorship, self-referentiality, and subjectivity; they are regarded as described and written notions of dance and evaluated with regard to their fruitfulness in the history of dance. Re-visioning of (dance) historiographical narratives and polyphonic dance historiography each take an equal focus.
