Abstract

African American modern dancer and ballerina Janet Collins challenged conventions for representing race, gender, and religion in her Spirituals suite (1947) and Genesis (1965), works that brought together Jewish and African American spiritualities. Countering the assumption that only white dancers access the privilege to present themselves in universalizing ways, I argue that Collins used a process of self-universalization. This article shows how Collins employed dance techniques and thematic content usually coded as white to highlight the spiritual experiences of Black women and to circumvent assignations of “Negro dance” that would have failed to encompass her technical range and subject position.

摘要

非洲裔美国现代舞者和芭蕾舞演员珍妮特·柯林斯在她的Spirituals组曲（1947 年）和《创世纪》（1965 年）中挑战了代表种族、性别和宗教的传统，这些作品融合了犹太人和非裔美国人的灵性。反对只有白人舞者才能获得以普遍化方式展示自己的特权的假设，我认为柯林斯使用了自我普遍化的过程。这篇文章展示了柯林斯如何运用舞蹈技巧和通常被编码为白色的主题内容来突出黑人女性的精神体验，并规避“黑人舞蹈”的指派，而这种指派未能涵盖她的技术范围和主题位置。