Is it possible to lay claim to ownership of a dance? Is choreography intellectual property? How have shifting conceptions of race and gender shaped the way we think of dance, property and ownership? In
Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance,
Anthea Kraut wrestles mightily with these questions as she presents the first book by a dance scholar to focus explicitly on matters of copyright and choreography. Combining archival research with critical race and gender theory, Kraut offers new perspectives in this cross-genre history of American Dance. Professor Kraut's research addresses the interconnections between American performance and cultural history and the raced and gendered dancing body. Her first book,
Choreographing the Folk: The Dance Stagings of Zora Neale Hurston, was published by the University of Minnesota Press in 2008, and received a Special Citation from the Society of Dance History Scholars de la Torre Bueno Prize for distinguished book of dance scholarship. Her teaching interests include American and African American dance history, critical race theory, and methods and theories of dance studies. Dr. Anthea Kraut is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Dance at the University of California, Riverside.