CALL FOR PAPER

CELEBRATING JEAN-GEORGES NOVERRE 1727-1810: HIS WORLD, AND BEYOND

CALL FOR PAPERS

The 12th Oxford Dance Symposium examines various aspects of the life and works of the French-Swiss choreographer and dance writer Jean-Georges Noverre, his contemporaries and successors, his detractors and his champions. In calling for papers, the organisers are seeking a wide range of papers on all these aspects, particularly on his influence as practised in different centres throughout Europe and beyond. The symposium is organised by Michael Burden and Jennifer Thorp, and the keynote speaker will be Kathleen Hansell.

The bi-centenary of the death of Noverre presents an ideal opportunity to take a closer look at the world in which he lived and worked. Trained in Paris by the great Louis Dupré, Noverre went on to work in the opera houses of Paris, Lyons, Strasburg, Stuttgart, Vienna, Milan, and London, trained such future stars as Gaetan Vestris, Jean Dauberval, and Charles Didelot, and crossed swords with several European choreographers including his former pupils Gardel and Dauberval. Despite Noverre’s claims to be an innovator and reformer in many aspects of dance, a number of the theories that he propounded in his own writings had been anticipated by other authors, but it was he who left a mark on the history of theatrical dance which could not be ignored. By the end of his life, the French press was referring to him as ‘the Nestor of our choreographers’ and after his death in 1810 a flood of adulatory obituaries paved the way for a fame that has lasted virtually unchallenged until recent times.

Proposals or abstracts (200 words max.) should be sent to the Secretary to the College Officers, maggie.davies@new.ox.ac.uk by no later than 10 October 2009. The length of papers will be confirmed at the point of acceptance, so that the timetable may be properly balanced. Further details of the symposium will become available on the New College website http://www.new.ox.ac.uk under ‘College Events / Lectures and Symposia / Dance Symposia / 2010’. To join our mailing list, please contact Maggie Davies or Jennifer Thorp (jennifer.thorp@new.ox.ac.uk).