Victoria Thoms
Coventry University (coventry.ac.uk), Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Department Member
- I am Research Fellow at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University. Before doctoral study in the United Kingdom, I trained in ballet, contemporary dance and choreography in Canada as part of my Undergraduate and Master’s... moreI am Research Fellow at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University. Before doctoral study in the United Kingdom, I trained in ballet, contemporary dance and choreography in Canada as part of my Undergraduate and Master’s Degree.My research engages with recent debates in performance, dance, and gender studies to theorise dance as a significant cultural practice. I has recently published Martha Graham: Gender and the haunting of a dance pioneer (2013). I have published in Dance Research Journal, European Journal of Women’s Studies, Research in Dance Education, Women: a Cultural Review and I am co-editor of the Dance in Dialogue book seriesedit
This article examines how Frederick Ashton's World War Two ballet Dante Sonata departs from traditional ballet aesthetics and in doing so can be read as a traumatic reaction to a growing anxiety about the failed project of modernity.
What role did the figure of the dancing female play in negotiating cultural anxieties in the Great War era? I explore this question by looking at the female performer Maud Allan who was famous for her danced interpretations of Salomé in... more
What role did the figure of the dancing female play in negotiating cultural anxieties in the Great War era? I explore this question by looking at the female performer Maud Allan who was famous for her danced interpretations of Salomé in pre-War London and cause of a sensational libel suit in 1918 bring together deviant female sexuality and wartime espionage. I juxtapose Allan with ballerina Anna Pavlova, a contemporary, and role model par excellence for proper femininity. These two examples offer a rich comparison from which to discuss how dancing and femininity was the grounds for inciting and palliating the profound cult
This paper discusses research into the facilitation of academic writing for first year dance students using images, emails and the forum of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Taking place over several weeks in the early part of the... more
This paper discusses research into the facilitation of academic writing for first year dance students using images, emails and the forum of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Taking place over several weeks in the early part of the academic year and within a core module entitled Personal and Professional Development in the single honours Dance Practice and Performance degree, students
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In this article I employ modern dance pioneer Martha Graham’s memoir Blood Memory (1991) to complicate understandings of autobiography. Following a deconstructive perspective (Buse and Stott 1999; Derrida 1994) and taking up feminist... more
In this article I employ modern dance pioneer Martha Graham’s memoir Blood Memory (1991) to complicate understandings of autobiography. Following a deconstructive perspective (Buse and Stott 1999; Derrida 1994) and taking up feminist critiques of both autobiography (Benstock 1988; Chanfrault-Duchet 2000) and the effects of embodiment (Phelan 1997; Albright 1997), I theorize autobiography as a haunting interstice between writing and the body. I suggest that while the written account is an important means to chart a life, there are forms of autobiography that remain unrepresentable in the frame
of writing. This impossibility is most poignant in Blood Memory as Graham struggles to represent the autobiographical significance of the embodied performance yet is haunted
by the inability to fully articulate in writing its significance for her. I argue that in encountering the written autobiography we should not disavow this haunting but rather acknowledge its importance as a means of encountering that life.
of writing. This impossibility is most poignant in Blood Memory as Graham struggles to represent the autobiographical significance of the embodied performance yet is haunted
by the inability to fully articulate in writing its significance for her. I argue that in encountering the written autobiography we should not disavow this haunting but rather acknowledge its importance as a means of encountering that life.
Research Interests:
This article charts the feminist perspectives that have come out of my thinking on the dance performance text Human Sex and how this has informed my own feminism. In doing so, I argue that a feminist agenda is shifting and dynamic but... more
This article charts the feminist perspectives that have come out of my thinking on the dance performance text Human Sex and how this has informed my own feminism. In doing so, I argue that a feminist agenda is shifting and dynamic but also reliant upon prior readings and interpretations that provide the point of reference for a departure to other readings and perspectives. Using autobiographical material, I highlight the importance of
considering the personal histories of subject-hood that influence a feminist consciousness and how these are the condition of possibility for making other readings. To demonstrate the shifting character of identity over time, I engage in different readings of Human Sex through the work of feminist theorists Sara Ahmed, Judith Butler and Peggy Phelan.
considering the personal histories of subject-hood that influence a feminist consciousness and how these are the condition of possibility for making other readings. To demonstrate the shifting character of identity over time, I engage in different readings of Human Sex through the work of feminist theorists Sara Ahmed, Judith Butler and Peggy Phelan.