c.parfitt@chi.ac.uk

Clare Parfitt is a transcultural historian of popular dance practices. Trained in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge, her work is now interdisciplinary, mediating between dance studies, film studies, cultural history and memory studies. In 2014 Clare was awarded AHRC Leadership Fellowship (2014-2016) to lead the project Dancing with Memory, which explored the relationship between popular dance and cultural memory via the case study of the cancan.
“I am interested in the ways that discourses of race, gender, class and nationality that surround the dance form of the cancan have been remembered, reworked, rejected and forgotten in literature, art, film and dance itself from the 1820s to today.”
She hosted a series of symposia on popular dance and cultural memory, and the research will culminate in a sole-authored monograph. Follow the continued progress of the project here:
Research Interests
- Cultural histories of popular dance practices (particularly the cancan) in street, stage and screen contexts
- Dance and cultural memory
- Dance and the construction of race, gender, national and class identities in transnational, colonial and postcolonial contexts (particularly the relations between Britain, France and the Caribbean)
“My research interests are in popular dance practices (on the street, stage or screen), whose low-art status and supposed triviality often disguise the workings of highly complex historical and transcultural processes. I am interested in what happens to popular dance practices as they are transmitted through history and across geographical space, through the performances, writings, images, films and digital media that inform cultural memory and cultural amnesia. For over a decade my research has focused on the cancan as a complex site for the negotiation of race, gender, national and class identities since its emergence in the 1820s.”
Postgraduate Research Supervision
Clare is Research Degree Co-ordinator for Dance, Theatre and Music.
Completed supervision:
- PhD Co-Supervisor for Jane Turner – ‘Emergent Dance: a choreographic exploration’ (2010-2012)
- MPhil Co-Supervisor for Teresita Marsden – ‘The Quadrille: Eurocentrism manifest within the Afro-Caribbean Limonese community of Costa Rica’ (2008-2010)
Supervision in process:
- PhD Director of Studies for Paul Sadot – ‘Hip Hop Dance Theatre in the UK’ (2014-)
- PhD Director of Studies for Celena Monteiro – ‘European Dancehall Queen Competitions in the Digital Age: Transcultural Feminine Identity Production in Performance’ (2013-)
- PhD Director of Studies for María Faidi – ‘Oriental Dance in Egyptian Cinema’ (2010-)
Clare is interested in supervising further doctoral research, particularly in the following areas:
- Popular dance practices (historical or contemporary; on street, stage or screen)
- Dance and cultural memory
- Dance and cultural identities (e.g. gender, race, class, nationality, etc.)
- Dance in transnational, colonial and postcolonial contexts
This list is not comprehensive, so please contact Clare to discuss your idea.
Current Research and Scholarship Activities (selected)
- Chair of the UK committee of PoP Moves, an international network to develop the emerging research area of popular performance (collaborating universities include: Temple University, Philadelphia, US; York University, Toronto, Canada; Royal Holloway, University of London; Roehampton University; University of East London; Kingston University; University of Chichester) (2015-).
- Elected member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS – US-based international dance research organisation) (2012-).
Consultancy and Peer Review
- Nominator for the 2015 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy
- Member of the AHRC Peer Review College
- Peer-reviewer for Oxford University Press and Routledge
- Peer-reviewer for the journals Dance Research Journal and Research in Dance Education
Qualifications
- PhD Dance Studies - University of Surrey, Roehampton (2008)
- MA Dance Studies with distinction - University of Surrey (2002)
- BA (Hons) and MA (cantab) Archaeology and Anthropology – Pembroke College, Cambridge University (2000)
Publications
Sole-authored Book
Parfitt, C. (Forthcoming) Remembering the Cancan: Popular Dance and Cultural Memory. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press (Under Contract)
Book chapters
Parfitt-Brown, C. (Forthcoming 2015) ‘Movements of freedom: performing popular liberty in the early cancan’, in Midgelow, Vida (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Parfitt-Brown, C. (2014) ‘An Australian in Paris: techno-choreographic bohemianism in Moulin Rouge!’, in Blanco Borelli, Melissa (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 21-40
Parfitt-Brown, C. (2013) ‘The Problem of Popularity: the cancan between the French and digital revolutions’, in Cook, Susan and Dodds, Sherril (eds.) Bodies of Sound: Studies Across Popular Music and Dance. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 9-24
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
Parfitt-Brown, C. (2010) ‘Popular Past, Popular Present, Post-Popular?’ in Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, Special Issue on Dancing the Popular guest-edited by Danielle Robinson, Vol. XXXI, pp. 18-20
Parfitt, C. (2009) ‘‘Like a Butterfly Under Glass’: the cancan, Loïe Fuller, and cinema’, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, Special Issue on Dance on Screen guest-edited by Sherril Dodds, Vol. 5, No. 2-3, December, pp. 107-120
Parfitt, C. (2005) ‘The Spectator's Dancing Gaze in Moulin Rouge!’, Research in Dance Education, Vol. 6, No. 1-2, April-December, pp. 97-110
Co-authored Books
Williams, K., Bethell, E., Lawton, J., Parfitt-Brown, C., Richardson, M., Rowe, V. (2011) Completing Your PhD, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Williams, K., Bethell, E., Lawton, J., Parfitt, C., Richardson, M., Rowe, V. (2010) Planning Your PhD, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Journal Article
Parfitt, C. (2009) ‘Cyborg Cinema: (dis)embodying cultural memory in the digital age’, The Korean Journal of Dance, Vol. 61, pp. 403-418
Encyclopaedia Entry
Forthcoming: Parfitt-Brown, C. ‘Cancan’ in Ross, Stephen (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. New York and London: Routledge
Book Reviews
Parfitt-Brown, C. (2013) ‘Society Dancing: Fashionable Bodies in England, 1870-1920, by Theresa JillBuckland’, Dance Research Journal, Vol. 45, No. 2, August, pp. 148-150
Parfitt, C. (2009) ‘Dance in a World of Change: Reflections on Globalization and Cultural Difference, edited by Sherry B. Shapiro’, Research in Dance Education, Vol. 10, No. 2, June, pp. 143-147
Seminar and Conference Papers (selected)
Guest Seminar Presentations
2015 ‘Protean memory: dancing around oblivion in post-Revolutionary Paris’ to be presented at the University Seminar for Cultural Memory, Columbia University, New York, US, 14th October
2015 ‘Bodies of Memory: identity politics in the early cancan’, presented in the Dance Studies Colloquium, Temple University, Philadelphia, US, 24th February. Live streamed and archived here: http://new.livestream.com/accounts/1927261/events/3377775
2011 ‘An American in Paris: Race, Nationality and the Moulin Rouge as Liberal Space’, presented in the Film and Television Seminar Series, London Metropolitan University, 13th December
International Conference Papers
2016 ‘ “I breathed on their dust”: Protean Memory and Tactile Media’, presented as part of the Roundtable ‘Mediated Moves: Popular Dance, Cultural Memory, and Modernity’ at Beyond Authenticity and Appropriation: Bodies, Authorship and Choreographies of Transmission, Society of Dance History Scholars and Congress on Research in Dance Conference, Pomona College, California, 4th-6th November
2014 ‘Cancan vs. the State: archival traces of the battle for Parisian bodies’, presented as part of the Roundtable on ‘Sourcing Popular Dance: Danced Archives from the Cancan to Ragtime’ at Writing Dancing/Dancing Writing, Society of Dance History Scholars Conference, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 12th-16th November
2012 ‘Paris Dansant? Improvising across urban, racial and international geographies in the early cancan’, presented at Dance and the Social City, Society of Dance History Scholars Conference, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, 14th-17th June
2011 Invited Roundtable Panellist ‘First Kicks: translating early sources on the cancan’, presented as part of the Roundtable on ‘Current Problems and Methods in Dance Reconstruction: Focus on Cross-Cultural and Social Dance Reconstruction’, at Dance Dramaturgy: Catalyst, Perspective, Memory, Society of Dance History Scholars Conference, York University, Toronto, 23rd-26th June. Published in the Proceedings of Dance Dramaturgy: Catalyst, Perspective, Memory
2009 ‘From Fairground Site to Website: the dancing body and visual technology in early film and YouTube’, presented at Topographies: Sites, Bodies and Technologies, Society of Dance History Scholars Conference, Stanford University and San Francisco, California, 19th-22nd June. Published in the Proceedings of Topographies: Sites, Bodies and Technologies, p. 180-184
2008 Invited Speaker ‘Cyborg Cinema: (dis)embodying cultural memory in the digital age’, presented at Dance and Culture, The 23rd International Academic Symposium of the Korean Society of Dance, Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, South Korea, 7th November (simultaneous translation into Korean). Published in the Proceedings of Dance and Culture, pp. 52-64 (English), pp. 39-51 (Korean translation)
2007 ‘Chahut: The Mediation of Rationalism and the Unruly Body in the Cancan’, presented at Re-thinking Practice and Theory, Congress on Research in Dance/Society for Dance History Scholars Conference, Centre Nationale de la Danse, Paris, 21st-24th June. Published in the Proceedings of Re-thinking Practice and Theory, pp. 34-37
National Conference Papers
2016 ‘Dancing in Tight Places: power and pleasure in the early cancan’, presented at High and Low Culture: Elite and Popular Constructions, 30th Annual Conference for the Society for the Study of French History, University of Chichester, 3rd-5th July
2015 ‘ “Islamic veil + French tradition = Corancan?”: an image-based discussion’, presented at Dancing (trans)national memories, Senate House, University of London, 20th June
2014 ‘Performances of Protest, Power and Pleasure: improvising liberty in the early cancan’, presented at Dancing the Politics of the Popular, PoP Moves annual conference, Royal Holloway, University of London, 18th October
2011 ‘Americans in Paris: re-choreographing memories in post-war cancan films’, presented at Not Just Fred and Ginger: Camaraderie, Collusion and Collisions Between Dance and Film, The Annual Conference of the European Association of Dance Historians, London, 14th-16th October
2010 Invited Speaker ‘Firing the Canon: integrating popular dance into the dance curriculum’, presented at Teaching Popular Dance in Higher Education, Palatine (Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Dance, Drama and Music) Symposium, Institute for Performing Arts Development Dance Centre (Trinity Buoy Wharf), University of East London, 26th January
2008 Keynote Address ‘Revolutionary Moves: ‘the popular’ between the French and digital revolutions’, presented at Popular Dance and Music Matters Symposium, University of Surrey, 25th October
2008 ‘The contredanse, the quadrille, and the cancan: dancing around democracy in post-revolutionary Paris’. presented at The Established Scholars Conference, Society for Dance Research, Roehampton University, London, 15 March
Teaching
Module Leadership:
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MA: Performing Politics, Reflective Practice
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Year 3: Dance Dissertation, Body Politics
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Year 2: Popular Dance: Street, Stage and Screen, Performance and Identity
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Year 1: Dance Theatre Heritage, Modernism/Dancing Modern Histories
Links
Roehampton University research page (including link to PhD thesis)
Email: c.parfitt@chi.ac.uk
ChiPrints Repository
Selected Publications
- Parfitt-Brown, Clare (2010) Popular past, popular present, post-popular? Conversations Across the Field of Dance Studies, XXX. pp. 18-20.
- Parfitt-Brown, Clare, McMains, Juliet and Robinson, Danielle (2011) Current Problems & Methods in Dance Reconstruction: Focus on Cross-Cultural and Social Dance Reconstruction. In: Dance Dramaturgy: catalyst, perspective, + memory, 23rd-26th June 2011, York University and the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
- Parfitt-Brown, Clare (2014) Cancan vs. the State: archival traces of the battle for Parisian bodies. In: Writing Dancing/Dancing Writing, 13-16 November 2014, University of Iowa, Iowa.
- Parfitt-Brown, Clare (2016) Cancan. Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.
- Parfitt-Brown, Clare (2013) Society Dancing: Fashionable Bodies in England, 1870–1920 by Theresa Jill Buckland. 2011. Houndmills, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. 264 pp., 19 illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $85.00 cloth. Dance Research Journal, 45 (02). pp. 148-150. ISSN 0149-7677
- Parfitt-Brown, Clare (2013) The problem of popularity: the cancan between the French and digital revolutions. In: Bodies of Sound: Studies Across Popular Music and Dance. Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series . Ashgate, Surrey. ISBN 9781409445173
- Parfitt-Brown, Clare (2014) An Australian in Paris: techno-choreographic bohemianism in 'Moulin Rouge!'. In: The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 9780199897827
- Parfitt-Brown, Clare (2012) Paris Dansant? Improvising across urban, racial and international geographies in the early cancan. In: Dance and the Social City, 14-17 June 2012, Philadelphia, US. (Submitted)
- Parfitt-Brown, Clare (2011) First kicks: Translating early sources on the cancan. In: Dance Dramaturgy: Catalyst, Perspective and Memory. Society of Dance History Scholars Annual Conference, 23-26 June 2011, York University, Toronto, Canada. (Submitted)
Selected Publications - Parfitt
- Parfitt, Clare (2016) “I breathed on their dust”: Protean Memory and Tactile Media. In: Beyond Authenticity and Appropriation: Bodies, Authorship and Choreographies of Transmission, 3rd-6th November 2016, Pomona College, Claremont, California. (Submitted)
- Parfitt, Clare (2005) The Spectator's Dancing Gaze in Moulin Rouge! Research in Dance Education, 6 (1/2). pp. 97-110. ISSN 1464-7893
- Parfitt, Clare (2008) The contredanse, the quadrille, and the cancan: dancing around democracy in post-revolutionary Paris. In: The Established Scholars Conference, Society for Dance Research, 15 March 2008, Roehampton University, London. (Submitted)
- Parfitt, Clare (2007) Chahut: The mediation of rationalism and the unruly body in the cancan. In: Re-thinking Practice and Theory, Congress on Research in Dance/Society for Dance History Scholars Conference, 21-24 June 2007, Le Centre Nationale de la Danse, Paris, France. (Submitted)
- Parfitt, Clare (2009) From fairground site to website: the dancing body and visual technology in early film and YouTube. In: Topographies: Sites, Bodies and Technologies, Society of Dance History Scholars Conference, 19-22 June 2009, Stanford University, California, US. (Submitted)
- Parfitt, Clare (2009) Cyborg Cinema: (Dis)Embodying Cultural Memory in the Digital Age. The Korean Journal of Dance, 61. pp. 403-418. ISSN 1598-4672
- Parfitt, Clare (2009) ‘Like a butterfly under glass’: the cancan, Loïe Fuller and cinema. International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 5 (2-3). pp. 107-120. ISSN 1479-4713