“舞蹈学与地区研究” (Dance studies and area studies)

During the early twenty-first century, excitement about interdisciplinary spread across US academia, manifesting itself in teaching as well as academic hiring. This phenomenon originated in the emergence of new interdisciplinary fields during the latter half of the twentieth century, such as women and gender studies, areas studies, etc. These early interdisciplinary fields levied criticism against traditional disciplines, revealing traditional disciplines’ conservatism and Eurocentrism. Among them, area studies played an important role in overturning the Eurocentrism of traditional disciplines. As a traditional discipline, dance studies also has a Eurocentric tendency. In the past, dance studies adopted the ethnographic method of anthropology to develop research on non-Western dance forms. However, the dance anthropology and dance ethnography that emerged also had problems. Because of limitations in pedagogy, students of non-Western dance trained in dance departments often lacked deep knowledge of local culture. Now, dance studies needs to collaborate with area studies to overcome its long-term research imbalances and pedagogical gaps.