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Research and Publications

I research arts work and work worlds with particular emphasis on how institutions value the arts, principally in a US context.

My forthcoming manuscript is entitled Funding Bodies: Five Decades of Dance Making at the National Endowment for the Arts, which offers a book-length look at how federal philanthropic policies have shaped and constrained the US dance field. Funding Bodies is in press and will drop in September 2021 in hard cover and e-book form with Wesleyan University Press.

Current Research:

(peer reviewed journals, invited chapters, book reviews, and commentary)

"Endangered Strangers: Tracking Competition in US Federal Dance Funding" in The Oxford Handbook of DANCE AND COMPETITION. Sherril Dodds, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. (print)

 

(in press) "Who "Makes" a Dance? Embodying Infrastructure through a Dance Lens," in The Futures of Dance Studies edited collection. Susan Manning, Janice Ross, and Rebecca Schneider, Eds. University of Wisconsin Press, (forthcoming January, 2019)

"Does the NEA Need Saving?" in TDR/The Drama Review, volume 61, issue 4, T236, Winter 2017, p. 96-106. (print). DOI# 10.1162/DRAM_a_00694

**ON TAP: A THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES PODCAST** commentary on TDR/NEA essay, here: https://soundcloud.com/ontappod/on-tap-020 (@36:36).

“Gestural Economies and Production Pedagogies in Deaf West’s Broadway Revival of Spring Awakening” in "Critical Acts", TDR/The Drama Review, Volume 60, Issue 2 - T230, Summer 2016, p. 145-153. (print) DOI#: 10.1162/DRAM_a_00553

"It's About Time: Creative Placemaking and Performance Analytics" in Performance Research: On Institutions. Gigi Argyopoulou and Hypatia Vourloumis, Eds. Vol. 20, issue 4, August, 2015. (print) DOI#: 10.1080/13528165.2015.1071046.

Link to article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2015.1071046. (web) 11.15.15

 

“Dance for Veterans:  A Complimentary Health Program for Veterans with Serious Mental Illness” in Arts & Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy, and Practice. Donald Stewart and Michael Balfour Eds. Vol. 6 issue 1. New York: Routledge, 2015. [March 2015]

doi:10.1080/17533015.2015.1019701. 

 

"Failing Perceptions: Policy, Production, and U.S. Dance Makers" in Journal of Emerging Dance Scholarship. Linda Caldwell and Urmimala Sarkar, Eds. World Dance Alliance, 2013. ISSN 2309-267X. http://www.jedsonline.net/sample-page/2013-jeds/dance-as-living-histories-spiritualties-and-political-resistances/. (web) 11.15.15

 

Book Review. 'Performing Policy: How Contemporary Politics and Cultural Programs Redefined U.S. Artists for the Twenty-First Century by Paul Bonin-Rodriguez in e-misférica, Macarena Gómez Barris and Marcial Gody-Anativia, Eds. Vol. 14, Issue 1, 2018. (web)

Book Review. The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Politics. Kowal, Rebekah J., Gerald Siegmund, and Randy Martin, eds. Dance Research Journal, Helen Thomas, Ed., Vol. 50, Issue 1, August 2018. (print)

"A Dance Based Addendum to the Gray Areas Quiz" in Art Practical, Volume 5.4, April 2014. http://www.artpractical.com/review/reflections-on-a-dance-based-addendum/. (web) 11.15.15

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Updated essays are downloadable at

https://scholars.duke.edu/person/sarah.wilbur

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This is how I look when trying to wrap words around dance and embodied meanings.

Photo: Nguyen Nguyën, 2014

This is how I feel about arts funding and things. 

Photo: Troy Blendell (2018)

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