Those Dancing Feet! Musical Theater Dance as an Ethnographic Identifier

Abstract

Commercial dance forms, specifically musical theater dance, remain highly marginalized within higher education research. This article presents the need to establish more scholarly research in musical theater dance and points out the ethnographic identity of the genre in our global society. Ethnographic study can be useful in validating musical theater dance and the way it reflects American culture back to itself, while also blurring the lines between dance forms that traditionally carry the “high art” designation and those that are more commercial in nature. Establishing a stable platform to research and preserve these commercial forms situates musical theater choreographers, dancers, and their art within academic and artistic history.

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