Anarchic Dance

Liz Aggiss · Billy Cowie

Apr 2006 · Routledge

About this ebook

Liz Aggiss and Billy Cowie, known collectively as Divas Dance Theatre, are renowned for their highly visual, interdisciplinary brand of dance performance that incorporates elements of theatre, film, opera, poetry and vaudevillian humour. Anarchic Dance, consisting of a book and downloadable resources, is a visual and textual record of their boundary-shattering performance work. The downloadable resources feature extracts from Aggiss and Cowie's work, including the highly-acclaimed dance film Motion Control (premiered on BBC2 in 2002), rare video footage of their punk-comic live performances as The Wild Wigglers and reconstructions of Aggiss's solo performance in Grotesque Dancer.

These films are cross-referenced in the book, allowing readers to match performance and commentary as Aggiss and Cowie invite a broad range of writers to examine their live performance and dance screen practice through analysis, theory, discussion and personal response. Extensively illustrated with black and white and colour photographs Anarchic Dance, provides a comprehensive investigation into Cowie and Aggiss’s collaborative partnership and demonstrates a range of exciting approaches through which dance performance can be engaged critically.

About the author

Liz Aggiss is a dancer, performer, choreographer and filmmaker. Awards include Bonnie Bird, Czech Crystal 2002, Special Jury Award Houston 2003, Best Woman Film Mediawaves Hungary 2003, Romanian Cinematography Award 2003. Received Arts Council Dance Fellowship 2003. Currently Professor of Visual Performance at Brighton University.

Billy Cowie is a choreographer, composer and filmmaker. His awards include Czech Crystal Prague Golden Film Festival 2002, Special Jury Golden Award Houston 2003, Romanian National Office of Cinematography Award 2003. He is currently a Principal Research Fellow at the University of Brighton.