Colleen T. Dunagan

Colleen T. Dunagan is a Professor of Dance and teaches a variety of dance studies courses, including courses in dance history, dance on camera, aesthetics, critical theory, introduction to modern dance, and dance appreciation. She, also, serves as Graduate Advisor for the M.F.A. degree and as Director of the low-residency M.A. degree program. 

  • Ph.D. (2001) Dance History and Theory, University of California, Riverside
    • Dissertation: Virtual Power and Kinetic Bodies: Re-Thinking Twentieth-Century Dance Aesthetics 
  • B.A. (1993) Double Major: Dance, English Literature, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
    • Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Honors in English

  • Dance in Advertising, Media, and Film
  • Aesthetics/Philosophy of Dance
  • Dance and Critical Theory 
  • Phenomenology
  • Emergence

Books

  • Consuming Dance: Choreography and Advertising. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018
  • Encountering Modern Dance: an Introduction to Technique, Composition, and History. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2018

Book Chapters

  • “Modelling Improvisation as Emergence: A Critical Investigation of the Practice of Cognition” in The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance. Co-authored w/Roxane Fenton and Evan Dorn.ed. By Vida L. Midgelow. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2019
  • “The Beatles, the Moving Image, and Dancing Bodies” in Movies, Moves and Music: the Sonic World of Dance Films. Genre, Music and Sound Series, Volume 6. Co-authored w/Roxane Fenton. ed. By Dr. Mark Evans and Dr. May Fogarty. London: Equinox Press, 2016
  • “Dance and Theater: Looking at Television’s Deployment of Theatricality through Dance” in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater. Ed. By Nadine Georges-Graves. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015
  • “Dirty Dancing: Dance, Class, and Race in the Pursuit of Womanhood” in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen. Co-authored with Roxane Fenton.ed. By Melissa Blanco-Borelli. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 

Journal Articles and Conference Proceedings

  • “Critical Dance Pedagogy: Bodies as Sites of Social Change.” Co-authored with Tanya Calamoneri and Nyama McCarthy-Brown. Journal of Dance Education. (Currently under Review)
  • “Consuming Dance: a Brief History of the Dance-commercial.” Conference Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Dance History Scholars, Skidmore Colletge, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., 2008
  • “Performing the Commodity-Sign: Dancing in The Gap.” Dance Research Journal 39.2 (Winter  2007)
  • “The Changing Face of Dance: Televisual Excursions into the World of the Aesthetic.”  TheInternational Journal of the Arts in Society1 (Fall 2006)
  • “Dance, Knowledge, and Power.” (Invited) Topoi: an International Review of Philosophy for special issue on Dance and Philosophy  24 n. 1 (2005)
  • “Introduction” (Invited) co-author with Susan Foster and Philipa Rothfield for Topoi: an International Review of Philosophyfor special issue on Dance and Philosophy 24 n.1  (2005)
  • “Dance in Art,” PArt and Culture Magazine, Turkish ed.32 (Winter 2004)

Screen

  • Aprés (2011) Choreographer, Co-Director, Editor, Set Designer and Co-Producer with Gregory R.R. Crosby (Camera Operator, Co-Director and Co-Producer).
    • Piece is set to Claude Debussy’s L’Apres Midi as performed by the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music Orchestra.
    • Performers include: Kayla Bixby, Liz Curtis, Nicole Gendel, and Brittni Johnson.
  • Parallax (2010) Co-Director, Co-Producer, Assistant Editor.  Produced in collaboration with Gregory R.R. Crosby.
    • Choreography and performance by Kristin Rapinchuck. Original music by Rychard Cooper.
  • Promiscuity (2009) Choreographer, Co-Director, Assistant Editor, Co-Producer, and Voiceover. 
    • Produced in collaboration with Gregory R.R. Crosby.  
    • Original music by Rychard Cooper. 
    • Screened at the Local Makers portion of Dance Camera West’s Dance Media Film Festival, Los Angeles, CA (June 2010).

Live

  • Constructions and Assemblages, or How to Do Things with Motifs (2015)
    • A group work for 8 dancers set to “DeConstructions & Motifs” by Time Shift (aka Rychard Cooper and Matt Pogue). Motifs by Colleen Dunagan. Video projection by Gregory R.R. Crosby.
  • Fractured Singularities (2012)
    • A group work for 9 dancers set to an original score by Rychard Cooper. CSULB Dancers in Concert at Martha B. Knoebel Dance Theater, Long Beach, CA, April 25-28, 2012.
  • Night Flowers (2010)
    • A group work of 18 women set Claude Debussy’s Image for Orchestra. Accompanied by a live performance of the Bob Cole Conservatory Orchestra. 
    • Fusion: A Performance of Dance and Live Orchestra (CSULB Dancers in Concert) at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, Long Beach, CA, November 19-20, 2010
  • Quarter Roll (2008)
    • Set to Ike and Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary.” ThreeWay—A Tri-Coastal Dance Project, produced with former CSULB MFAs Sue Hogan and Erin Mitchell at Martha Knoebel Dance Theater, Long Beach, CA, June 7-8, 2008.
  • Digressions of the Flesh (Three Attempts at Reading) (2005)
    • Choreographer and Performer.  Doug Rice read selections from his text, A Good Cuntboy is Hard to Find,as an accompaniment to this trio of women. Premiered in Seattle, WA at the Chamber Theater as part of ThreeWay—a Tri-Coastal Dance Project, March 24-25, 2005. 
  • (Dis)Enchanted (2003)
    • Co-Choreographer and performer. Music: Irving Berlin and Ira Gershwin.  Works-In-Progress Performanceat Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica, CA, June 2003.