Creation Myths

Inspiration, Collaboration, and the Genesis of Romeo and Juliet

Authors

Amy Rodgers Mount Holyoke College

Abstract

Recent inquiries into Shakespeare and dance have tended towards excavating the place and form of dancing in Shakespeare's plays or historicizing movement itself. My essay takes a different heuristic route by exploring what dance might bring to our understanding of how Shakespeare's plays were constructed. Using John Cranko's Romeo and Juliet as a test case, I explore how this work's collaborative creation might offer insight into the material means of plays' genesis and realization in Shakespeare's era. In doing so, I suggest an additional line of inquiry into the relationship between Shakespeare and dance, one that adds to work that expands our understanding of early modern drama's production.

Author Biography

Amy Rodgers, Mount Holyoke College

Amy Rodgers is Assistant Professor of English at Mount Holyoke College. Her research areas include early modern drama, performance studies, audience and mass culture studies, film studies, and dance history. She has published essays on representation of Shakespeare's audiences in contemporary fiction and film and linguistic technologies of sensory representation in Jonsonian court masque. Her first monograph, on early modern theories of theatrical spectatorship, is currently under review. Before entering academia, she danced with Washington, Atlanta, and Joffrey ballet companies.