Critical Race Theory and Copyright in American Dance: Whiteness As Status Property

"The effort to win federal copyright protection for dance choreography in the United States was a simultaneously racialized and gendered contest. Copyright and choreography, particularly as tied with whiteness, have a refractory history. This book examines the evolution of choreographic works from being federally non-copyrightable, unless they partook of dramatic or narrative structures, to becoming a category of works potentially copyrightable under the 1976 Copyright Act. Crucial to this evolution is the development of whiteness as status property, both as an aesthetic and cultural force and a legally accepted and protected form of property. The choreographic inheritances of Lo�ie Fuller, George Balanchine, and Martha Graham are particularly important to map because these constitute crucial sites upon which negotiations on how to package bodies of both choreographers and dancers - as racialized, sexualized, nationalized, and classed - are staged, reflective of larger social, political, and cultural tensions. "--