Mara Mandradjieff
Biographic Data
| ID | 1696147 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mara Mandradjieff |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mara |
| FAMILY NAME | Mandradjieff |
| SIGNATURE | MANDRADJIEFF M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Emory University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2132-160X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
In Xōchitl In Cuīcatl (Flower and Song)
A large sun created with hundreds of yellow and orange marigolds radiates in the upstage right corner. The flowers’ petals enliven the structure, adding texture and movement to the handmade prop. T
Coppélia 's Human-Objects
This article focuses on how dance companies have restaged three of the original automata characters from the ballet Coppélia (Arthur Saint-Léon, 1870), described as the “Negro,” the “Moor,” and the “Chinaman.” In conversation with scholarship on the racialization of objects and the object-ification of humans, I claim these characters embody and reenact the ontological effects of slavery and colonialism, in which notions of human and object collap…
La Nijinska
“I don’t want the conventions of ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ to exist for the female dancer. Every movement, if it’s new, is a find” (Nijinska, in Garafola, p. 54). Taken from Bronislava Nijinska’s 191
Publicizing transgender ballet dancers
Over the last decade, mainstream media sources from the US and UK have shown an increased interest in topics involving transgender and non-binary populations. Yet, their portrayals of such individuals tend to reaffirm rather than challenge cisnormative ideas surrounding bodies and gender. In this article, we consider this ongoing trend within the highly body-centric, traditionally-gendered artform—classical ballet. With a transgender studies and …
Reimaging Human Bodies and Death with Vibrant ( Dark ) Matters and Puppetry
This article analyzes the effects of the collaboration between dance and puppetry within Crystal Pite’s Dark Matters (2009) and claims Pite’s work challenges nonhuman-human and object-subject binaries. Functioning within a new materialist philosophical framework, specifically in conversation with theorist Jane Bennett’s concept of vital materialism, this study argues that Dark Matters exposes the human body as an assemblage of vibrant multiple ob…
Intra-acting fat suits, tutu flesh, and sweaty skins
Costumes perform; they affect those wearing them and embody different cultural, historical, and material resonances that viewers interpret. One particular type of costuming has consistently provoked scholars: the fat suit. Compared to both blackface and drag, scholars have analyzed the fat suit’s problematic and radical nature. This article considers the fat suit’s dynamics within ballet by looking closely at French choreographer Maguy Marin’s Gr…
Maguy Marin's Posthuman Cinderella
Grotesque masks replace powdered noses, blushed cheekbones, and false eyelashes. Padded suits expand thin body lines. The doll costumes in Maguy Marin's Cinderella push the boundaries of late twentieth-century, Western ballet aesthetics. Simultaneously, they raise questions about the ballet dancer's role as subject and object onstage. In this essay, I use choreographic analysis to explore how Marin's characters, movement, and costumes expose and …
Ballerina-pointe shoe becoming, fluid multiplicities, and The Red Shoes
While many published texts focus on pointe shoe history or pointe shoe fetishism, few assess the embodiment phenomenon at hand, or should I say at foot? With a posthuman perspective, I argue that the ballerina and pointe shoe function as a constant becoming. Through cultural, textual, and choreographic analysis, I apply Erin Manning’s theories based in Deleuzian philosophy to the ballet The Red Shoes. Revisiting this classic work, I parse out aff…
Ballerina-pointe shoe becoming, fluid multiplicities, and The Red Shoes
While many published texts focus on pointe shoe history or pointe shoe fetishism, few assess the embodiment phenomenon at hand, or should I say at foot? With a posthuman perspective, I argue that the ballerina and pointe shoe function as a constant becoming. Through cultural, textual, and choreographic analysis, I apply Erin Manning’s theories based in Deleuzian philosophy to the ballet The Red Shoes. Revisiting this classic work, I parse out aff…
Intra-acting fat suits, tutu flesh, and sweaty skins
Costumes perform; they affect those wearing them and embody different cultural, historical, and material resonances that viewers interpret. One particular type of costuming has consistently provoked scholars: the fat suit. Compared to both blackface and drag, scholars have analyzed the fat suit’s problematic and radical nature. This article considers the fat suit’s dynamics within ballet by looking closely at French choreographer Maguy Marin’s Gr…
Maguy Marin's Posthuman Cinderella
Grotesque masks replace powdered noses, blushed cheekbones, and false eyelashes. Padded suits expand thin body lines. The doll costumes in Maguy Marin's Cinderella push the boundaries of late twentieth-century, Western ballet aesthetics. Simultaneously, they raise questions about the ballet dancer's role as subject and object onstage. In this essay, I use choreographic analysis to explore how Marin's characters, movement, and costumes expose and …
Ballerina-pointe shoe becoming, fluid multiplicities, and The Red Shoes
While many published texts focus on pointe shoe history or pointe shoe fetishism, few assess the embodiment phenomenon at hand, or should I say at foot? With a posthuman perspective, I argue that the ballerina and pointe shoe function as a constant becoming. Through cultural, textual, and choreographic analysis, I apply Erin Manning’s theories based in Deleuzian philosophy to the ballet The Red Shoes. Revisiting this classic work, I parse out aff…
Maguy Marin's Posthuman Cinderella
Grotesque masks replace powdered noses, blushed cheekbones, and false eyelashes. Padded suits expand thin body lines. The doll costumes in Maguy Marin's Cinderella push the boundaries of late twentieth-century, Western ballet aesthetics. Simultaneously, they raise questions about the ballet dancer's role as subject and object onstage. In this essay, I use choreographic analysis to explore how Marin's characters, movement, and costumes expose and …
Reimaging Human Bodies and Death with Vibrant ( Dark ) Matters and Puppetry
This article analyzes the effects of the collaboration between dance and puppetry within Crystal Pite’s Dark Matters (2009) and claims Pite’s work challenges nonhuman-human and object-subject binaries. Functioning within a new materialist philosophical framework, specifically in conversation with theorist Jane Bennett’s concept of vital materialism, this study argues that Dark Matters exposes the human body as an assemblage of vibrant multiple ob…
Intra-acting fat suits, tutu flesh, and sweaty skins
Costumes perform; they affect those wearing them and embody different cultural, historical, and material resonances that viewers interpret. One particular type of costuming has consistently provoked scholars: the fat suit. Compared to both blackface and drag, scholars have analyzed the fat suit’s problematic and radical nature. This article considers the fat suit’s dynamics within ballet by looking closely at French choreographer Maguy Marin’s Gr…
Publicizing transgender ballet dancers
Over the last decade, mainstream media sources from the US and UK have shown an increased interest in topics involving transgender and non-binary populations. Yet, their portrayals of such individuals tend to reaffirm rather than challenge cisnormative ideas surrounding bodies and gender. In this article, we consider this ongoing trend within the highly body-centric, traditionally-gendered artform—classical ballet. With a transgender studies and …
Coppélia 's Human-Objects
This article focuses on how dance companies have restaged three of the original automata characters from the ballet Coppélia (Arthur Saint-Léon, 1870), described as the “Negro,” the “Moor,” and the “Chinaman.” In conversation with scholarship on the racialization of objects and the object-ification of humans, I claim these characters embody and reenact the ontological effects of slavery and colonialism, in which notions of human and object collap…
La Nijinska
“I don’t want the conventions of ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ to exist for the female dancer. Every movement, if it’s new, is a find” (Nijinska, in Garafola, p. 54). Taken from Bronislava Nijinska’s 191
In Xōchitl In Cuīcatl (Flower and Song)
A large sun created with hundreds of yellow and orange marigolds radiates in the upstage right corner. The flowers’ petals enliven the structure, adding texture and movement to the handmade prop. T
Art (8 works) · Visual arts (7 works) · Ballet (6 works) · Dance (6 works) · Diversity and Impact of Dance (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Musicology and Musical Analysis (4 works) · Art history (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works)