Dancing with the Hands: Frictions with Videogames, Dance and Gender

Abstract

Dance has a long history within game studies and occupies a very literal niche within game design. When applied to more conventional videogame play, dance has provided a way of re-interpreting player performance, with the feminine cultural coding of dance used to challenge the masculinity of contemporary videogame culture. Exploring conceptions of choreography, dancing, and gender as understood through dance studies, this paper questions the applicability and efficacy of dance as a force of change. By examining alternative ways of running dance studios and making games, we see that it is not dance or play that produces new ways of exploring gender but rather the structures that surround them. In this light, dance emerges as a latent potentiality within game performances, but one that is still subject to pervasive and rigid ideas of gender.