UCLA faculty member remembered for contributions to LGBTQ studies, dance
Following a successful career as a childhood star in musical comedy in the United Kingdom, Doran George came into the Culture and Performance PhD program in the department in 2008 with a degree in Experimental Dance from School for New Dance Development in Arnhem and an M.A. in Feminist Performance from the University of Bristol. Receiving the Ph.D. in December 2014, George wrote a brilliant dissertation entitled “A Conceit of the Natural Body: The Universal-Individual in Somatic Dance Training” that excavates the cultural and political impact of Somatics’ approach to dance training, viewed in global perspective. George passed away in November 2017.
"Doran George had a distinctive and infectious laugh that their friends and colleagues said was outrageous.“Anybody that you speak to could mimic their laugh. It was pure joy and you never knew when it was coming,” said Dan Froot, a professor in the world arts and cultures/dance department. “It would come in the middle of a seminar, during a performance, while hiking in the woods.”
George, a UCLA alumnus and former faculty member in the LGBTQ Studies Program and the department of world arts and cultures/dance, died in November 2017. They received a Ph.D. in the department of world arts and cultures and taught classes as a teaching assistant in the dance program, LGBTQ Studies Program and the disability studies minor.
In June 2018, George was awarded an LGBTQ studies teaching award at Lavender Graduation, which is a graduation ceremony hosted by the LGBTQ Resource Center and is open to all students at UCLA who identify as LGBTQ.
Alicia Gaspar de Alba, the chair of the LGBTQ Studies Program, said George created a course on heteronormative colonialism, in which they drew from their own perspective as a British immigrant to combine immigration with LGBTQ studies and the spread of heteronormativity.
“(George), for being British, was very aware of their position as an immigrant. Coming from a colonizing country, they themselves were taught about the other, and it was the immigrant and working-class connection that Doran brought to their teaching,” Gaspar de Alba said. “The students who took the course had a mind-blowing experience.”
The LGBTQ Studies Program also renamed an award for a senior project after George at Lavender Graduation. Undergraduate students can now receive the Doran George Prize for an Outstanding Project in LGBTQ Studies.
Froot said that he was impressed with George’s contribution to dance. George’s dissertation at UCLA was on a field of dance called somatics, which focuses on the the dancer’s self-perception and internal sensation. George explored the cultural and political impacts of somatic approaches to dance training around the world. Around the time of their death, George was converting their dissertation into a book, which Froot said would have demonstrated George’s viewpoint and their precise analysis of dance.
Susan Leigh Foster, a professor in the department of world arts and cultures/dance, said in a statement that George’s ability to analyze dance and art made them a visionary in their field."— Maddie Ostergaard, Jul. 8, 2018
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Daily Bruin website.
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