Julie Searles
Director of World Dance, Instructor of Music
Office: Watson 203
Office Hours: Wednesdays 9:00-11:00 am
Phone: 508-286-3589
Fax: 508-286-3565
Email: jsearles@wheatoncollege.edu
Degrees
M.A., Wesleyan University
B.A., Wesleyan University
Main Interests
Ethnomusicology, World Music (particularly Brazilian Popular, Irish Traditional, Jazz, Contemporary Folk and Trinidadian music traditions), Dance Ethnography, Social dance history, Popular Culture...
Research Interests
The complex and pervasive strategy of appropriation has been central to recent research endeavors. I'm particularly interested in appropriations between cultures; how music and dance is transformed as expressive forms move from one culture to the next. Styles that have emerged as a fusion of borrowed influences are rich sites for socio-cultural, economic and political considerations.
I've been working most recently with Deraldo Ferreira, a Brazilian Capoeira Mestre, who divides his time between Cambridge, Mass, and a farm south of Porto Seguro. Deraldo has had a pivotal role in the dissemination of Brazilian culture for the last 20 plus years in the Boston area. I'm interested in his impact on the Brazilian diaspora in this region, along with the diverse community that has grown up around his band, Samba Tremeterra, and the center he founded, the Brazilian Cultural Center of New England.
Teaching Interests
I very much enjoy teaching the perennial foundation courses for World Music at Wheaton. World Music: Eurasia in the fall, and Africa and the Americas in the Spring, are regionally based classes that serve to introduce ethnomusicological issues and concepts that can be applied to music cultures encountered at home or abroad. Students taking these classes come from all over campus: the result is a wide spectrum of experience and perspective that enlivens our class discussions on traditional and controversial musical considerations. These courses are part of the Global Music connection I share with Gabriela Torres' class, Cultural Anthropology. Professor Torres and I have been working to expand and deepen the intellectual links between our courses as part of the Connections program at Wheaton.
Dance history courses channel my enthusiasm for learning more and more about the dance traditions I find so fascinating. American Vernacular Dance focuses on social and popular dance traditions of the 20th century. We examine dance in the United States as an indicator of significant social trends, contextualizing dance in the contemporary social and cultural climate that both shapes and reflects influence of these dynamic expressive forms.
In Politics of Movement we explore the complicated histories of various dance cultures from around the world. We consider the impact of colonialism on the development of expressive forms and how controversies inevitably emerge through transformative shifts in ownership. We also look at how definitive dance styles materialize through negotiation and the appropriation of regional, often marginalized influences, and how people use dance and music to embody, define, reinforce and empower personal and shared identity.
(More soon on Trinidadian pursuits, and FYS...)
Student Projects
I work closely with student initiated movement/dance groups on campus. SOLE, Wheaton's dynamic Step team, and Paraiso Latino, the new Latino music and dance company on campus, are two groups I support thoroughly. I'm a big fan of TRYBE and Wheaton's Dance Company-- believing that Dance is a stimulating and inspiring presence on campus that nurtures our community in profound and significant ways.
Selected Publications, Creative Work or Performances
Audio Recordings:
2002 "Recollected", a CD of original songs-- recorded with Matthew Allen
2000 "Time & Again": Brazilian Covers and Original songs-- recorded with Matthew Allen and Armando Rivera
1994 "Cashews, Peppers and More": Bossa Novas, Sambas and Jazz-- recorded with Matthew Allen, Chris Brubeck and Eric Rosenthal