Publications

New Article out March 2026! 
Dancing with/the Monster: Coming of Age, Female Sexuality, and Healing through Monstrosity  

This book considers the ethical and hopeful work of monsters and examines ways in which playwrights, theatre and performance artists, film artists, drag artists, dancers, cultural practitioners, and activists have engaged the monster to reflect the ongoing fears (including racist, sexist, homophobic, and others) of our society and how those monsters might offer a radical sense of hope. Providing perspectives by top scholars in the field and curated by Michael Mark Chemers and Analola Santana, two leaders in the field of monster studies, Monstrous Utopias is a global and exploratory collection that offers meaningful insights into the ways in which the figure of the monster can be used to radically envisage utopias and provide moments of hope to audiences.
These essays are essential reading for Theatre and Performance students of all levels as well as scholars. It will also be an enlightening text for those interested in monstrosity and Cultural Studies more broadly.
2026
Demerson, Rainy, Stephanye Hunter, Kate Mattingly, and Natalie Zervou. 2026. “The Pedagogical Possibilities of Process: A Conversation About Editing and Publishing in Dance Studies.” Dance Chronicle 49 (1): 382–400. doi:10.1080/01472526.2025.2607802.

Abstract: 
​On October 3, 2025, we connected on Zoom for an hour to discuss editing and publishing practices. We were inspired by a panel at the Dance Studies Association conference in 2025 that included Rainy, Ronya-Lee Anderson, Matthew Henley, Elisabeth Motley, and moderator Michelle LaVigne. While the purpose of our Zoom gathering was a discussion of equitable and intentionally inclusive practices, the conversation spanned from doctoral programs’ preparation of students for academic publishing to interventions to rethink and redesign publishing norms and systems.
2020
Zervou, Natalie. 2020. “Walking Backwards: Choreographing the Greek Crisis” in The Futures of Dance Studies edited by Susan Manning, Rebecca Schneider, and Janice Ross. Madison: UW Press

Abstract:
​In 2011, two years after Greece faced a major financial crisis, the state slashed spending in many programs and elimi­nated governmental support for dance altogether. In response, choreographers joined other artists in creating their own spaces for production and pooling their limited resources. Works such as Artemis Lampiri’s META (2014– 15), Syndram Dance Company’s Fragile Nothing (2014), and Amalgama Dance Company’s On the Seesaw (2014) register the disorientation of the economic crisis and promote embodied agency at a time when bodies are devalued, disenfranchised, and ignored by the state. These works demonstrate a “forward-backwardness,” a corporeal quality that is also seen in the 2016 protest staged by members of the Union for Workers in the Field of Dance in front of Greece’s Ministry of Employment. Holding hands, dancers walked backward to enact their demands. It is a move that could be an act of solidarity or of resistance or an urgent call to action. Or it could be all three, combined in one step.
2019
Emerging Frameworks for Engaging Precarity and "Otherness" in Greek Contemporary Dance Performances. Dance Research Journal - Volume 51, Issue 1. Special Issue: Work With(Out) Boundaries: Precarity and Dance. April 2019 (p. 20-31)

Abstract:
​     At the dawn of the European refugee crisis, and in the middle of the ongoing sociopolitical and financial crisis in Greece, Greek choreographers started creating dance works that engaged immigrants and refugees. In most such initiatives, improvisation became the tool for bridging the disparity between the professional dancers and the “untrained” participants, who were often the vulnerable populations of refugees and asylum seekers. In this essay, I question the ethics and aesthetics of these methodological approaches utilized for staging encounters between natives and migrants through dance. In particular, I consider the significance of improvisation as potentially perpetuating hierarchical inequalities in the framework of Western concert dance, while I also highlight the ways that such artistic endeavors end up presenting immigrants and refugees as “Others.”
2019 
Republication in Print of the 2014 CHOROS Journal Article
Appropriations of Hellenism: A Reconsideration of Early Twentieth-Century American Physical Culture Practices. in Savrami, Katia (ed.) 2019. Dancing Dialogues: A Collection of Articles from CHOROS International Dance Journal (2012 - 2018) Volume I. Athens: DIAN Publishers

Abstract:
Dance Studies scholarship has extensively theorized the ways that early twentieth-century American physical culture pioneers drew inspiration from ancient Greek narratives and ideals. Focusing on two of the approaches that encapsulate this trend – Delsartian statue-posing and Isadora Duncan’s early movement experimentations – this essay proposes an alternative examination of these practices through a discursive analysis of “Hellenism” and a juxtaposition of American and Greek modernisms and histories. This exploration is conducted in three phases, from three different perspectives. First, attention is paid to the ways that ancient Greek references have been documented in pertinent Dance Studies scholarship in order to introduce the dominant discourses regarding these cross-cultural borrowings. Secondly, a semiotic and linguistic theorization of the terms “Hellenism” and “Greekness” is conducted, which delineates the political and historical discrepancies between these terms. It thus develops an alternative theoretical framework to approach the utilization of the discourse of “Hellenism” in embodied contexts. Lastly, the semiotic discrepancies that have been exposed are brought into dialogue with the aforementioned embodied practices. The religious, political and racial connotations of Hellenism are further explored, in order to subsequently challenge established theorizations regarding the religious philosophies espoused by the practitioners, and the racial codifications of the Hellenic aesthetic.
2017
Fragments of the European Refugee Crisis: Performing Displacement and the Re-Shaping of Greek Identity.  TDR (The Drama Review) - Volume 61 / Issue 2 Summer 2017. (p. 32-46)

Abstract:
​     The influx of immigrant and refugee populations in Greece, int he midst of the ongoing financial crisis, has given rise to performance collectives and initiatives concerned with the integration of newcomers. Such performances have become a site for the advocacy of immigrants' rights and engagement with the shifting urban demographic in Greece, prompting a reconsideration of national identity.   ​
2017
Moving in Solidarity: Thinking Through the Physicality of Recent Protests. The Dancer-Citizen - Issue 4, Spring 2017. Co-authored with Meghan Quinlan

Abstract:
​     Choreographed as a dialogue, this essay engages with the choreopolitics  of recent protest in the US, such as Black Lives Matter, Women’s Marches, and popular uprisings in response to the Immigrant Bans.  After a brief historicization of protests and a comparative analysis of the efficacy of several iconic protests, we focus on analyzing the form of current protests and explore the different modes of embodiment and corporeal agency that each of them promotes. Through this exercise, our intent is to raise questions about the politics of participation in these events, to consider the different modes of collective action, and to start a conversation about possible next steps for those interested in joining this dialogue.
2017
Rethinking Fragile Landscapes: Precarious Aesthetics and  Methodologies in Athenian Dance Performances, RiDE (Research in Drama Education) Special Issue 22:1 Precariousness and the Performances of Welfare

Abstract:
​     The financial crisis in Greece brought about significant changes in the sociopolitical and financial landscape of the country. Severe budget cuts imposed on the arts and performing practices have given rise to a new aesthetic which has impacted the themes and methodologies of contemporary productions. To unpack this aesthetic, I explore the ways that the discourse and the experience of precarity molded methodological frameworks for artistic production in Greece during the crisis. Specifically, I address trends constitutive of a ‘precarious aesthetic’ in dance performance on Athenian stages and highlight the ways that the uncertainties caused by the financial crisis in Greece served as an opportunity to rethink dance performance aesthetics, devise new approaches to creation, and advocate for sociopolitical change.
2015
Bodies of Silence and Resilience: Writing Marginality. Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings, 2015, pp 174-181 

Abstract:
      Since 2009, the financial crisis in Greece has brought about a need to revisit the past and challenge previous historical assumptions in order to understand the socio-political present more effectively. Dance, and performing arts in general, have reflected this urge by giving voice to marginalized events and perspectives in Greek history, and by challenging the dominant rhetoric of ancient Greek lineage and continuity that often overlooked the significance of ethnic minorities. As such, the focus has shifted away from a sense of unity towards a fragmented understanding of Greek identity that is re-envisioning history and documenting the present by taking into consideration under-represented communities, such as ethnic minorities and immigrants.           
        Drawing on a series of collaborative video-dance projects by Despina Stamos and Jill Woodward (“passTRESpass” and “Bodies of Resilience”), which engage with the subject position of immigrants in Greece during the crisis, this paper examines the relationship between marginality and dominant national histories, as well as the role of dance in (re)writing these ‘margins’ and rendering them visible.  Especially at a time when extreme nationalism and racism are on the rise in Greece, can dance provide the subjects of discrimination with agency, and create a space for them to ‘speak’ against racist violence? How are these immigrants’ embodied histories in dialogue with the current rewriting of Greek identity and history?
2014
Appropriations of Hellenism: A Reconsideration of Early Twentieth-Century American Physical Culture Practices. CHOROS International Dance Journal, 3 (Spring 2014), pp. 50–68.

Abstract:
Dance Studies scholarship has extensively theorized the ways that early twentieth-century American physical culture pioneers drew inspiration from ancient Greek narratives and ideals. Focusing on two of the approaches that encapsulate this trend – Delsartian statue-posing and Isadora Duncan’s early movement experimentations – this essay proposes an alternative examination of these practices through a discursive analysis of “Hellenism” and a juxtaposition of American and Greek modernisms and histories. This exploration is conducted in three phases, from three different perspectives. First, attention is paid to the ways that ancient Greek references have been documented in pertinent Dance Studies scholarship in order to introduce the dominant discourses regarding these cross-cultural borrowings. Secondly, a semiotic and linguistic theorization of the terms “Hellenism” and “Greekness” is conducted, which delineates the political and historical discrepancies between these terms. It thus develops an alternative theoretical framework to approach the utilization of the discourse of “Hellenism” in embodied contexts. Lastly, the semiotic discrepancies that have been exposed are brought into dialogue with the aforementioned embodied practices. The religious, political and racial connotations of Hellenism are further explored, in order to subsequently challenge established theorizations regarding the religious philosophies espoused by the practitioners, and the racial codifications of the Hellenic aesthetic.
Copyright © 2026 Natalie Zervou 
​Last Updated March 2026