Oral history narratives exhibit a variety of narrative styles, which emerge from the gender and sexual politics of the interview situation. Feminist oral historians suggest these politics provide a foundation for recognizing and affirming unconventional narrative styles that emerge from embodied perspectives based on a personal movement signature. A case study of lesbian aerial dancer and choreographer Terry Sendgraff illustrates these points. Sendgraff is the founder of the aerialist dance movement, now internationalin scope. As a trained gymnast and Gestalt therapist, Sendgraff created body training titled „Motivity“ using three-dimensional floor-based movement; this training then expanded to movements on single- and double-point trapeze to expand that three-dimensionality fully into free space, thus generating an unusual movement signature that no longer relies on gravity-bound linearity.

Dancer and choreographer Jeff Friedman is a certified movement analyst and earned his Ph.D. in dance historyand theory at the University of California-Riverside in 2003. He is also the founder and senior editor of Legacy OralHistory Program at the San Francisco Museum of Performance & Design (1988-2013). Friedman is Associate Professorin the Dance Department, Mason Gross School of the Arts, at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

A cooperation of gendup,Zentrum für Gender Studies und Frauenförderung and the department of Kunst, Musik und Tanzwissenschaft.