The ‘New Woman’ is a Dancer. Asta Nielsen’s screendances as a vehicle for the depiction of the new woman

Worldwide known as one of the first international film stars, Asta Nielsen migrated from one country to another, thus embodying a European film icon. Throughout her career, she often portrayed female performers on screen, frequently involving the shooting of dance sequences. These screendance occurrences played a significant role in promoting the transnational image of the "new woman" on the silver screen, even when the narrative ultimately punished the rebellious characters she interpreted. By employing an interdisciplinary approach that combines screendance studies, feminist film theory, cognitive neuroscience, and reception theory, this essay aims to provide an overview of Asta Nielsen's existing dance sequences and analyze them from both a filmic and choreographic perspective.