Singularities: Dance in the Age of PerformanceHow does the production of performance engage with the fundamental issues of our advanced neo-capitalist age? André Lepecki surveys a decade of experimental choreography to uncover the dual meaning of ‘performance’ in the twenty-first century: not just an aesthetic category, but a mode of political power. He demonstrates the enduring ability of performance to critique and subvert this power, examining this relationship through five ‘singularities’ in contemporary dance: thingness, animality, persistence, darkness, and solidity. Exploring the works of Mette Ingvartsen, Yvonne Rainer, Ralph Lemon, Jérôme Bel and others, Lepecki uses his concept of ‘singularity’—the resistance of categorization and aesthetic identification—to examine the function of dance and performance in political and artistic debate. |
Contents
Moving as some thing or some things want to run | |
In the dark | |
monstrous nature thingly life | |
will to reenact and the afterlives | |
the dancer as worker | |
four notes on witnessing performance | |