About the Book
Part of the acclaimed 'Documents of Contemporary Art' series of anthologies .
This collection surveys the choreographic turn in the artistic imagination from the 1950s onwards, and in doing so outlines the philosophies of movement instrumental to the development of experimental dance. By introducing and discussing the concepts of embodiment and corporeality, choreopolitics, and the notion of dance in an expanded field, Dance establishes the aesthetics and politics of dance as a major impetus in contemporary culture. It offers testimonies and writings by influential visual artists whose work has taken inspiration from dance and choreography.
Dance - because of its ephemerality, corporeality, precariousness, scoring, and performativity - is arguably the art form that most clearly engages the politics of aesthetics in contemporary culture. Dance's ephemerality suggests the possibility of an escape from the regimes of commodification and fetishization in the arts. Its corporeality can embody critiques of representation inscribed in bodies and subjects. Its precariousness underlines the fragility of contemporary states of being. Scoring links it with conceptual art, as language becomes the articulator for possible as well as impossible modes of action. Finally, because dance always establishes a contract, or promise, between its choreographic planning and its actualization in movement, it reveals an essential performativity in its aesthetic project - a central concern for both art and critical thought in our time.
Artists and choreographers surveyed include: Marina Abramovic, Pina Bausch, Jérôme Bel, Seydou Boro, Trisha Brown, Rosemary Butcher, John Cage, Boris Charmatz, Ananya Chatterjea, Merce Cunningham, João Fiadeiro, William Forsythe, Simone Forti, Bruno Freire, Anna Halprin, Deborah Hay, Tatsumi Hijikata, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Mette Ingvartsen, Joan Jonas, Akira Kasai, Pichet Klunchun, Ralph Lemon, Xavier Le Roy, Babette Mangolte, Vera Mantero, Mathilde Monnier, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape, Steve Paxton, Adrian Piper, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, La Ribot, Lia Rodrigues, Hooman Sharifi and Meg Stuart.
Writers include: Giorgio Agamben, Bruce Altshuler, Charles Atlas, Sally Banes, Nicholas Birns, Terry Brennan, Barbara Browning, Jonathan Burrows, Mary Connolly, Bojana Cvejic, Arlene Croce, Gilles Deleuze, Kattrin Deufert, DD Dorvillier, Douglas Dunn, Eiko & Koma, Tim Etchells, Jan Fabre, Matteo Fargion, Peter Eleey, Tim Etchells, Susan Foster, Sondra Fraleigh, Mark Franko, Adrian Heathfield, Graley Herren, Andrew Hewitt, Bill T. Jones, Jeff Kelley, Rosalind E. Krauss, Bojana Kunst, Henri Lefebvre, Boyan Manchev, Jean-Luc Nancy, Tamah Nakamura, Lloyd Newson, Yoko Ono, Halifu Osumare, Jeroen Peeters, Thomas Plischke, Yvonne Rainer, Richard Serra, Gerald Siegmund, Mårten Spångberg, Luc Van den Dries, Myriam Van Imschoot and Pascale Weber.
Table of Contents:
Introduction; A Choreographic Turn 1952-65; Positioning Dance/Theorizing Movement; Practices of Embodiment; Choreopolitics; Dancing in an Expanded Field: Image/Object/Score; Biographical Notes; Bibliography; Index; Acknowledgements.
About the Author :
André Lepecki is Associate Professor at the Department of Performance Studies at New York University. He is the author of Exhausting Dance: Performance and Politics of Movement (2006) and a regular contributor to Performance Research, Drama Review, Artforum, Nouvelles de Danse, and other publications in Europe, Brazil, and the Middle East.
Review :
"This variation in approach from humorous and cynical to conceptual and righteous and abstract, strengthens the collection. As he states in the introduction, Lepecki is trying to diminish misperceptions of dance and dance-makers 'as non-verbal artists creating a supposedly "visceral" art whose sole purpose is to move gracefully, flawlessly, to the sound of music.' His editorial choices help both to ground and to elevate the dialogue." - Publishers Weekly "This is essential reading for anyone studying the shift in art since 1950 to address or accommodate the body in motion. The book includes key texts by dancers, artists, art historians, dance historians, theorists and philosophers who have participated in and comment upon the often apparently divided but in fact intimately interwoven histories of dance and art over the past sixty years. Lepecki's elegant introduction insightfully traces these complex histories while also theorizing and complicating the exclusion of the dancing body even from the discussions of body and performance art in art criticism and art history. This is a fantastic resource." - Amelia Jones, Professor/Grierson Chair in Visual Culture and Graduate Program Director, Department of Art History & Communication Studies, McGill University "This is a great collection ... it does more than bridge the many gaps that have historically marginalized dance in contemporary thought about art, work and artwork. By actually placing moving bodies on its bridges, this book crosses dancing, writing, and writing dancing. Very often, these crossings take place between partners: dancers and critical theorists, visual artists and dancers, composers and dancers, dancers and dancers. Vitally, this volume privileges the voices of choreographers and dancers themselves as those voices engage across the arts. As a result we are given Dance to think with, speak with, and move with - whether in the theatre, on the street, in the contemporary art museum, or all the spaces between." - Rebecca Schneider, Professor of Theatre Arts & Performance Studies, History of Art and Architecture, Brown University
