Choreomania
Dance and Disorder
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press Inc
Published:22nd Feb '18
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£60.00(9780190840426)
From the condemnation of protest to skepticism of religious ecstasy, radical movement has been defined by freedoms and restrictions relative to class conflict, national policy, and colonialism. In this book, author Kélina Gotman examines choreographies of unrest, rethinking the modern formation of choreomania, a fantastical concept across scientific disciplines used to designate the spontaneous and uncontrolled movements of crowds. In these misformations of body politics, prejudices against spontaneity unravel, suggesting widespread anxieties about impulsiveness and irregularity. In tandem with dialogues of the erratic, Gotman makes use of histories of nineteenth-century control which identify the period as one of increasing regimentation. As she notes, constraints on movement signal constraints on political power and agency and on individuals' capacity to shift their allegiances, inhabiting more hospitable terrains. In each chapter, Gotman confronts the many ways choreomania functions as an extension of colonialism, dismissing expressive bodies as mentally and physically infected others. Through her research, Gotman unearths the many instances of choreomania that represent collective efforts to escape social tyranny inflicted by the upper class.
[...] what Gotman accomplishes in the process is a daring negotiation with the history of 'movement', one that persuades her readers to imagine the possibilities inherent in the sight of bodies dancing beyond the rigid confines of the ordinary - outside, perhaps, the onward march of late capitalism - and into states of dissent, disruption, and ecstatic disorder. * Megan Girdwood, The Cambridge Quarterly *
choreomania encourages broader notions of how discourse on dance is produced and reproduced in order to better understand dance's political and social potential. * Tessa Nun, Comparative Literature Studies *
Choreomania is as progressive in its historical methodologies as it is in its provocative analyses of heretofore undertheorized modes of movement, dance and gesture. I have no doubt that it will deeply impact dance and performance studies as a pathbreaking analysis of social bodies in motion as well as an inspiring example of how the durable roots of rigorous critical and historical methodologies strengthen scholarship that stretches so far across geography and time. * Rebecca Chaleff, Theatre Research International *
[Choreomania] is a significant contribution to theatre and performance studies methodologies, advancing a historiographical method that attends to movement, motility, kinetics, dynamics, efforts, push, and pull...It is exciting to imagine what new research Choreomania will make possible. * Broderick D. V. Chow, Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, Contemporary Theatre Review *
Choreomania is consistently enlightening and Provocative. * Megan Girdwood, Cambridge Quarterly *
ISBN: 9780190840419
Dimensions: 183mm x 257mm x 25mm
Weight: 850g
382 pages