Exhausting Dance

by André Lepecki

The only scholarly book in English dedicated to recent European contemporary dance, Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement examines the work of key contemporary choreographers who have transformed the dance scene since the early 1990s in Europe and the US. Through their vivid and explicit dialogue with performance art, visual arts and critical theory from the past thirty years, this new generation of choreographers challenge our understanding of dance by exhausting the concept of movement. Their work demands to be read as performed extensions of the radical politics implied in performance art, in post-structuralist and critical theory, in post-colonial theory, and in critical race studies. In this far-ranging and exceptional study, Andre Lepecki brilliantly analyzes the work of the choreographers: * Jerome Bel (France)
* Juan Dominguez (Spain)
* Trisha Brown (US)
* La Ribot (Spain)
* Xavier Le Roy (France-Germany)
* Vera Mantero (Portugal) and visual and performance artists: * Bruce Nauman (US)
* William Pope.L (US). This book offers a significant and radical revision of the way we think about dance, arguing for the necessity of a renewed engagement between dance studies and experimental artistic and philosophical practices.

Genres: Art, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Politics

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Lara Recalde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lxs bailarines tenemos que leer mucho más porque solo así algún día quizás encontremos la cuestión esencial que nos convoca

[Miriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Que fuerte que fuerte que fuerte que fuerte que fuerte

[Ayanna Dozier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement is a great introduction text on dance analysis and theory. In particular, scholars working in the realm of cultural, performance, and media studies will find this book useful in providing an overview and conceptually rich analysis on various forms of dance that exist in performance.

Working through postcolonial theory, Lepecki situates the Western philosophy and linguistics as shaping the solipsistic solitary approach to dance that privileges white male bodies over others. This relationship, Lepecki argues, is key then to interpreting dance criticism's aversion to dance forms that do not conform or that place the audience members into "zones of discomfort." Such dance practices in Lepecki's argument call attention to the ontological slippage of the Western conception of movement and dance through the alternative engagements with the body (2006, 88). In so doing, some of these performances are able to engage and rematerializes the "racialized territory" that dance criticism and scholarship often ignore (110).

Lepecki's focus dance and its relation to movement allows him to trouble our understanding of what constitutes as dance (and by extension, performance) while theoretically situating the Western desire of movement and dance as an effect from colonialism. He writes: "Modernism's 'discovery' of movement for movement's sake is contemporary to the vernacular discovery made by the average European dancing in 'Negro' clubs, a place where white bodies are inflamed to move by the sheer contaminating presence of African American 'primitive' sounds and dances … It is this movement at the core of Western dance towards a complicated desire that necessitates a reinvention of the white body's ability to move before the mirror of racial colonial alterity" (113). While theoretically dense, Lepecki uses theory alongside historical analysis to tell a story as oppose to allowing theory to obfuscate his engagement with dance and history. The careful consideration of cultural studies and engagement with how colonialism shaped Western culture and its amnesic imagination makes Exhausting Dance a enjoyable read for dance scholars, non-dance scholars, and non-scholars alike.

[Manuel Abreu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting study into postmodern and postcolonial time-based art in the realms of dance, movement, and performance. Not an area of expertise for me so most everything here except for Pope.L (a conceptually-driven contemporary artist) was new. I appreciated the exploration of the etymology of choreography, and the ways various choreographers and dancers resisted and navigated the 'dead master's ghostly voice.' Much of what Lepecki analyzes here as postmodern dance involves de-skilling, repetitive conventional actions, interrogations of ability and access, and a degree of inscrutability. I personally don't think I'd enjoy sitting through many of these works, but I also don't know anything about contemporary dance, so I suspect that plays a big role in my hoi polloi feels. Anyway, enjoyed this.

[Elisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Etenkin jos länsimaisen filosofian (lähinnä fenomenologian, psykoanalyysin, dekonstruktivismin) tunnetut teoreetikot ja ideat ei ole ihan vieraita ja lisäksi on kiinnostunut nykytanssista, niin kyllä tästä kirjasta ajattelun aihetta saanee. Lepeckin mukaan tanssin tarkasteleminen filosofian käsittein voi tuoda esiin esityksen poliittisen muutosvoiman, mitä hän pyrkii havainnollistamaan muutamien esimerkkitapausten avulla (itse tutkin Youtubesta pätkiä, koska en niin perehtynyt aiheeseen ole, että pelkästään kirjan kuvien avulla olisin saanut riittävän hyvää käsitystä). Kirjan nimestäkin ilmi käyvä avainteema on liikkeen pysähtyminen, minkä kirjoittajan mukaan voi nähdä äärimmäisenä vastalauseena modernin aikakauden käsitykselle tanssista alati liikkeessä olevana, eteenpäin pyrkivänä toimintana. Normiodotuksia rikkomalla tanssi- tai performanssitaiteilija/koreografi voi vastustaa vallalla olevia (valtaapitävien) käsityksiä ja pyrkiä luomaan yhteyden todelliseen maailmaan. Tätä yhteyttä odotin ehkä hieman enemmän myös Lepeckin tekstiltä, vaikkakin filosofisen puolen korostuessa kielen teoreettisuutta lienee vaikea välttää.

[Deemeetree · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very inspiring