Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and PoliticsIn Critical Moves Randy Martin sets in motion an inquiry into the relationship between dance, politics, and cultural theory. Drawing on his own experiences as a dancer as well as his observations as a cultural critic and social theorist, Martin illustrates how the study and practice of dance can reanimate arrested prospects for progressive politics and social change. From experimental and concert dance to more popular expressions, Martin engages a range of performances and demonstrates how a critical reflection on dance helps promote fluency in the language of mobilization that political theory alludes to yet rarely speaks. He explores how Bill T. Jones's Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land defies attempts to separate social ideas from aesthetic concerns and celebrates multiculturalism in the face of a singular national culture; he studies the choreography in rapper Ice Cube's video "Wicked," which confronts racialized depictions of violent crime; and he discusses how racial difference is negotiated by analyzing a hip hop aerobics class in a nonblack environment. Revealing how mastery of modern dance technique teaches an individual body to express cultural difference and display its intrinsic diversity, Critical Moves concludes with a reflection on the contribution dance studies can make to other fields within cultural studies and social sciences. As such it becomes an occasion to rethink the terms of history and agency, multiculturalism and nationalism, identity and political economy. This book will appeal not only to scholars and practitioners of dance, but also to a wide cross-section of people concerned with the study of political theory and the history of social movements. |
Contents
Dancing the Dialectic of Agency and History | 29 |
Toward a Narrative | 55 |
Rewrapping | 107 |
The University | 151 |
For Dance Studies | 181 |
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activity aerobics aesthetic African American agency and history analysis appropriation articulation assumes audience authority bodily Cambridge capacity capital Chicago choreographic circulation claims composite body conception concert dance conjuncture constituted contemporary context critical critique cultural studies dance class dance studies dance technique dancers Detextualization display dominant economy effects emerge essay formation gender given global Hence hip hop hip hop culture Ice Cube identity ideology imagine interdisciplinarity Isadora Duncan Jones Jones's Judson kinesthetic labor Last Supper London Martha Graham means mediated ment mobilization modern dance move multiculturalism narrative object overreading participation particular performance perspective politics popular possible practice present problem production race racial reception reference reflection relation representation Routledge sexuality social movements society space structure structure and agency suggest surplus technique class theory tion trans trope University of Minnesota University Press Verso writing York