Performance, Dance and Political Economy

This book examines the relation between bodies and political economies at micro and macro levels. It stands in the space between ends and beginnings - some long-desired, such as the end of capitalism and racism, and others long-dreaded, such as the climate catastrophe - and reimagines what the world can be like instead. It offers an original investigation into the relation between performance, dance, and political economy, looking at the points where politics, economics, ethics, and culture intersect. Arising from live conversations and exchanges among the contributors, this book is written in an interdisciplinary and dialogical manner by leading scholars and artists in the fields of Performance Studies, Dance, Political Theory, Economics, and Social Theory: Marc Arthur, Melissa Blanco Borelli, Anita Gonzalez, Alexandrina Hemsley, Jamila Johnson-Small, Elena Loizidou, Tavia Nyong'o, Katerina Paramana, Nina Power, and Usva Seregina. Their critical and creative examinations of the relation between bodies and political economy offer insights for both imagining and materializing a world beyond the present.

Katerina Paramana is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Theatre and Performance at Brunel University London, UK. She is co-editor of the book Art and Dance in Dialogue, author of several articles on the socio-political and ethical dimensions of contemporary performance, and co-editor of the Interdisciplinary Book Series Dance in Dialogue. Her performances have been presented internationally.
Anita Gonzalez is Professor of Theatre, Chair of Dance and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs at the University of Michigan, US. Gonzalez is co-editor of the book Black Performance Theory with Thomas DeFrantz and author of Afro-Mexico: Dancing Between Myth and Reality and Jarocho's Soul, as well as of numerous articles and book chapters.

Foreword: A Gesture
Tavia Nyong'o
Opening Thoughts and Introductions
Katerina Paramana and Anita Gonzalez
Provocations
CHAPTER 1:
Performance, Dance and Political Economy: A Provocation
Katerina Paramana
CHAPTER 2:
Recognizing Race and Class in Dance: Gonzalez Response to Paramana
Anita Gonzalez
Dialogue 1: Control of Bodies
CHAPTER 3:
A World Beyond the Captured Body
Nina Power
CHAPTER 4:
Choreographing Rage
Marc Arthur
Dialogue 2: Commodification of Bodies
CHAPTER 5:
Honesty and the Body
Nina Power
CHAPTER 6:
Feeling my way through several beginnings
Alexandrina Hemsley
Dialogue 3: Rest, Productivity, and Survival
CHAPTER 7:
Sleepwalking: Toward A New Corporeality of Dance
Marc Arthur
CHAPTER 8:
It Only Happens In Daylight
Jamila Johnson-Small
Dialogue 4: Communal Disruptions
CHAPTER 9:
Community, Coloniality and Convivencia in the Festival de Danza de Santa María la Antigua del Darién, Colombia
Melissa Blanco Borelli
CHAPTER 10:
Changing Our Bodies' Relationships to Reality
Usva Seregina
Dialogue 5: Anarchic Inversions of Neoliberal Economies
CHAPTER 11:
The "End," "Lived Time" or How to Say Goodbye to Your World, A World.
Melissa Blanco-Borelli
CHAPTER 12:
Dance, Anarchism, Mutual Aid
Elena Loizidou
Dialogue 6: Escaping Capitalism?
CHAPTER 13:
Breaking the Illusion of Reality: Exploring Reiterations of the Performance of Consumption
Usva Seregina
CHAPTER 14:
From Exchange to Freedom and back. No guarantees.
Elena Loizidou
Group Conversation
CHAPTER 15:
In Conversation - Bodies at the End of the World: Performance, Dance and Political Economy
Katerina Paramana, Anita Gonzalez, Nina Power, Marc Arthur, Melissa Blanco Borelli, Usva Seregina, Jamila Johnson-Small, Elena Loizidou, and Alexandrina Hemsley (in the order of speaking)
References
Index