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Choreomania
Dance and Disorder. Oxford Studies in Dance Theory
By (author)
Kelina Gotman
Genres:
Dance, Other performing arts, Music, General & world history, Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, National liberation & independence, post-colonialism, Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions, Literary studies: general, Cultural studies
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Synopsis
When political protest is read as epidemic madness, religious ecstasy as nervous disease, and angular dance moves as dark and uncouth, the disorder being described is choreomania. At once a catchall term to denote spontaneous gestures and the unruly movements of crowds, choreomania emerged in the nineteenth century at a time of heightened class conflict, nationalist policy, and colonial rule. In this book, author Kelina Gotman examines these choreographies of
unrest, rethinking the modern formation of the choreomania concept as it moved across scientific and social scientific disciplines. Reading archives describing dramatic misformationsof bodies and body politicsshe shows how prejudices against expressivity unravel, in turn revealing widespread anxieties about
demonstrative agitation. This history of the fitful body complements stories of nineteenth-century discipline and regimentation. As she notes, constraints on movement imply constraints on political power and agency. In each chapter, Gotman confronts the many ways choreomania works as an extension of discourses shaping colonialist orientalism, which alternately depict riotous bodies as dangerously infected others, and as curious bacchanalian remains. Through her research, Gotman also shows how
beneath the radar of this colonial discourse, men and women gathered together to repossess on their terms the gestures of social revolt. New & Used
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What Reviewers Are Saying
[...] 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 *
and time. * Rebecca Chaleff, Theatre Research Internationa