Ungoverning Dance

Ungoverning Dance examines the work of progressive contemporary dance artists in continental Europe from the mid 1990s to 2015. Placing this within the context of neoliberalism and austerity the book argues that these artists have developed an ethico-aesthetic approach that uses dance practices as sites of resistance against dominant ideologies and that their works attest to the persistence of alternative ways of thinking and living. In response to the way that the radical values informing their work are continually under attack from neoliberalism these artists recognise that they in effect share common pool resources. Thus while contemporary dance has been turned into a market they nevertheless value the extent to which it functions as a commons. Work that does this it argues ungoverns dance.The book offers close readings of works from the 1990s and 2000s by two generations of European-based dance artists: that of Jerome Bel Jonathan Burrows La Ribot and Xavier Le Roy who began showing work in the 1990s; and that of artists who emerged in the 2000s including Fabian Barba Faustin Linyekula Ivana Muller and Nikolina Pristas. Topics examined include dance and precarious life choreographing friendship re-performance the virtual in dance and a dancer's experience of the Egyptian revolution. Ungoverning Dance proposes new ways of understanding recent contemporary European dance works by making connections with their social political and theoretical contexts.