The scene of foreplay : theater, labor, and leisure in 1960s New York / Giulia Palladini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Palladini, Giulia, author.

Series:

Performance works

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Performing arts--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Performing arts.

Performing arts--Economic aspects--New York (State)--New York.

Off Off-Broadway theater.

Experimental theater--New York (State)--New York--History--20th century.

Experimental theater.

History.

Performing arts--Economic aspects.

New York (N.Y.)--Social life and customs--20th century.

New York (N.Y.).

National Book Committee.

Manners and customs.

New York (State)--New York.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

ix, 226 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2017.

Summary:

The Scene of Foreplay: Theater, Labor, and Leisure in 1960s New York suggests "foreplay" as a theoretical framework for understanding a particular mode of performance production. That mode exists outside of predetermined structures of recognition in terms of professionalism, artistic achievement, and a logic of eventfulness, Foreplay denotes a peculiar way of working and inhabiting time in performance, Palladini finds it emblematic of a constellation of artists in the 1960s New York scene, including Ellen Stewart, John Vaccaro, Ruby Lynn Reyner, Jackie Curtis, Andy Warhol, Tom Eyen, Jack Smith, and Penny Arcade. Matching an original approach to historical materials and theoretical reflection, Palladini addresses the peculiar forms of production, reproduction, and consumption developed in the 1960s as labors of love, creating for artists a condition of "preliminarity" toward professional work and also functioning as a counterforce within productive economy, as a prelude where value is not yet assigned to labor. The Scene of Foreplay proposes that such labors of love can be considered as both paradigmatic for contemporary forms of precarious labor and also resonating with echoes from marginal histories of the performing arts, in a nonlinear genealogy of queer resistance to ideas of capitalist productivity and professionalism. The book offers much for those interested in performance theory as well in the history of theater and performance arts in the 1960s. Book jacket.

Contents:

Paying homage to the "underground": foreplay and what came after

There is no idleness like show-idleness: on preliminaries, amateurism, and work in the 1960s

A Coney Island of the mind: toward a genealogy of leisure performance

Longing lasts longer: Penny Arcade and the radical value of pleasure

The bride, the mother, and the star: queer kinship and memorability in Jackie Curtis's and Ellen Stewart's life and legend

Larger than life: Andy Warhol's screen tests, and the distracted potentiality of performance.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780810135222

9780810135239

081013523X

0810135221

OCLC:

959265469

Publisher Number:

99975104794