The bodies of others : drag dances and their afterlives / Selby Wynn Schwartz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schwartz, Selby Wynn, author.

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), issuing body.

Series:

Triangulations.

Triangulations : lesbian/gay/queer--theater/drama/performance

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Drag shows--United States--History--20th century.

Drag shows.

Drag shows--United States--History--21st century.

Female impersonators--United States.

Female impersonators.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (260 pages).

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, [2019]

Summary:

The Bodies of Others explores the politics of gender in motion. From drag ballerinas to faux queens, and from butoh divas to the club mothers of modern dance, this book delves into four decades of drag dances on American stages, tracing the ways in which bodies can be imagined otherwise. Drag dances take us beyond glittery one-liners and into the spaces between gender norms. In these backstage histories, we see dancers who give their bodies over to other selves, opening up the category of realness. When realness becomes a practice, dancing can become a way of restaging the histories of bodies. The book maps out a drag politics of embodiment, connecting drag dances to queer hope, memory, and mourning. There are aging eIÌ⁰⁴́₇℗Đtoiles, midnight shows, mystical seIÌ⁰⁴́₇℗Đances, and all of the dust and velvet of divas in their dressing-rooms. But these forty years of drag dances are also a cultural history, including Mark Morris dancing the death of Dido in the shadow of AIDS, and the swans of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo sketching an antiracist vision for ballet. Drawing on queer theory, dance history, and the embodied practices of dancers themselves, The Bodies of Others examines the ways in which drag dances undertake the work of a shared queer and trans politics. The book will be of interest to scholars and students working on performance, gender and sexuality, and embodiment.

Contents:

Introduction: To Work the Body

One. ""Remember Me! But Ah . . ."": Mark Morris's Dido and Aeneas

Two. Martha @ Martha: A Séance with Richard Move

Three. Admiring: The Returns of La Argentina

Four. Genealogies for Ballet: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

Five. To Be Faux Real

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 230-258) and index.

Description based on information from publisher.

ISBN:

9780472125029

0472125028

OCLC:

1076274335