SEEDS OF DESIRE: THE COMMON GROUND OF PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS (CULTURE, THEATER, DANCE).
Item
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Title
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SEEDS OF DESIRE: THE COMMON GROUND OF PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS (CULTURE, THEATER, DANCE).
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Identifier
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AAI8501155
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identifier
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8501155
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Creator
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MARTIN, RANDY.
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Contributor
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Michael E. Brown
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Date
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1984
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, General
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Abstract
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This work is concerned with investigating the empirical and theoretical grounds for political performance. In so doing, an argument is made for alternate conceptions of both politics and cultural communication. The body and the physical dimension of social experience, particularly as they are manifest in performance, will provide the focus for this exposition. There are four sections divided as follows: (1) an ethnographic study of a modern dance company which traces the making of a single dance from first rehearsal to performance; (2) an historical comparison of the work of the Russian Director V. E. Meyerhold during the period of the Bolshevik Revolution to the Living Theater in the United States in the early 1960s; (3) A critique and review of some theories of culture and communication that center around the notion of meaning as a symbolic process and the development of an alternate theory based upon a notion of desire as abstract communication; (4) a critique of politics as symbolic acts which applies desire in physical communication to political performance. The first section exhibits the dance company in transition from symbolic, lingual forms of communication to non-lingual abstract forms to demonstrate how desire is produced in the moment of performance. Next, the historical conditions that shape the social expression of desire are illustrated in the differences between two theatrical avant-gardes in two diverse social contexts. Desire is shown to be an absent term in explaining agency in social activity. Finally, a politics of the body is outlined which places desire in the stead of consciousness and opposes a symbolic community organized through exchange with an abstract community organized through circulation. A political performance based upon the lessons gleaned from dance and theater is offered as a means of developing desire in politics.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
