Singularities: Dance in the Age of Performance

How does the production of performance engage with the fundamental issues of our advanced neo-capitalist age? André Lepecki surveys a decade of experimental choreography to uncover the dual meaning of ‘performance’ in the twenty-first century: not just an aesthetic category, but a mode of political power. He demonstrates the enduring ability of performance to critique and subvert this power, examining this relationship through five ‘singularities’ in contemporary dance: thingness, animality, persistence, darkness, and solidity. Exploring the works of Mette Ingvartsen, Yvonne Rainer, Ralph Lemon, Jérôme Bel and others, Lepecki uses his concept of ‘singularity’-the resistance of categorization and aesthetic identification-to examine the function of dance and performance in political and artistic debate.