
When political protest is read as epidemic madness, religious ecstasy as nervous disease, and angular dance moves as dark and uncouth, the 'disorder' being described is choreomania. At once a catchall term to denote spontaneous gestures and the unruly movements of crowds, 'choreomania' emerged in the nineteenth century at a time of heightened class conflict, nationalist policy, and colonial rule. In this book, author Kélina Gotman examines these choreographies of unrest, rethinking the modern formation of the choreomania concept as it moved across scientific and social scientific disciplines. Reading archives describing dramatic misformations-of bodies and body politics-she shows how prejudices against expressivity unravel, in turn revealing widespread anxieties about demonstrative agitation. This history of the fitful body complements stories of nineteenth-century discipline and regimentation. As she notes, constraints on movement imply constraints on political power and agency. In each chapter, Gotman confronts the many ways choreomania works as an extension of discourses shaping colonialist orientalism, which alternately depict riotous bodies as dangerously infected others, and as curious bacchanalian remains. Through her research, Gotman also shows how beneath the radar of this colonial discourse, men and women gathered together to repossess on their terms the gestures of social revolt.
How did the nineteenth-century concept of choreomania function as a mechanism for pathologizing political protest and social unrest? Kélina Gotman, a scholar of dance and performance studies, investigates the historical intersection of medical discourse and social control. She argues that the labeling of spontaneous movement as 'choreomania' served to discipline bodies and suppress political agency during an era of intense colonial expansion and class conflict.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars in dance theory and cultural history recognize this work as a rigorous interrogation of how bodily movement is politicized and pathologized. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which demands familiarity with critical theory and historical discourse.
Page Count:
379
Publication Date:
2017-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190840447
ISBN-13:
9780190840440
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!