How to Make Dances in an Epidemic: Tracking Choreography in the Age of AIDS
by David Gere
University of Wisconsin Press, 2004 Paper: 978-0-299-20084-8 | eISBN: 978-0-299-20083-1 | Cloth: 978-0-299-20080-0 Library of Congress Classification GV1588.6.G47 2004 Dewey Decimal Classification 306.484
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
David Gere, who came of age as a dance critic at the height of the AIDS epidemic, offers the first book to examine in depth the interplay of AIDS and choreography in the United States, specifically in relation to gay men. The time he writes about is one of extremes. A life-threatening medical syndrome is spreading, its transmission linked to sex. Blame is settling on gay men. What is possible in such a highly charged moment, when art and politics coincide?
Gere expands the definition of choreography to analyze not only theatrical dances but also the protests conceived by ACT-UP and the NAMES Project AIDS quilt. These exist on a continuum in which dance, protest, and wrenching emotional expression have become essentially indistinguishable. Gere offers a portrait of gay male choreographers struggling to cope with AIDS and its meanings.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY David Gere is associate professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. A longtime dance critic, he has previously contributed essays to Loss within Loss and Dancing Desires, both published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
REVIEWS
“While the groundbreaking volume reflects a deep intellectual inquiry into the host of aesthetic and political tactics artists developed,...Gere’s lively, evocative prose and eye for the telling detail also make it a highly enjoyable read. [Gere] charts a new path for the dance scholar as impassioned activist.”—The Village Voice
"David Gere's How to Make Dances in an Epidemic is the definitive study of AIDS and dance, but its contribution extends well beyond these fields of inquiry. A model of impassioned scholarship, this book rescues a nearly forgotten queer archive from obscurity while demonstrating how the arts continue to make all the difference in our lives."—David Román, Professor of English and American Studies, University of Southern California
"This is a powerful and beautifully written book. Gere allows us to see dances as extremely rich events embodying politics, emotion, and art in varying ways, ranging from grief to insurgency. Gere’s own identity as a righteously insurgent gay man informs the book throughout in ways that are both passionate and illuminating—this is engaged scholarship at its best. Anyone interested in dance or in gay culture or in art and politics should, as I did, find this a fascinating book, impossible to put down."—Sally Banes, editor of Reinventing Dance in the 1960s
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Blood and Sweat
2 Melancholia and Fetishes
3 Monuments and Insurgencies
4 Corpses and Ghosts
5 Transcendence and Eroticism
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
How to Make Dances in an Epidemic: Tracking Choreography in the Age of AIDS
by David Gere
University of Wisconsin Press, 2004 Paper: 978-0-299-20084-8 eISBN: 978-0-299-20083-1 Cloth: 978-0-299-20080-0
David Gere, who came of age as a dance critic at the height of the AIDS epidemic, offers the first book to examine in depth the interplay of AIDS and choreography in the United States, specifically in relation to gay men. The time he writes about is one of extremes. A life-threatening medical syndrome is spreading, its transmission linked to sex. Blame is settling on gay men. What is possible in such a highly charged moment, when art and politics coincide?
Gere expands the definition of choreography to analyze not only theatrical dances but also the protests conceived by ACT-UP and the NAMES Project AIDS quilt. These exist on a continuum in which dance, protest, and wrenching emotional expression have become essentially indistinguishable. Gere offers a portrait of gay male choreographers struggling to cope with AIDS and its meanings.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY David Gere is associate professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. A longtime dance critic, he has previously contributed essays to Loss within Loss and Dancing Desires, both published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
REVIEWS
“While the groundbreaking volume reflects a deep intellectual inquiry into the host of aesthetic and political tactics artists developed,...Gere’s lively, evocative prose and eye for the telling detail also make it a highly enjoyable read. [Gere] charts a new path for the dance scholar as impassioned activist.”—The Village Voice
"David Gere's How to Make Dances in an Epidemic is the definitive study of AIDS and dance, but its contribution extends well beyond these fields of inquiry. A model of impassioned scholarship, this book rescues a nearly forgotten queer archive from obscurity while demonstrating how the arts continue to make all the difference in our lives."—David Román, Professor of English and American Studies, University of Southern California
"This is a powerful and beautifully written book. Gere allows us to see dances as extremely rich events embodying politics, emotion, and art in varying ways, ranging from grief to insurgency. Gere’s own identity as a righteously insurgent gay man informs the book throughout in ways that are both passionate and illuminating—this is engaged scholarship at its best. Anyone interested in dance or in gay culture or in art and politics should, as I did, find this a fascinating book, impossible to put down."—Sally Banes, editor of Reinventing Dance in the 1960s
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Blood and Sweat
2 Melancholia and Fetishes
3 Monuments and Insurgencies
4 Corpses and Ghosts
5 Transcendence and Eroticism
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE