Topic > Neoliberalism and the Art of Dance

What struck me as one of the central starting points regarding the way this week's readings were in dialogue with each other is the complex way in which dance artists access this "form of art” and in the process, have developed articulations that place artists in conformity with, rejection of, or opposition to the breadth of neoliberalism. Kunst argued that art no longer needs to reaffirm itself as a socially relevant and valuable movement because the economy, in particular, has locked it into the entrenched capitalist and populist fabrication of value. What she stated was that art must rediscover its material basis and reclaim its power to strongly associate the capabilities of the abstract (thought) with real abstractions (value, capital, time, money, etc.). His work mapped the evolution of the organization of work, showing how the modernist proposition that “the work of art and the work of life should be inseparable” took hold at the heart of capitalist society. To strengthen his claim, Kunst sought ways to reclaim “work” and to liberate artistic labor from its neoliberal counterpart. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay For me, his in-depth analysis of how the artist delves into work and his discussion of paths to rebelling against the project of neoliberalism called for the temporality of work as duration which was particularly helpful in encouraging his readers to to stop seeing art as something that can be measured in economic terms/standards and to stop treating art or any creative output as if one's engagement in art fits comfortably into usual working conventions. He tried to break down the phenomena of intertwining between the principles of neoliberal economics and the organization of work in the art world and also underlined the paradoxes of the art world as well as museums of a contemporary nature, considered as active spaces of experimentation and discovery, can be placed alongside the way in which democratic authoritarian structures and other corporations functioned and communicated in contemporary times. For her, seeing contemporary dance and performance art should encourage an orientation and engagement based on fluidity rather than a complete whole to it. be a practice that will push the individual to sustain flexibility rather than 'staticity', transforming the artist into an active participant and producer of dynamism in the social structure. Lepecki's work promoted the intrinsic agency of dance, identifying experimental dance as a mode of critical thinking to problematize neocolonial capitalist management of projections of corporeality and subjectivity. The author outlined five directions in which “revolutionary” choreography can bring together or imagine a new community that projects singularity and expresses freedom beyond liberal individualism through discussion of what, darkness, animality, persistence, and solidity. It showed how singularity inhabits events in which human and non-human bodies, affects, and temporalities “come together momentarily and peripherally, risking their recognizable identities to generate forms of coexistence. Lepecki proposed that choreographic experimentation has become a site and method for the deployment of singularities and, through this, the entire social field is generated and supported by experimental choreographic practices. Furthermore, the author showed how dance has the potential to transform performance of the Self and relationality. To render a microcosm through the lens of the historical development of somatics, Doran George has traced the way.