Labour, Life, Art: On the social anthropology of labour

Democracy's Body, Neoliberalism's Body: The Ambivalent Search for Egalitarianism Within the Contemporary Post/Modern Dance Tradition

“…It emphasizes how Mexican dance forms that combined with ballet and modern dance idioms influenced the development of racial and social formations at different historical moments. economic systems (e.g., Cvejić2011;Franko 2002;Klein 2012;Kolb 2013;Kunst 2015;Martin 2017). Alexandra Kolb notes that insufficient attention has been given to postmodern rhetoric and modern market economic trends.…”

“…As contemporary post/modern dance artists thrive within an enveloping capitalist logic, they develop strategies to produce their work and make a living. Gabriele Klein situates discourses on labor as the “leading dispositive of contemporary society” and situates it in relation to biopolitical strategies and techniques of the self, thereby positioning artists in constant negotiation of their labor, life, and art as part of process of subjectivization (2012, 13). She evokes scholarship on how some of the working and living methods employed by artists, including those attributed to artists in the nineteenth century, have become “the working ethos of neoliberalism” (Klein 2012, 13).…”

“…In the last few decades, scholars interested in dance have addressed some of these questions by drawing critical attention toward the different relationships artistic labor has to politics and economic systems (e.g., Cvejić 2011; Franko 2002; Klein 2012; Kolb 2013; Kunst 2015; Martin 2017). Alexandra Kolb notes that insufficient attention has been given to postmodern rhetoric and modern market economic trends.…”

“…Gabriele Klein situates discourses on labor as the “leading dispositive of contemporary society” and situates it in relation to biopolitical strategies and techniques of the self, thereby positioning artists in constant negotiation of their labor, life, and art as part of process of subjectivization (2012, 13). She evokes scholarship on how some of the working and living methods employed by artists, including those attributed to artists in the nineteenth century, have become “the working ethos of neoliberalism” (Klein 2012, 13). In confronting the decreased demand for art in relation to modes of production in capitalist markets, Klein cites Berlin-based dancer-choreographer Jochen Roller when asking what “technologies of an entrepreneurial self” contemporary artists need in order to thrive.…”

“…In Klein's argument, one can see this labor-based entrepreneurial strategy as a “key element of the effectiveness of … bio-power” (2012, 13). Precisely, I am interested in the regulative effects of biopolitics as a disciplinary context in which artists negotiate their potential (relative) agency, even if framed as a technique of the self, not only in relation to meeting their material needs but also to the production of their specific artistic subjectivities.…”