Gestures of music theater: the performativity of song and dance

Abstract

Gestures of music theatre: the performativity of song and dance focuses on song and dance as performative gestures that not only entertain but also act on audiences and performers. The chapters range across musical theatre, opera, theatre and other artistic practices, from Glee to Gardzienice, Beckett to Disney, Broadway to sound installation. The essays draw together diverse examples of vocality and physicality by exploring their affect rather than through considering them as texts. The book considers performativity in relation to Dramaturgy, Transition, Identity, Context, Practice, Community and Writing. However, dialogue between the chapters also allows other stories to emerge about how song and dance announce and consolidate identity, how they position us within social contexts, and how they construct dynamic and evolving narratives, all processes that help to reveal the complexity of our place within the world. The texture of music theatre, containing as it does the gestures of song and dance, therefore reveals itself to be particularly performative, partly caused by the intertextual and interdisciplinary energies of its make up, partly by its active dynamism in performance. The book's contributors derive methodologies from many disciplines, sharing methodologies and performance repertoires with scholarship from theatre studies, musicology and cultural stdies, but also embracing many other approaches and case studies. Together, we view these interdisciplinary approaches as neighboring voices whose dialogue can only enrich the study of contemporary music theatre.