Abstract
This chapter provides the aesthetical and the institutional background against which Jérôme Bel’s work takes shape. It traces the origins of the medium specificity of modern and postmodern dance as embodied movement in time and space that affects members of the audience kinaesthetically. Both forms draw on the establishment of an “inner scene” of the subject that is communicated through the dance. Postmodern dance, however, breaks with its modernist tradition by claiming that dance is also a visual phenomenon. This produces an opening in the reception of dance towards media-informed spectatorship that Jérôme Bel’s work builds on. His work can be read as a reaction against the institutionalisation of contemporary dance in France since the 1980s.
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Siegmund, G. (2017). Modern Subjects. In: Jérôme Bel. New World Choreographies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55272-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55272-3_2
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