Louise Lecavalier

Dance, Labour, Culture

Mj Thompson (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

224 Seiten

2025
Methuen Drama (Verlag)
978-1-350-19520-2 (ISBN)

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As principal dancer with Montréal-based company La La La Human Steps, Louise Lecavalier was among the most iconic dancers of her generation: strong, muscled, androgynous, punk. Moving with spectacular speed, precision and an athletic physicality, her commitment to dancing would ultimately transform the potential of what bodies within Western concert dance could do.

Drawing on extensive oral history accounts and archival material, the book follows Lecavalier’s impact on the evolving aesthetic of La La La Human Steps, via the development of its early repertoire, and offers the first sustained account of her 1982 solo Non, Non, Non, je ne suis pas Mary Poppins. More, it tracks diverse influences and sources for the repertoire, complicating understandings of nationalism in Québec, while marking the significance of the collective in generating new aesthetics. What emerges is a portrait of the dancer as artist, icon, labourer and mover of cultural discourse.
Featuring an expansive set of photos and ephemera, including performance documentation by photographer/activist Linda Dawn Hammond, production images by choreographer Édouard Lock and street photography by key players in the 1980s Montréal scene, this study offers a critical and celebratory appraisal of Lecavalier’s unique contribution and the role of the dancer more broadly as a producer of culture.

MJ Thompson is Associate Professor at Concordia University, Canada. She has written for a wide variety of publications, including Ballettanz, Border Crossings, The Brooklyn Rail, Canadian Art, Dance Current, Dance Ink, Dance Magazine, The Drama Review, Women and Performance and more. Her academic work is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada and her essays have appeared in several anthologies, including Performance Studies Canada (2017). More recently, she received the National Park Service Arts and Sciences Residency (Cape Cod National Seashore) where she worked on a long-form essay about the body in landscape.

Introduction: Letter from a Dancer
Chapter 1: Off-Axis: Expressionist Legacies, Punk Realities
Chapter 2: No No No: Re/Working Labour and Aesthetics
Chapter 3: Icon/Street/City: From Dancer to Discourse
Chapter 4: Black Aesthetics/White Dreadlocks: Love, Hate and Rehearsals of Culture
Conclusion: Letter from A Dance Fan
Bibliography
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	24.7.2025
Zusatzinfo	40 bw illus
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	138 x 216 mm
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Tanzen / Tanzsport
ISBN-10	1-350-19520-0 / 1350195200
ISBN-13	978-1-350-19520-2 / 9781350195202
Zustand	Neuware