How to Make Dances in an Epidemic: Tracking Choreography in the Age of AIDS

David Gere

Univ of Wisconsin Press, Sep 15, 2004 - Performing Arts - 352 pages

David Gere, who came of age as a dance critic at the height of the AIDS epidemic, offers the first book to examine in depth the interplay of AIDS and choreography in the United States, specifically in relation to gay men. The time he writes about is one of extremes. A life-threatening medical syndrome is spreading, its transmission linked to sex. Blame is settling on gay men. What is possible in such a highly charged moment, when art and politics coincide?
Gere expands the definition of choreography to analyze not only theatrical dances but also the protests conceived by ACT-UP and the NAMES Project AIDS quilt. These exist on a continuum in which dance, protest, and wrenching emotional expression have become essentially indistinguishable. Gere offers a portrait of gay male choreographers struggling to cope with AIDS and its meanings.

Contents

• Introduction: 3
• 1 Blood and Sweat: 39
• 2 Melancholia and Fetishes: 91
• 3 Monuments and Insurgencies: 139
• 4 Corpses and Ghosts: 187
• 5 Transcendence and Eroticism: 229
• Epilogue: 263
• Notes: 269
• Bibliography: 312
• Index: 333

About the author

David Gere is associate professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA. A longtime dance critic, he has previously contributed essays to Loss within Loss and Dancing Desires, both published by the University of Wisconsin Press.

Bibliographic information

• Title: How to Make Dances in an Epidemic: Tracking Choreography in the Age of AIDS
• Author: David Gere
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2004
• ISBN: 0299200833, 9780299200831
• Length: 352 pages
• Subjects: Performing Arts / Dance / Modern; Performing Arts / General; Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies / Gay Studies