When you think about historical reenactment, you probably think about reenacting Civil War battles or performing a character at a Renaissance fair. But Catherine Grant is interested in artists who use reenactment to ask questions about the history of feminist and queer activism, and the role of artists in political life. By reenacting and remixing scenes from history, these artists revive stories from the past that might illuminate the present in surprising ways. Beyond the realm of art, Catherine wants us to recognize the power of performing repeated actions in our everyday lives.
Tag: body
Chronic pain is pain that lasts for months, years or even a lifetime, and doctors have a hard time understanding it. Not only is it sometimes impossible to cure, but doctors also tend to fixate on bodily pain and not address the ways pain is also psychological and emotional. In fact, Travis Chi Wing Lau argues that this attitude goes back to the ways doctors have been trained since the eighteenth century to observe outer bodily symptoms and discount patients’ subjective experiences. Turning to Travis’s poetry, we discuss why we need poets as well as doctors to understand pain.
Spectacular dance sequences are one of the most recognizable elements of Indian cinema, and female dancers are the biggest stars. Although some critics view dance sequences as just interruptions that don’t push the story forward, Usha Iyer argues that distracting from the story is actually a good thing. Whereas the stories are typically marriage plots in which women give up their independence, focusing on women’s dancing allows us to recognise the power and skill not only of the characters but also of the dancer-actresses who have shaped these films behind the scenes.