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9780190645823

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Osterweis triumphantly renders the terms of Black excellence in dance. Theorizing Desmond Richardson's exquisite achievement, Body Impossible opens a window to how Black aesthetics value embodied practices that exceed the normative. A must read for anyone interested in contemporary performance. * Thomas F. DeFrantz, Founding Director, Collegium for African Diaspora Dance * What does it mean to perform with virtuosity? And how does a black male dancer navigate the tensions and contradictions of this at once glorified and vilified pursuit? In this groundbreaking study, Ariel Osterweis interprets the virtuosic performances of a dancer whose artistry defies categorization. Body Impossible reveals the dance of Desmond Richardson to be a site of both struggle and beauty. Weaving together the choreopolitics of blackness and queerness in America since the Reagan era, Body Impossible disrupts the very notions of what it means to be a virtuoso. With prose informed at every step by a dancer's muscle memory, Osterweis leads us to the ends of movement and beyond: into the social sphere it ceaselessly negotiates. * Tavia Nyong'o, Professor of African American Studies, American Studies, and Theater and Performance Studies, Yale University *

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Ariel Osterweis holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and is on faculty at the California Institute of the Arts. Research interests include embodied performance with a focus on race, gender, and sexuality. Osterweis has worked professionally as a dancer and performer with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Mia Michaels R.A.W., Heidi Latsky Dance, and Julie Tolentino, and as a dramaturg for John Jasperse and Narcissister.

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