Contemporary Performance and Political Economy

Contemporary Performance and Political Economy examines haunting concepts, relations, and artworks that demand our attention. Under capitalism, political and ethical considerations are subordinated to economic ones, and this subordination creates ghost worlds. Performance works, however, can offer insights into alternative politico-economic models. In this major contribution to the fields of contemporary performance and political economy, Katerina Paramana proposes that the investigation of performance works as economies can make the insights performance works offer visible. She positions the examination in relation to contemporary critiques of capitalism, neo-feudalism, and their by-products, and proposes and develops the notion of "oikonomia" as a means to theorize artworks which, through their house (oikos) rules (nomoi), propose ethico-political challenges to the economies in which they are embedded. For this, Paramana looks at politically positioned performance works created and presented in Cuba, Europe, Mexico, the UK, and the US. Her interest is in the politics, ethics, and effects of these works’ "house rules", and the insights they offer to the reconceptualization of political economy. Ultimately, this book aims to transform our understanding of economy’s purpose. It contributes to the development of a new ethico-political paradigm upon which a reconceptualization of political economy can be based. This inspiring study seeks to keep the fire for change alive by demonstrating that political economies, much like performances, are experiments that can be changed.This work will be of great interest to students and scholars in performance studies, theatre, visual cultures, politics, cultural studies, dance, and visual arts, and critical theorists.

Katerina Paramana is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Theatre and Performance at Brunel University of London, UK. She is co-editor of Performance, Dance and Political Economy: Bodies at the End of the World and of Art and Dance in Dialogue, founding book series co-editor of Dance in Dialogue, and founding editor of the "Political Economy and the Arts" Section at Lateral, the Cultural Studies Association Journal.