Looking for the expressive body through images: The infinite struggle against insignificance

Brilhante, Maria João, Looking for the expressive body through images: The infinite struggle against insignificance, in Vicente, Gustavo, Intensified Bodies from the Performing Arts in Portugal, Peter Lang, Bern, Switzerland 2017, pp. 229-266

Abstract
This chapter discusses images that, in the realm of the performing arts, picture bodies in a way that raises questions as to how we look at them and how they act on us. The ephemerality of live arts will not be a central issue in the discussion, but it will be there backstage for the understanding of the work of picturing performing bodies. Our quest for expressivity in ‘frozen’ performing bodies possibly meets the call to transform a body into something significant by picturing it. As we know, images are not mere representations or manifestations of an absence through a presence: they belong to representational systems and relate to other images. Taking the discussion by Kulvicki (2006) and Bredekamp (2010) on images and depiction as a starting point, what interests us here is the analysis of some pictures of recent Portuguese performances in order to understand what makes these images of performing bodies so special in the permanent process of figuring human bodies. How they play the transparency game with us and why they present themselves as incomplete pictures reinforcing the expressiveness of the actor’s body.

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ISBN: 978-1-78707-743-0
ISSN:
DOI:
URL: https://www.peterlang.com/view/9781787077447/xhtml/chapter08.xhtml
Language: EN
key: 3KIVHCQL