Book presentation – Natalie Zervou
Greece – USA
Performing the Greek Crisis: Navigating National Identity in the Age of Austerity by Natalie Zervou, PhD (Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Wisconsin Madison, USA)
Performing the Greek Crisis explores the impact of the Greek financial crisis (2009–2019) on the performing arts sector in Greece, and especially on contemporary concert dance. When Greece became the first European Union member to be threatened with default, the resulting budget cuts pushed dance to develop in unprecedented directions. The book examines the repercussions that the crisis had on artists’ daily lives and experiences, weaving the personal with the political to humanize a phenomenon that, to date, had been examined chiefly through economic and statistical lenses. Informed by the author’s experience of growing up in Greece and including interviews and rich descriptions of performances, the book offers a glimpse into a pivotal moment in Greek history.
In Greece, dance (and, by extension, the body) has historically held a central role in the process of national identity construction. When the crisis broke out, artists had to navigate through a precariously fluctuating landscape, with their bodies as their only stable referent. By centering the analysis of the Greek crisis on the dancing bodies, performing the Greek crisis is able to examine the various ways that artists re-conceptualize their history and reframed ideas of national belonging, race, citizenship and immigration.
Title: Performing the Greek Crisis: Navigating National Identity in the Age of Austerity
Author: Natalie Zervou, PhD (Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Wisconsin Madison, USA)
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Date of Publication: 14 May 2024
The e-book version of the book will be available free of charge (open access) and can be accessed on the publisher’s website. https://press.umich.edu/Books/P/Performing-the-Greek-Crisis2
Natalie Zervou
Natalie Zervou is an Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Wisconsin Madison. She holds a PhD in Critical Dance Studies from the University of California Riverside. Her work focuses on the intersection between dance practices, identity, and the socio-political sphere and particularly on the interplay between dance and crises. Her manuscript Performing the Greek Crisis: Navigating National Identity in the Age of Austerity explores the ways that dancing bodies negotiate national identity construction in the fluctuating landscape of the (2009–2019) socio-political and economic crisis in Greece.