ABSTRACT
When we go to see a dance concert and watch male dancers performing, we each bring along our own miscellaneous bundles of ideas and experiences concerning masculinity. The ideological nature of these, their contradictions and limitations, were the subject of the first chapter. The dancers, choreographers, rehearsal directors, and others involved in producing the performance also bring with them their ideas and experiences, and these are present for the dancers as they perform on stage. Given the ways in which people are connected with one another through the society they live in, there is, of course, a considerable overlap between these ideas and experiences. They constitute a common discourse through which we are able to communicate with one another. Reading representations of masculinity in theatre dance does not, merely, mean recognising similarities between performances of masculinity in daily life and the way in which masculinity is embodied and represented by dancers on stage. It involves interpretation of information that is not a translation of a prior verbal text but the result of processes of corporeal investigation. Apprehension of the significance of a dance piece gradually accumulates over the duration of the performance. The time and space in which live dance performance takes place is a privileged one in which experience is intensified. What is represented through dancing can sometimes suggest an ideal not accessible in everyday life, and representation is, therefore, accorded particular cultural significance.
