Abstract
Todd Phillips’s 2019 movie Joker reconfigures and actualizes body aesthetics and performance traditions—eccentric movements and so-called epilepticdancing—celebrated around 1900 on the popular stage and in early film. This body language, consisting of bizarre contortions, dislocations, jerking, and gesticulating, is linked to medical discourses about the nervous system, and can be traced in popular theater throughout the twentieth century. This paper examines how it emerges in Arthur Fleck, aka the Joker.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 321-337 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Dance Chronicle |
Volume | 43 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2020 |