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After using Bourdieu to clarify why and with what consequence flexploitation has become a widespread work mode, we articulate a specific hypothesis: in critical times of instable and temporary work, a number of initiatives emerge, some of which configure themselves as active responses to the state of precariousness brought about by flexplotiation policies. Practices of physical culture such as argentine tango represent one example of such initiatives aiming at recreating those threatened or impoverished conditions of bodily, temporal and relational life we do not seem willing to give up. Our paper takes into account the outcome of a qualitative research on tango dancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to bring together and to assess some strands of the funerary imagery elaborated in Centuripe (Sicily) in 3rd-1st centuries B.C., that until recently have been viewed in total isolation from each other. Dionysian themes and motifs have been variously identified in the local polychrome pottery, since the discovery, early in 20th century, of two impressive vases representing Dionysos himself in a relaxed pose; as opposed to the prevailing “bacchic-orphic” explanation, however, from the second half of past century the nuptial theme was considered to be the most important of the Centuripan vase inventory; finally, some scholars have argued that the repertory was not so restricted, admitting even mythical and theatrical characters. Terracotta figurines too, abundantly found in the necropolises of Centuripe, testify the success of subjects like ecstatic dancers and, more rarely, Satyrs, Dionysos, and Dionysos-Maenad groups, beside other themes (draped women and dancers, Aphrodites, Erotes and putti, Medusa disks, etc.). Among the coroplastic artifacts, theatrical masks and figurines have been, however, separated from the others and rather examined in the wake of the impressive corpus of 4th-3th century theatrical terracottas from Lipari; in a similar vein, a “theatrical” key of interpretation has been suggested for some Centuripe vases and, separately, for few figurines. So, neither the “Dionysian” and the alleged “theatrical” vases nor the figurines and masks have been considered as parts of a unitary system. My aim will be, instead, to put in their context such disiecta membra, in order to verify the meaning and the value of Dionysian and theatrical imagery from an internal and all-embracing perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The figure of Isadora Duncan, as a woman and dancer, is an authentic cultural phenomenon. She has produced a strong artistic and cultural impact and has deeply influenced lifestyles with her proclamations about the liberation of dance and the emancipation of women. In Russia, writers, thinkers, musicians, choreographers, dancers and critics were divided between those who regarded the dancer as the embodiment of the progressive ideas of the new era and those who accused her of desecrating music and dance. Isadora Duncan has not only deeply influenced the development of dance and the whole theatre, but has revolutionized many aspects of life, from fashion, through the enhancement of physicality and body, to women's self-awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salomania is a phenomenon spreading very rapidly from 1906 on; a fanaticism for the new cruel and "uncanny" feminine type. "Uncanny" (a term often used by recent muscology) translates the German Unheimlich introduced by Freud to indicate those phenomena that affect expectations and overturn the shared human qualities. The perturbation aroused by the mythical figure of Salome derives not so much from the absence of moral limits, but from its behavioral traits contrasting with the representation of the redemptive ewig Weibliche, and closer to the violent will of male possession. In the construction of the new figure, non-Wagnerian singers (Gemma Bellincioni, Mary Garden, Aino Akté) played a fundamental role, as musch as the dancers who created the instinctive and unconventional "modern dance" (Maud Allan, Ida Rubinstein, Isadora Duncan). The essay traces the construction of the new myth also through psychoanalysts and philosophers, from Krafft-Ebing to Ortega y Gassett, and investigates its impact on the horizon of expectations, thanks to a different representation of love without any of the nineteenth-century spiritual resonances and reduced to a form of "compensation" for an Eros that has lost every balance, reduced to the level of physical possession. Salomania turn out to be not only a "perturbing detour", but above all a privileged witness of a new mentality emerging at the dawn of the new century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the sociology of the body has been one of the most important developments in contemporary sociology, but its scope and character are still open to considerable controversy. In particular, there is widespread disagreement about how to understand «embodiment» and «the body» as central concepts, and this disagreement emerges characteristically around questions of epistemology, namely the so-called perspective of social constructionism. Our argument is that these disputes cannot be resolved simply at the level of theory construction without proper empirical research, especially qualitative sociology and ethnography. This paper, drawing upon a study of injury and retirement among ballet dancers at the Royal Ballet, contributes to the sociology of the body through a critical commentary on social constructionism. Although ballet injury can terminate a dancing career, injuries are accepted as an inevitable part of the vocation. We observe that injury is mediated through the social bonding of dancers into a professional ballet company, where injury is accepted as a sign of vocational habitus, and we suggest that this Durkheimian «collective effervescence» gives a novel meaning to the idea of a corps de ballet. These research observations on ballet are analysed within the sociological framework of Pierre Bourdieu in order to grasp the importance of ballet as practice and of the Company as a special occupational habitus. These sociological reflections on the necessary embodiment of dance provide a basis for a far-reaching critique of the application of the idea of «textuality» to the interpretation of dance and provide support for a pragmatist aesthetic of performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]