A Review of Wojciech Klimczyk's Book «Wirus mobilizacji. Taniec a kształtowanie się nowoczesności (1455–1795)» (Universitas: Kraków, 2015)

Grzegorz Kondrasiuk

Abstract

In his work, Wirus mobilizacji, Wojciech Klimczyk presents a history of Western Europe interpreted through the changing dancing practices, or to use Klimczyk’s own vocabulary, an owerview of subsequent social choreographies. The two sizeable volumes contain several books on related topics: a history of choreography including a history of dances; a social and political history of dancing; a history of aesthetic positions with respect to dance; kinetic analyses of paintings and dramas; an overview of philosophical reflexion with an eye to how human body is defined. Klimczyk openly refers to the scholars who have supplied him with the theoretical framework for his endeavour. His curious idea of historicity is based on Foucault’s concept of épistème; following Pierre Bourdieu, he describes the mechanisms of distinction that produce social hierarchies through dance; whereas Rancière has inspired him with the atemporal concept of the perceivable, which Klimczyk uses as an analogy for his own concept of “the movable.” All of it enables him to arrive at a more general, higher-level category of kinesis whose changeable form permeates history and manifests itself not only in artistic dance, but most of all in many other cultural spectacles.