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The InterPlay performance practice: Play and social change in late capitalism

Posted on:2017-08-19Degree:M.AType:Thesis
University:University of Maryland, College ParkCandidate:Dilliplane, Daniel IsaacFull Text:PDF
GTID:2455390008968836Subject:Theater
Abstract/Summary:
Practitioners of the performance form "InterPlay" utilize dance, storytelling and song to build community and generate social change. I elucidate how this community of practitioners conceptualizes "social change". I argue that the InterPlay social movement organizes around the application of play to performances of self in everyday life. I explore how the InterPlay non-profit corporation, Body Wisdom Inc., employs this technique to address racial justice in its organizational practices. I also examine how practitioners understand their use of this performance play in places of work, concluding that---even in these endeavors---they see social change as a process immanent to both individual people and the systems they create, not as the intervention of an autonomous external power. Ultimately, I argue that, within late capitalism, play should no longer be conceptualized as an activity separate from everyday sociality but as an immanent process of change constitutive of a socioaesthetic domain.
Keywords/Search Tags:Social, Change, Interplay, Performance
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