The Performer: Art, Life, Politics (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780300272901)

An acclaimed sociologist's exploration of the connections among performances in life, art, and politics

In The Performer, Richard Sennett explores the relations between performing in art (particularly music), politics, and everyday experience. It focuses on the bodily and physical dimensions of performing, rather than on words. Sennett is particularly attuned to the ways in which the rituals of ordinary life are performances.

The book draws on history and sociology, and more personally on the author's early career as a professional cellist, as well as on his later work as a city planner and social thinker. It traces the evolution of performing spaces in the city; the emergence of actors, musicians, and dancers as independent artists; the inequality between performer and spectator; the uneasy relations between artistic creation and social and religious ritual; the uses and abuses of acting by politicians. The Janus-faced art of performing is both destructive and civilizing.

Author: Richard Sennett
ISBN-10: 0300272901
ISBN-13: 9780300272901
Publisher: Yale University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/23/2024
Pages: 256
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.29h x 6.06w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2024