Mesearch and the Performing Body

Mark Edward is a pracademic and Reader in Dance and Performance at Edge Hill University, UK. He is a pioneer of drag king and drag queen studies in higher education in the UK, authoring a drag module in 2015. He specialises in live art, choreography, dance theatre, contemporary dance and scholarly writings on queer theory, autoethnography, ageing (in)visibility in western dance, fluidity of identity and mental illness.

“This well-written book traces and theorizes how through reflective artistic practice mature dance artists can develop the agency to distance themselves critically from modernist aesthetic ideals. … Mesearch is accessible and of interest for scholars, students and practitioners of contemporary stage dance, especially those with particular interest in questions of ageing, queer subjectivities, and drag performance.” (Susanne Martin, Dance Research, Vol. 37 (1), 2019)

• 1. From Stage to Page: Introducing Me.- 2. Declining Dancers.- 3. Mature Movers.- 4. Mesearch.- 5. Falling Apart at the Seams.- 6. Council House Movie Star.- 7. Dying Swans and Dragged Up Dames.- 8. Reflections on Mesearch.