Verso Jane Avril

The article proposes some possible approaches to the figure of Jane Avril, starting from some of Walter Benjamin’s categories. An interpretation based on Benjamin’s theory of language is proposed for the gesture of dance that gives Jane Avril her name. Although Benjamin’s reference to the Paris in which Jane Avril performs remains crucial, the key to the reading suggested here refers above all to concepts such as “Entsetzen”, “pure mediality”, “mimesis” and “shame”, to explore if and how Jane Avril’s “language” is related to a possible theory of “destituent potentiality”.