‘Dance against the void’: Derek Jarman, dance, queer classical receptions

Abstract This article considers three moments from the beginning, middle and end of Derek Jarman’s artistic career: Lindsay Kemp’s opening dance in Sebastiane (1976), Jarman’s words on a performance by Michael Clark in the 1980s, and Jarman’s last film Blue (1993), while holding onto the affective registers of his final diary entry (1994). Considering the ways in which Jarman indexed the ephemeral myth-making processes of queer life and art, the author develops a new kinetic-temporal methodology for exploring reception based on the fleeting queer modalities of dance. As such this article makes a series of important connections between classical reception studies, queer theory, critical theory, and dance studies. It argues that, despite the fleeting, erotic, and partial engagements with the past offered by Jarman — which challenge ideas of fixity or lineage — an identification nevertheless emerges with the hierarchies of white supremacist imperialism.