Natalie Zervou

University of Michigan Press

Zervou argues that the Greece economic crisis of 2009-2019 “should be understood in the context of Greece’s ambivalent relationship with the EU.”  Measures imposed by the EU to support/save the Greek economic system were also seen as detrimental to Greek sovereignty and identity. Zervou provides a model of “dancer citizenship”:  the singular voice that dance scholarship can bring to the civic arena in “examining the conflicting intersection between embodiment, austerity, narratives of national belonging, and national identity construction.

From “Contested Bodies: Dance and Greek Nation-Building”, “Fragments of a Precarious Landscape:  the Crisis from Within”; and “Choreographing the Periphery:  Displacement and the “Weird” through “The Rise of Regional Festivals” and “Choreographies of the European Refugee Crisis”, Zervou delves deeply into history, meaning and effect. 

Specific to the Greek experience, yes—but with impact and lessons for all to take forward.

-Jane Alexandre