To dance or not to dance? Aesthetic subversion of the body politic in the GDR

This article discusses the body politic of the GDR in the context of leisure and dancing. Two case studies are employed to show how conventional Western methods of describing and defining a musical event fail to capture the social aspect of popular music dancing in East Germany. The embodiment of popular music through dancing is proposed as an aesthetic choice that subverts official body politic and offers a non-verbal form of resistance. Through the focus on the body and the creation of affective communities, this article shows how young people were able to escape state control and regain a level of agency that might not have existed otherwise. By introducing aesthetics as a method of enquiry, a wider examination of the relationship between the body, politics and popular music is enabled.