No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Performing the Commodity-Sign: Dancing in the Gap
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2012
Extract
Between 1998 and 2000, the Gap clothing company produced three advertising campaigns whose visual images consisted of choreographed movement sequences based on vernacular dance forms, theatrical jazz dance, and the codes and conventions of the Hollywood musical: “khakis,” “that's holiday,” and “West Side Story.” Each campaign produced a series of commercials that employed dance and musical theater in an attempt to bridge the gap between entertainment and advertising, and between popular culture and art. By manipulating standard advertising conventions, the Gap framed these televisual texts as performances or artworks, rather than as advertisements, creating choreographic, performance-oriented commercials that became the sign of Gap clothing. As a result, the commercials have been identifiable, just as the clothes have been, by style alone.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 2007
References
Works Cited
Auslander, Philip. 1999. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Baudrillard, Jean. 1981. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. Translated by Levin, Charles. New York: Telos Press.Google Scholar
Billman, Larry. 1997. Film Choreographers and Dance Directors. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.Google Scholar
Dodds, Sherril. 2001. Dance on Screen: Genres and Media from Hollywood to Experimental Art. New York Palgrave.Google Scholar
Enrico, Dottie. 1998. “Viewers Find Gap Ads Toe-tapping Good.” USA Today, June 8, 1998, 4B. www.usatoday.com/money/index/ad206.htm (accessed June 19, 2002).Google Scholar
Feuer, Jane. 1983. “The Concept of Live Television: Ontology as Ideology.” In Regarding Television, edited by Kaplan, E. Ann, 12–22. Frederick, MD: University Publishers of America.Google Scholar
Firth, Katherine, ed. 1998. Undressing the Ad: Reading Culture in Advertising. Studies in Postmodern Theory of Education 54. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Fordham, Joe. 2002. “Buf's Yuletide GAP Commercials.” Creative Planet Communities, www.editorsnet.com/article/mainv/0%2C7220%2CH4805%C00.html (accessed June 12, 2002).Google Scholar
Foster, Susan. 1986. Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gap, The. 1998–1999. “khaki country,” “khaki a-go-go,” “khaki soul,” “khakis swing,” “khakis groove,” and “khakis rock.” Television commercials. KTLA.Google Scholar
Gap, The. 2000. “Cool,” “America,” and “Dance at the Gym.” Television commercials. ABC.Google Scholar
Goulding, Christina. 2003. “Corsets, Silk Stockings and Men in Dinner Jackets.” In Time, Space, and the Market: Retroscapes Rising, edited by Brown, Stephen and Sherry, John F. Jr., 54–74. New York: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Grainge, Paul David. 2000. “Advertising the Archive: Nostalgia and the (Post)national Imaginary.” American Studies 41 (2/3): 137–57.Google Scholar
Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism; or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University PressGoogle Scholar
Lezotte, R. 2002. “It's Swing Time for Mazzei and Gap.” Creative Planet Communities, www.cinematographer.com/article/mainv/0%2C7220%2Cll2191%2C00.html (accessed June 19, 2002).Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1975. Early Writings. Translated by Livingstone, Rodney and Benton, Gregor. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Michael. 2000. “Gap Still Dances Through Ads—For Now.” USA Today, June 5, 2000, 1–4B. www.usatoday.com/money/index/ad3O6.htm (accessed June 12, 2002).Google Scholar
McMains, Juliet, and Robinson, Danielle. 2002. “Swinging Out: Southern California's Swing Revival.” In I See America Dancing: Selected Readings 1685–2000, edited by Needham, Maureen, 84–91. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Robbins, Jerome. 1958. “Cool.” On the Ed Sullivan Show. Produced by Kuney, Jack. VHS, 8 min. New York: CBS. Jerome Robbins Collection. New York Public Library.Google Scholar
Robbins, Jerome. 1989. Jerome Robbins' Broadway. VHS, 30 min. Jerome Robbins Collection. New York Public Library.Google Scholar
Shusterman, Richard. 2000. Performing Live: Aesthetic Alternatives for the Ends of Art. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starr, Larry, and Waterman, Christopher. 2003. American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MTV. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Usner, Eric. 2001–2002. “Dancing in the Past, Living in the Present: Nostalgia and Race in Southern California Neo-Swing Dance Culture.” Dance Research Journal 33 (2): 87–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wernick, Andrew. 1991. Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology and Symbolic Expression. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wernick, Andrew. 1997. “Resort to Nostalgia: Mountains, Memories, and Myths of Time.” In Buy This Book. Studies in Advertising and Consumption, edited by Blake, Andrew, 207–23. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Williamson, Judith. 1978. Decoding Advertising: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising. New York: Marion Boyars.Google Scholar
Additional Sources
Astroff, Roberta J. 1997. “Capital's Cultural Study: Marketing Popular Ethnography of U.S. Latino Culture.” In Buy This Book: Studies in Advertising and Consumption, edited by Blake, Andrew, 120–36. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Brown, Stephen, and Sherry, John F. Jr., eds. 2003. Time, Space, and the Market: RetroScapes Rising. New York: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Ipiotis, Ceilia. 1982. “Dance on Television and Film: Dancing in Commercials.” Eye on Dance 46. VHS, 28 min. New York: ARC Videodance.Google Scholar
Ipiotis, Ceilia. 1986. “Anatomy of a Dance-Charged Commercial: ‘Bounce.’” Eye on Dance 203. VHS, 28 min. New York: ARC Videodance.Google Scholar
Sivulka, Juliann. 1998. Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar