KINX2017054857

A Refusal to “Know Your Place”：

Art and Politics in Billy Elliot and The Pitmen

Painters

JO, Kyungjin*

Lee Hall’s two plays, Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters, feature a miner's son who can dance and a group of coal miners who can paint, respectively. Addressing the uneasy relationships between working class people and artistic mediums, both plays raise numerous questions about art, class, and politics. How can working-class people, despite their underprivileged backgrounds and the hardships of working life, participate in and create art? How do they find pleasure in it? How can art become socially and politically meaningful in their lives? In an interview, remarking on how both plays have an autobiographical angle, Hall recounts his experience of growing up in a working-class environment and how he feels about creating art: “It is sort of contentious and political for working class people to own that space--Where I came from in the Norttieast—a working class town—I was always very self-conscious about doing anything artistic at all, because it was actually considered very problematic. And those who weren’t interested at all were incredibly suspicious of why I was engaged in this. So it was never neutral for

* Theatre Studies, Graduate Center of the City University of New York (kjo@gradcentencuny‘edu) nie’’(Gordon-Farleigh，2012). As he mentions, the twentieth-century English society, based on hierarchical class values and politics, regards working-class engagement in artistic work as improper， viewing art rather as a bourgeois upper middle class leisure activity. Many believe that if working class people desire careers in art, then they do not “know their place.” Billy Elliot the Musical, based on the film Billy Elliot in 2001， centers on the titular character the miner’s son who aspires to be a ballet dancer despite his underprivileged working class identity. The musical has achieved great success since it premiered in London’s West End in 2005. With book and lyrics by Lee Hall，music by Elton John, and direction by Stephen Daldry, the play won four Laurence Olivier Awards. Its success led to productions in the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Korea. On Broadway, it won ten Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical and also received ten Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical and Outstanding Book of a Musical. Notwithstandingits huge success in the theater world, the musical version has not yet been actively discussed by critics，unlike Billy Elliot, the film, which has been examined by many critics including David Alderson, Sara Nichols, Alan Sinfield, and Cynthia Weben The only criticism of the musical version of Billy Elliot, made in Helen Freshwater’s recent analysis, is appealing because it points out an inevitable limit and paradox of the production’s attempt to be ‘authentic’ with respect to the essentially commoditized and conservative nature of mainstream musical theater. The criticism, however, tends to reduce the theater to an apolitical global commodity, dismissing its particular politics, even though the musical strongly promotes working-class issues. The Pitmen Painters, which Hall describes as “a prequel to” Billy Elliot, is a fictional story based on a real-life group of painters made up of uneducated miners known as The Ashington Group that originated from northern England. Hall discovered their story through a book about the group titled Pitmen Painters: The Ashington Group 1934 -1984 by William Feaver (Hall, 2010). The play was acclaimed for its dramatic value and popularity. In 2007，the play opened, achieving popular success at the Live Theatre in its native city of Newcastle. In 2008, the production transferred to the Royal National Theatre and was named Best Play at the Evening Standard Awards. An Off-Broadway production opened in 2010 featuring the original cast and was also favorably received. Ben Brantley, a theatre critic for The New York Times, introduced the production as “Lee Hairs feisty adult education class,” highlighting the play’s excitingly intellectual qualities (Brantley, 2010). In an analysis of Billy Elliot, I will discuss that Billy resists and challenges the coal miners’ class identity and traditions based on militant, masculine, and fraternal solidarity as a traditional quality by aspiring to become a ballet dancer. I will argue that the play represents ballet as a medium of self-expression, self-emancipation, and resistance. In my analysis of The Pitmen Painters, I will discuss how the intellectual and artistic endeavor and solidarity that the Ashington Group shows as their working class identity and value challenges traditional class biases and hierarchy that regards the miners as being ignorant and incapable of any artistic practice. I will also examine the fact that the play represents the group’s act of painting not only as a medium of self-discovery but also as a political empowerment tool for the community, though which the group raises their voice against the art institution driven by the capitalist art market value. In examining these two plays, I will ultimately argue that they operate as a political aesthetic against social order and biases by featuring artistic migrants who live on the borders between classes, emancipating and empowering themselves.

I. Billy Elliot the Musical: Dancing in Anger and Resistance

The musical, which plays out amid the turmoil of British working class history—the 1984 coal miner’s strike in County Durham — passionately recounts British coal miners’ history. As it opens, the musical projects a collage film, documenting major historical shifts on a big-screen backdrop: 1974’s Durham Miners’ Gala, where miners celebrated nationalization of the mining industry; 1984’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, declaring she would close the coal mines as well as privatize them; and a counter-speech by Arthur Scargill, president of the National Unions of Mine Workers，ordering miners to fight against Thatcher’s government. Through references to a specific place and historical moment, Billy Elliot, the musical, depicts a particular social order operating within the ideology of neoliberalism, in which government and capitalism threaten and oppress their workforce. Remarking on the musical’s historicity, John Lahr describes the documentary played on the screen backdrop: “the strikers, who are black-and-white caricatures of commitment, seem literally to emerge out of the documentary’，(Lahr, 2005). Accordingly, the musical characterizes people in the mining community not as individuals but as a homogeneous group that is politically united in a historical mission. Starting with a song, “The Stars Look Down,’’the musical foregrounds the miners’ resistant working-class identities and show how the miners react against and within the oppressive neoliberal agenda.

Ensemble. We will fight through pain and hunger Every arrow, every knife We will never give the hope up Of a proud and honest life So we will always stand together Through the frost the Hail, the snow (Hall, 2009: 4).

Reflecting traditional working-class politics, the song resolves that the miners would unite ‘"together” in fraternal solidarity against the oppressors who threaten their job security. The song also emphasizes militant aspects of the strike using the aggressive and militant imagery of “arrow” and ‘Tcnife.” Thus, the musical depicts the nature of the coal miners’ essence and solidarity as united, determined, desperate, and masculine. Billy, the son of a striking miner, however, appears to be different from the others who possess traditional working-class qualities. We can recognize his unique and detached image in his solo part of “The Stars Look Down.” He sings about hardship in the community and its hope for the future,but his language does not sound militantly resistant, as in the ensemble part of the song.

Billy. Take me up, hold me tightly, gently Raise me up and hold me high Through nights and under darkness Will come a day when we will fly And although we’ve been rejected， And although we’ve been outcaste, We will find a new tomorrow(Hall3 2009: 5-6》

Billy’s imagery in his solo part is more poetic, kinetic, esthetic, feminine, hopeful and transcendental, as opposed to offering straightforward combatant and politically charged words such as justice, struggle, and pain, which appear in the ensemble. However, the community, which regards wild masculinity as a traditional and heritable working- class quality, does not welcome Billy’s soft and aesthetic sensibility. He is expected to grow up to be a manly man like Tony, his elder brother who is also bellicosely fights against the government playing a leading role in the mining strike. As Lahr remarks, Billy’s sensitive artistic soul is^trapped in a stultifying macho world” (Lahr, 2005). This conventional gender norm and expectation is reflected in education—being forced to participate in boxing class, which is similar to mining, and seen as a symbol of male strength, toughness, and fortitude, Billy is expected to present no sign of femininity—only working class masculinity. George, a boxing tutor, believes that boys should develop these masculine qualities, so he forces Billy and Michael to (reluctantly) hit each other: “He is supposed to hit you, you are supposed to hit him—if s boxing” (Hall, 2009: 17). When Billy fails to throw a punch, George tells him, “You’re a disgrace to your father, to them gloves, and the fine tradition of this boxing hall” (Hall, 2009: 17). Although the community proudly regards this wild manliness as a courageous quality that should be handed down, Billy does not or cannot relate to it. Instead, Billy secretly learns ballet. He takes a ballet lesson taught by Mrs. Wilkinson with the money that his father Jackie gave him for the boxing lesson. To his family, this stealth act signifies a total deviation from the path he should follow. When Mrs. Wilkinson comes to Billy’s home to take him to an audition, Tony explodes in anger: “Have you any idea what we’re going through in this village? Ballet? What are you trying to do, make him a scab for the rest of his life?” (Hall, 2009: 60) Tony identifies being a ballet dancer with being “a scab’’一someone who gives up working-class identity and yields to Thatcher’s demands. Furthermore, he regards learning ballet as not being for Billy’s sake but rather for the middle class’s sexual pleasure saying: ‘Tm not having any brother of mine poncin’ around for your gratification”（Hall，2009: 60). In this way，his family and the mining community does not seem to understand Billy’s desire to become a ballet dancer because it clashes not only with his expected gender role but also with working-class values. The working- class standard of this community considers ballet to be an improper form of leisure. Amid the turmoil of working-class history, ballet signifies the languid existence of bourgeois leisure that is in opposition to the working class struggle. Ballet is simply a high art for Jackie and Tony, a symbol of the vanity and aristocracy of the middle class. Despite his family’s scornful reaction to his dream, Billy continues to desire to live the contradiction of a miner’s son who does ballet. And the musical shows how Billy discovers his identity and expresses his individuality through the medium of ballet not constrained to oppressive circumstance. When Mrs. Wilkinson, an inspirational teacher, educates him, she makes sure to say, “Ballet is not just step, it is about you” (Hall, 2009: 49). In showing a process of learning that does not focus on technique but rather on motivation, the musical shows how art is closely connected to who we are, what we desire, and how we live our lives. She tells Billy to bring “things that mean something to you—things that tell me something about who you are” to use them as choreographic materials (Hall, 2009: 39). Mobilizing his personal archeology such as a letter from his mom and a soccer ball he used to play with, Billy freely choreographs his movement and dance through his personal history and life. In many scenes, Billy alternates between classical ballet, tap dance, playing soccer and acrobatics, creating a hybrid ballet technique, through which his movement reflects his childhood memory, desire, and aspiration to become a ballet dancer. He dances as if he is playing sports, fighting, protesting, and thus transcending his situation. In this way, the way Billy learns and enjoys ballet proves how he refutes the elitist notion of ballet understood as a symbol of high and pure art that the only upper class people can enjoy. Instead, his act of dancing undermines a hierarchical connotation of classical ballet and then represents it as a more democratized version of ballet through the combination of a variety of popular genres of dance and music such as tap dance， acrobatic dance, and boogie dance. The musical foregrounds that Billy’s desire to dance embodies the ideas of both artistic resistance against and physical emancipation from his body and the motion imposed upon him by the dominant gender and class ideology. He is supposed to be at a boxing class after school but does not want to be there; he is supposed to be at home at night but remains at the local hall to prepare for an audition at the Royal Ballet School. Billy thereby trespasses the rule and territoiy that the community enacts and allocates by building his own character, and breaking away from working class stereotypes and traditions. Mrs. Wilkinson, Billy, and the piano player dance a ballet to “Bom to Boogie，” the lyrics reflecting the dance itself, as a means of expressing and liberating oneself while resisting something that oppresses his or her body: “We weren’t bom to stand still/". /It is a fact / You were bom to react / You weren’t made to behave / Like you will in the grave” (Hall, 2009: 52). Interestingly and ironically, Billy, who desires to break off his working class identity through dancing, is able to learn working class politics and performs resistance through art. At this point, an uneasy relationship between art and working class tradition is resolved, and Billy becomes an artistic miner’s son who resists and challenges the larger society through his dancing. Thus, Billy’s pursuit of ballet does not necessarily mean that he breaks out of his working-class identity; instead, his desire to be a dancer becomes re-connected to his class identity as a miner’s son. When one woman on the interview panels at the Royal Ballet School asks Billy what it feels like when he’s dancing, he answers:

Billy. I feel a change Like a fire deep inside Something bursting me wide open, impossible to hide And suddenly I’m flying, flying like a bird Like electricity, electricity Sparks inside of me And I’m free，I’m free (Hall, 2009: 89).

David Alderson insightfiilly points out that the image of electricity is ‘"the perfect image, indeed, acknowledging his coal-mining roots as well as conveying the energy that will allow him to rise above them” (Alderson, 2011: 17). This point also proves that Billy’s way of acknowledging his working class heritage does not necessarily have to follow the conventional way of coalition and solidarity in which other miners and their sons anchor themselves through their combatant protest and strike. Instead, through a medium of ballet, Billy finds artistic ways to express his identity and root as well as to resist oppression, thus being able to respond to his both political and artistic desires. It is noteworthy that the image and metaphor of “flying” is frequently commented upon throughout the musical, signifying motion, resistance, and freedom. In a scene of “Angry Dance / Riot，” Billy’s art as performing politics is more explicitly represented. When Billy is banned from visiting Newcastle for an audition at the Royal Ballet School by his family, he dances in anger. In that scene，a stage direction of this scene indicates how his angry dance can have a political implication by merging with the miners’ political protest happening outside: ‘Lilly’s dance continues, as it becomes a part of the riot outside. As Billy finishes his dance, having tried to attack the policemen，he collapses on the ground. After a moment，he rises, dusts himself off，and glares at the audience as he walks offstage” (Hall, 2009: 63). Explicitly placing Billy at the center of the political riot, the scene interestingly implies that Billy’s anger and resistance is not only against his family and community that stubbornly stick to the traditional working class identity but also the authoritative class system, social, economic disadvantage, and tyrannical reality that are boosted by neoliberal ideology. Critics argue that the story of Billy Elliot has its limitations because it ends with the failure of strikers shown in parallel to Billy’s entrance to the Royal Ballet School. Sinfield points out that the story of Billy Elliot does not embody a potential for social change because Billy’s pursuit is achievable based on limited “individual opportunity” (Sinfield，2006: 169). Similarly, Freshwater analyzes, “Billy’s success and his life as dancer are dependent upon the demise of the mining community he comes from” (Freshwater, 2012: 167乂 Nichols also problematizes Billy’s dancing success，questioning, “If there5s no hope left in coal mining, what about all of the boys in north England who don’t get to ballet dance their way out—what about the boys and girls who are left behind?” (Nichols, 2001: 98) These current critiques of Billy’s individual success are still relevant to my argument about this musical. Even though the musical represents art as a medium of self-expression, self-emancipation, and expression of resistance, it has its limitations in that the idea of political aesthetic is practiced only by Billy at the level of the individual, being unable to resolve a binary opposition between those who have the chance to do art and those who do not, at the level of the community.

It. The Pitmen Painters: Painting Collectively and Enpowaing the Self and Community

The Pitmen Painters is based on a true story about the Ashington Group of painters, which was mainly composed of miners in Northern England who painted artworks during the 1930s and 1940s.The two-act play begins in 1934 and ends in 1947, this last year marking the start of the nationalization of the British coal industry. The production uses a Brechtian device to explicitly specify time，space, and context on a big front screen: “1934, 1.2 million men work in the pits / average shift: ten hours/ average take-home pay: two pounds and six shillings” (Hall, 2008: 3). In doing so, the play contextualizes the historical fact that many miners remained unemployed, and people who were employed were forced to accept longer hours and lower wages during the economic recession. In spite of hard economic times, the tonality of the play is not depressed, but rather vigorous, because the play deals with the time before the socialist dream turns to disappointment: people have a glimmer of hope that if the nationalization of coalmines were to succeed, they could escape intense labor and work under better working conditions. Moreover, The Pitmen Painters, as a discussion play, raises numerous questions regarding the relationship between art, class, and politics: Who can create art? Who decides which art is good and which is bad—is it the artist, the art critic, or the collector? How can we interpret art in everyday life? How can art be made outside the art market? Can and should art become politically effective? As characters onstage ponder these questions, the audience is provoked to think about the foundational issues of art, class, and politics by viewing each artwork projected on the front screen and listening to the continuous debating in the play. Thus，the play itself becomes an art appreciation class or an art education class that is concerned with all of the above-mentioned questions. Unlike Billy Elliot, which depicts a sole individual artist, Billy, as protagonist, The Pitmen Painters uses collective artists as main characters. Members, who are George Brown, Oliver Kilboiim, Jimmy Floyd, Harry Wilson, and The Young Lad，take an art appreciation course taught by Robert Lyon and sponsored by the Workers’ Educational Association and thus start to learn to paint together. Notably，the production avoids conventional stereotyping of the British working class as drunkards, boxers, ignorant, and blunt and instead represents the miners as punctual, sincere, and self-respecting. In an interview, Hall mentions the reason for the miners appearing in suits and ties on stage, stating: “Their work was so filthy, so physically degrading. I think it shows a sense of pride that they would put on their Sunday best in order to go and learn and paint or draw. Such a sense of self-respect” (Gurewithsch, 2010). Even though they are men with little education due to their economic and socially underprivileged background, they possess strong intellectual curiosity and are extremely eager to know the world outside. They spend their time engaged in self-improvement, taking courses such as Introduction to Biology and Introduction to Psychology, offered by WEA. George, on the behalf of the group, succinctly and proudly expresses miners’ qualities, saying, “Weset very high standard. We’re pitmen” (Hall, 2008: 8). The virtue of The Pitmen Painters, however, is that it shows not only the collective quality of the group in terms of working class solidarity but also the miners’ personal qualities through unique characterizations of each member. At first glance, the miners seem to compose a homogenous group: they all use the “pitmatic” dialect of Northern England and wear old-fashioned grey suits. However, when examined more closely, the characters come to life: Oliver Kilboum (simple and honest), Jimmy Flyod (frank and humorous), George Brown (strict and firm)，Harry Wilson (ardent Marxist), and The Young Lad (independent and defiant).

Resonating with Billy Elliot's theme on art as a means of self-discovery/expression, the play reveals how these miners, alienated by labor and money, each recover the ‘self by creating art together. In the beginning of their first class, the miners reveal that they happen to take the course not because they were originally interested in art and painting but because Introductory Economic class was not available for them. They also justify their ignorance about art subjects and their lack of experiences in doing or appreciating art by emphasizing their working class identity.

George. We haven’t really seen much art, actually. That’s why we hired you, like. Harry. To be quite honest with you—we were more keen on Introductory Economics, but we couldn’t find a tutor. Lyon. May I ask you, have you ever been to a gallery? George. We’ve never been anywhere. We are pitmen. (Hall, 2008: 11)

When Lyon starts to explain the histoiy and theory of art, no one understands it or is even interested in it. Lyon finds himself in a situation where a conventional method of lecturing on art history fails. Instead of lecturing, Lyon has the miners draw and paint any subjects relevant to them and their lives. William Feaver’s Pitmen Painters, which inspired Hall to write his play, quotes Lyon’s thesis, “The Appreciation of Art through the Visual and Practical Approach,” in which Lyon explains how the miner group differs from students in art institutions:

The art student is always thinking about what he has been taught: drawing, rules of composition and so on. Often he forgets that he has to express something. Often he paints just an “art” subject, because it is the right sort of thing to do. But nothing of the kind for the miners of Ashington — they have learned that what matters is the inner feeling of the thing, and they have learned to paint by the feeling (Feaver, 1988: 12). A Refusal to “Know Your Place”： Art and Politics in Billy Elliot and The Pitmen PairUersQQ, Kyungjin) • 135

The members of the group paint by listening to their own emotional sensibilities, without formal technique，and create artwork that is related or familiar to their everyday work and lives. The miners, by painting pictures, develop not only artistic sensibilities but also critical thinking skills Harry says，“All art makes you think” (Hall, 2008: 25). When the group members appreciate each other’s work, their conversations shift from painting itself to the many aspects of their labor and lives， provoking thought around foundational issues in art, class, and politics. Through these discussions, the miners get to know who they are, what they desire, and how they wish to live their lives. Using the medium of art, the miners also express themselves, gain a sense of achievement, and feel a strong sense of autonomy. Oliver says, “For the first time in me life, I’d really achieved something—I had made something that was mine…not for someone else, not for money, not for anything really. And I felt like—for those few hours there —I was my own boss” (Hall, 2008: 28). Thus, in artistic and intellectual workshop-like processes, the miners start to learn about art and find their artistic medium to express themselves by creating it as amateur artists and then discussing and critiquing it together. While Billy Elliot challenges a hierarchical and mythical connotation of ballet as pure art by mixing it with other genres and placing it in the middle of a political riot, The Pitmen Painters explicitly describes how there is never pure art that is free from politics. In discussing the painting, “The East Wind，” which Harry has drawn, Harry and Oliver realize that there is no neutrality in their painting. Even though Harry has attempted to draw a scene of a street comer on a windy day in an objective and neutral manner, Oliver finds that the way Harry portrays the scene is rather political.

Harry. And what’s political about that? Oliver. Because it shows who we are. Don’t you see? It works on loads of levels. OK, first it’s a picture of a street comer, but then it’s a story, isn’t it—about some folk who are heading into wind, and the others who are waiting ‘round the comer. One side, you will get blown over—one side, yeralreet. It’s like a metaphor，but it’s not just a metaphor, ‘cos it is vdiat it is. It’s just a picture of a street. Jimmy. And how is that political, again? Oliver. It’s a parable—about facing a storm (Hall, 2008: 33).

Even though the painting does not explicitly discuss any social and political agenda, Oliver draws a short story of the painting and takes it as a parable that can convey a political message. He interprets it as a relationship between an oppressive storm that symbolizes an authoritative power and people who walk against it. As the painting workshop progresses, the group members begin to think that they as a group do have and can express their political voice and vision, thus，their unique artistic subject that nobody else has through their paintings despite their lack of education through any art institutions and academics.

Harry. We make wor life art. It doesn’t get better than that. Nobody telling us what to paint. No master but ourselves. Oliver. But surely it matters what we paint. Harry. Yes. And what do we paint, Oliver? Moments. We paint those little, tiny moments of being alive. Of life passing by. Tiny things in the comer of an eye. The things nobody else will paint. Moments (Hall, 2008: 114). Notably, as Harry keeps highlighting the collective “we” and ‘"us，” the group’s ambitious pursuit of painting is shown to be a cooperative endeavor. In an interview printed in Feaver’s chronicle of the group,Harry reckons，“The most important thing probably about it was that we began to feel like a unit—a group of people that had somewhere to go, something to do, some real important work to do” (Feaver, 1988: 43). This artistic collectivity and consequently empowers the community’s voice so that they can express their working-class identity and politics in opposition to the larger society. Because of the collective nature of this resistance, they are able to pursue art within the context of their community. As Harry mentions in his dialogue above, the group will paint “tiny things in the comer of an eye，” by drawing ordinary scenes in everyday life, such as work at a mine, social life in a small club, people on the street.They thus integrate art into their everyday lives, realizing the democratization of art and collectively practicing political ideas. The Pitmen Painters also shows how the group collectively resists capitalist power by maintaining its artistic autonomy and working- class dignity and solidarity while creating art beyond or outside of the art market. Boris Grays, a British art critic, explains how art can be politically effective outside of the art market, in a socialist context. He describes the situation in socialist countries where “[art and] its production, evaluation，and distribution do not follow the logic of the market; this kind of art is not a commodity …These artworks were not created for individual consumers who were supposed to be their potential buyers” (Groys, 2008: 7). The group embodies this socialist idea，not subordinating itself to money. As Harry says, “it is to be shared. Art does not belong to anybody” (Hall, 2008:ᄀ2). However, Helen Sutherland, a wealthy patron and collector of art, visits the miners, causing unease among them. Even though the group does not want to sell artwork to her, because it does not create art to make money, she wishes to “buy” Jimmy’s painting (Hall, 2008: 63). She also suggests giving a stipend to Oliver in a patron-artist relationship, speaking as if she is performing an act of charity: “It，s a gift. You have a gift. I am giving you a gift. What is so difficult about that?” (Hall, 2008: 63) The miners continually resist Helen，who is a symbol of capitalist power, thus ensuring they do not become consumed by or subservient to the art market. They do not agree with the notion of an individual copyright to “sell” artwork because they have decided that each painting belongs to the group. On behalf of the group, Oliver says, “It is not about individuals—it’s a collective effort. I’ve learned as much off Harry as I have off Lyon，，（Hall，2008: 50).Oliver also rejects Helen’s offer that he become a full-time professional painter paid by a patron with an ample purse, despite that it would allow him to leave his life as a miner. Oliver says, “You can’t just change who people are by throwing money at them. It’s not just about the money —it，s about everything else. It，s about who people are. It’s about how I think, about how I feel”（Hall，2008: 94). Oliver is his own man. As such, he cannot be bought. In this way, the play shows that the group constantly resists and challenges the capitalist class value system. Unlike Billy, who has to leave his community to achieve his artistic success，Oliver chooses to remain as a miner within the community. His choice constitutes a radical and democratic conclusion, embracing the contradiction between being both a worker and an artist. The group proclaims their progressive and hopeful vision of being worker-artists, by which the group collectively trespasses the bourgeois territory, challenges the class hierarchy, and empowers its political voice against capitalism. The group members assertively declare, “There’ll be pitment poets and pitmen painters” as well as “pitmen professors” with “PhDs” (Hall, 2008: 122-23). Billy Elliot the Musical and The Pitmen Painters both describe the British miners’ working-class heritage and its relation to art and politics. Within, both plays highlight how creativity in art transforms and empowers working class people’s lives individually, as with Billy, or collectively, as with the Ashington group. The true importance of the plays, however, is not to interpret the past but to understand the way the past is used as a means of appropriating the present to bring about social change. In an interview, highlighting the social and political function of the theater. Hall proclaims，“I am a huge believer in drama’s capacity to change lives” (Hall, 2009). The two plays， serving as pedagogical, cultural, and political mediums, present the idea that the political aesthetics realized in the plays should be extended to our real lives. Through the power of drama, theater，and art, two plays thus provide the audience insight into a political aesthetic that claims that art emancipates and empowers us and is thereby necessary in our lives — no matter who we are or where we are from.

Bibliography

Alderson, David. “Making Electricity: Narrating Gender, Sexuality, and the Neoliberal Transition in Billy Elliot.” Camera Obscura 25, no. 3 (2011): 1-27. Brantley, Ben. “Stoking a Fiery Passion for Art” New York Times. Se pt 30，2010, http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/theater/reviews/ 01 pitmen.html?_r=0. Feaver，William. Pitmen Painters: The Ashington Group 1934-1984. London: Chatto & Windus Ltd, 1988. Freshwater, Helen. “Consuming Authenticities: Billy Mliot the Musical and the Performing Child.” Lion and the Unicorn 36 (2012): 154-73. Gordon-Farleigh, Jonny. “Interview: Lee Hall.” STIR. http://stirtoaction. com/?p=2358. ______. “Lee Hall: Cambridge Taught Me I Was Short.” Interview by Andrew Johnson. Independent. Nov 29, 2009, http ://www.independ ent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/lee-hall-cambridge-taught-me-i-was-s hort-1830512.html. Groys, Boris. Art Power. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008. Gurewitsch, Matthew. ‘The Creator of Billy Elliot on The Pitmen Painters as a Prequel.’’ Capital New York September 29, 2010, http://www. capitalnewyork.com/article/culture/2010/09/530911/creator-billy-elliot -pitmen-painters-prequel. ______. The Pitmen Painters. Faber and Faber, 2008. Hall, Lee. “Billy Elliot US Version.” Unpublished manuscript, Used by The New York Public Library's Theatre on Film and Tape Archive, September 3，2009. Lahr，John.“On Your Toes: Billy Elliot Leaps From Screen to Stage.” New Yorker. July 4, 2005, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/ 07/04/050704crth_theatre. ______. “Seeing is Believing: Lee Hall and Edward Albee on Artistic Vision.” New Yorker, June 23, 2008, http://www.newyorker.com/arts/ critics/theatxe/2008/06/23/080623crth_theatxe_lahr?currentPage=l. Nichols，Sara. “Labor in Film: This Miner’s Boy’s Life ‘Billy Elliot’.” New Labor Forum no. 8 (2001): 95-98. Sinfield, Alan. “Boys，Class, and Gender: from Billy Casper to Billy Elliot.” History Workshop Journal 62 (2006): 166-71. Weber, Cynthia. “Oi，Dancing Boy!: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Youth in Billy Elliot.” Genders 37 (2003) http://www.genders.org/g37/g37 weber.html. 〈Abstract〉

A Refusal to “Know Your Place”：

Art and Politics in Billy Elliot and The Pitmen

Painters

JO, Kyungjin

In this paper, I analyze Lee Hall’s two plays, Billy Elliot the Musical and The Pitmen Painters focusing on the relationship between art, class, and politics.In an analysis of Billy Elliot, I look at how the play represents the English coal miners5 identity based on militant and fraternal solidarity as traditional qualities. By looking at how Billy Elliot challenges the class tradition and value by desiring to become a ballet dancer, I argue that the play represents ballet as a medium of self-expression, self-emancipation, and resistance. In my analysis of The Pitmen Painters, I point out that the play represents the English working class identity by foregrounding its intellectual and artistic solidarity. I argue that the Ashington Group collectively challenges the class hierarchy by resisting against the art institution and the capitalist art market. I also examine that the play represents painting not only as a medium of self-discovery but a political empowerment of the community. In examining these two plays, I ultimately argue that the two plays emphasize political functions of art against the social norm and biases by featuring the artistic A Refusal to “Know Your Place”： Art and Politics in Billy Elliot and The Pitmen PaintersQO, Kyungjin) * 143 migrants who move at the borders between classes emancipating and empowering themselves.

Key words: Lee Hall, contemporary British drama, English working class, art and politics, Billy Elliot the Musical, The Pitmen Painters

논문접수일: 2016년 09월 15U 심사완료일: 2〇16년 11월 30일，게재확정알 2016년 11월 3〇일