Of the Absence of Dance: Feminisms and Pragmatisms in the Writing of Dance Theory

2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (S1) ◽  
pp. 78-85
Author(s):  
Kent De Spain
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Performance Theory ◽  
Dance Studies ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The World ◽  
Second Year ◽  
And Performance

In many ways “Dance Studies” has in recent years become synonymous with a kind of theoretical writing that is heavy on poststructuralist philosophy but often curiously disconnected from the intentions and everyday practices of dancers and choreographers. In this presentation I intend to examine this issue by investigating and analyzing the essays that make up the book Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory (edited by Andre Lepecki), through the lens of a course I am teaching that steeps second-year M.F.A. dance students in the world of dance theory. What is the role of “dance” in these essays? Is there a clear demarcation between feminine and masculine approaches to the theorized space of dance writing? In what ways does dance theory perform its own authority? How can the values of practitioners inform the scholarship of theorists? If there is a voice of dance theory, to whom is it speaking, and on whose behalf?

scholarly journals The Relationship between Dramatic Text and Performance with the Centrality of the Body with a Look at Anne Bogart’s Rendition of The Persians

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-31
Author(s):  
Samin Gheitasy ◽  
Leila Montazeri ◽  
Simin Dolatkhah
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Physical Approach ◽  
The World ◽  
Dramatic Text ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Anne Bogart ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Sociological View

The dramatic text defines, to some extent, the structure of the work but the type of performance and the physical approach to the text can represent different meanings. The body of the actor, as a means of conveying concepts from the text to the audience, can be effective in creating different interpretations and meanings of the text. Since eons ago, directors have used the body of the actor with different approaches, and the application of body on the stage has always been underdoing changes. Anne Bogart is one of the few directors who is less known in the Iranian theater despite possessing the most updated and well-known methods of practice and performance in the world. Using her viewpoint method, she brings live and dynamic bodies to the stage; bodies that are able to convey the hidden meanings of the text to the audience in the most suitable way. The overall purpose of this research is to find the relationship between the dramatic text and the performance with the centrality of the body with a sociological view toward the body. To this end, by presenting Foucault's theories, the researchers defines the role of the body in the society and its extent of effectivity and impressibility. Finally, this study explores the implications of this role in each element of Aeschylus’s The Persians, and it shall show how Bogart beautifully represents them using the bodies of her actors during performance.

The Role of Bodily Movement in Learning and Performing Music: Applications for Education

2012 ◽  
pp. 768-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane W. Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Body Movement ◽  
The Body ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Performance Skills ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Bodily Movement ◽  
Musical Knowledge ◽  
And Performance

This article explores the fundamental role of bodily movement in the development of musical knowledge and performance skills; in particular, how the body can be used to understand expressive musical material and to communicate that meaning to coperformers and audience. The relevance to the educator is explored (whether working with a child or adult beginner, or a more advanced learner). The article is divided into six main sections, tracing the role of body movement skill in music production, expressive musical performance, developing learners to play their musical instruments with technical and expressive appropriateness, coperformer coordination, and projection for audience perception. The work builds on a growing interest in the embodied nature of musical experience. The article concludes with case study observations of practical insights and applications for the teacher.

The World-Relatedness of Affectivity: Heidegger and Richir

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2 supplement) ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Dominic Nnaemeka Ekweariri
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Phenomenal Experience ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The World

" My investigation reveals that Heidegger’s account of affectivity – though his programmatical determination included an ontical dimension or otherwise lived, personal experiences – is overshadowed by a dense ontology that cannot enable real phenomenal experience. This is why he could not account for other affective states such as emotions, feel-ings and the role of the body in affectivity. Besides, in that account we are lost when we seek to answer the question of whether moods are “one” or “many”. My aim is to point out how these deficiencies in Heidegger’s account of mood could be overcome in Richir’s account of affectivity, where indeterminate background feelings (affections) could give rise to a deter-minate and occurent emotion (affects). The advantage of this move is a rich ontic account of affectivity where not only the body but also sense/meaning of affective episodes play a robust role in an encounter of world events. If Richir reproached Heidegger for existential solipsism, one could now reproach the former for existentiell/phenomenal solipsism. In the end I suggest that these two core but opposite aspects of affectivity (the ontological and the ontic) belong to the same reality: Dasein is not just in the world (ontology), but also the world is in Dasein (ontic/phenomenological). Keywords: mood, affection, affect, Heidegger’s ontology, Richir’s Leib and sense. "

Becoming Gypsy: Tell Me What the Body Knows in Flamenco Dance

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-35
Author(s):  
Diane Oatley
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Acquisition ◽  
The Body ◽  
Physical Interaction ◽  
Embodied Knowledge ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
The World ◽  
Language And Cognition ◽  
Experiences Of Women

Abstract In The Meaning of the Body, philosopher Mark Johnson makes a case for the significance of movement in terms of the body processes he holds as essential to the generation of meaning and knowledge acquisition in physical interaction with the world–equally essential as language and cognition. The article employs this theory in interpreting the experiences of women learning flamenco dance in Spain. The investigation of the perceptions of women studying flamenco dance, a dance tradition often defined as “gypsy,” indicates that exposure to flamenco dance and culture leads to revision of stereotypes regarding embodiment and difference, but respondents did not relate this revision to bodily engagement, or physical processes particular to dancing flamenco. Although Johnson’s failure to properly account for the role of the unconscious proved to be a serious shortcoming in the theory, and one which had implications for the findings, application of the theory disclosed the parameters of a discourse on the body in flamenco. The theory thus represents a radical gesture in redefining embodiment in its own right in a manner that precludes dualism with the consequent opening of a range of alternative perspectives on the articulation of embodied knowledge.

Music, Meaning and Materiality: Nancy’s Corps Sonore

2020 ◽  
pp. 50-87
Author(s):  
Sarah Hickmott
Keyword(s):  
Art Music ◽  
The Body ◽  
Symbolic Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Binary Oppositions ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Visual Domain ◽  
Vision And Language

This chapter explores the role of music in Nancy’s broader sensuous philosophy, focusing largely on À l’écoute as well as his (rarely considered) writings on rock and techno, highlighting the divergent ways in which different genres are approached – Western high art music is often assumed to tell us something about music’s (timeless, universal) essence, whilst popular genres such as rock and techno are more expressly linked to particular social and historical contexts. In À l’écoute, Nancy utilises music to explore the sensuous (and non-visual) domain that philosophy has traditionally ignored or paid scant attention to in order to consider other ways in which we might ‘know’, find or make meaning in the world, and in so doing aims to destabilise binary oppositions that emerge in vision-oriented (phallogocentric) thought. The concluding analysis, however, contends that Nancy’s analysis still depends on a set of hierarchized binary oppositions, with vision and language linked to paternal law and the symbolic, and music and sound linked to the body and emotions, and an earlier pre-symbolic space (that is then mapped onto the maternal-feminine).

‘To Show … and so to Publish’

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Scott
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Textual Authority ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Narrative Poems ◽  
Print Reading ◽  
Rape Of Lucrece ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece within the context of the relationship between word and performance. Tracing the poems’ exploration of both action and affect, it examines the multiple forms through which representation becomes authoritative. Beginning with Venus, it focuses on the relationship between performance—sexual, artistic, theatrical, and authorial—and response, emotional, physical, and amorous. Developing the dynamic between action and affect, The Rape of Lucrece produces a complex relationship between knowledge and representation in which the legibility of the body emerges as a powerful and often destructive marker of authority. In this poem the language of print—reading, writing, interpreting, and reproducing—imaginatively reconstructs the body in action. Situating these narrative poems within the context of dramatic performance and textual authority, the chapter highlights the role of the narrative poems in the development of Shakespeare’s dramatic art.

scholarly journals Dancing dress: Experiencing and perceiving dress in movement

Scene ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-80
Author(s):  
Jessica Bugg
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Contemporary Dance ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Clothing Design ◽  
Physical Response ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Global Conference

Clothing design for dance is an area that has been little documented, particularly in relation to the experience and perception of the dancer. Contemporary dance and clothing can both be understood as fundamentally phenomenological and as such there is further potential to investigate the lived experience of wearing clothing in dance. This article approaches dress in the context of the moving and dancing body, and it aims to develop an understanding of the role of dress in dance by focusing on the sensory, embodied experience and perception of the performer. It addresses questions of how clothing is perceived in movement by the performer, how and if clothing’s design intention, materiality and form motivate physical response, and what conscious or unconscious cognitive processes may be at play in this interaction between the active body and clothing. The intention is to propose developed methods for designers across clothing disciplines to contribute in a meaningful way to the overall dance work. The article draws on an analysis of my practice-led research that employs embodied experience of dress to inform the design and development of clothing as communication and performance. The research has involved close collaboration with a dancer, analysis of recorded interviews, and visual documentation of design and movement. The research has produced data on the dancer’s experience and perception of garments in performance and this is discussed here in relation to writings on perception, performance, the body and cognition. The research is approached through theory and practice and draws on interviews, observation and lived experience. This article is developed from an earlier conference paper that investigated the role and developed potential of clothing in contemporary dance that was presented at the 4th Global Conference: Performance: Visual Aspects of Performance Practice, Inter-Disciplinary.Net, held in Oxford on 17–19 September 2013.

Tourism and protected areas: Comparing the 2003 and 2014 IUCN World Parks Congress

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Spenceley
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Sustainable Tourism ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cutting Edge ◽  
International Union ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Official Records

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Parks Congress is held once a decade, and brings together thousands of the world’s experts on protected areas. In 2014, the Sydney World Parks Congress and the parallel event, Global Eco, provided a platform for 125 presentations relating to tourism and visitation. This paper presents a synthesis of the body of work shared at Sydney, including some of the cutting-edge issues, best practices, and inspiring initiatives relating to sustainable tourism. In particular, it compares issues that were highlighted at the 2003 World Parks Congress, and how they have evolved and progressed over the past decade. The paper highlights the role of different stakeholders from different corners of the world in promoting sustainable tourism practices. It also considers the relevance of tourism to the themes of the World Parks Congress, and how the sector is reflected within the official records of the 2003 and 2014 World Parks Congress. Looking forward to the next 10 years, the paper reflects on specific challenges, gaps in knowledge, and areas for further research and outreach.

scholarly journals The Free Improvisation Game: Performing John Zorn’s Cobra

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dylan Van der Schyff
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Wide Spread ◽  
Relevant Research ◽  
Music Psychology ◽  
Free Improvisation ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
The World ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Musical Communication

The use of improvisation is wide spread in musical practice around the world. Nevertheless, Western academic circles tend to ignore this ubiquitous activity and have maintained a focus on composition and interpretation. This is beginning to change, however, and the role of improvisation in performance and music education is receiving an increasing amount of attention. This paper contributes to this project by examining the practice of ‘free improvisation’ in a large ensemble context. A rehearsal and performance of John Zorn’s Cobra––a ‘game’ piece for improvisers––is analyzed from a first-person perspective; relevant research in music psychology is considered; and suggestions are made with regard to how we may better understand the nature of musical communication in improvised contexts. Pedagogical applications are also considered.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document