This is an overview of the philosophy of dance that is a subset of Western philosophical aesthetics. There is a new, substantially updated and revised full-text version available as of November 2019 available at the Stanford Encylclopedia of Philosophy website.

The emerging field of the philosophy of dance, as suggested by Aili Bresnahan, increasingly recognizes the problem that (especially pre‐modern) dance has historically focused on bodily perfection, which privileges abled bodies as those that can best make and perform dance as art. One might expect that the philosophy of dance, given the critical and analytical powers of philosophy, might be helpful in illuminating and suggesting ameliorations for this tendency in dance. But this (...) is particularly a difficult task since the analytic philosophy of dance is too young to have achieved a comprehensive treatment of dance per se, let alone to update such a treatment in line with the demands of social justice. As a step in that direction, the present article (a) summarizes dance theorists on disabled dance (as opposed to the dance of the temporarily able‐bodied, or TAB) and then applies (b) the philosophy of art and dance to disability, (c) the philosophy of disability to dance, (d) interdisciplinary disability theory to dance, and (e) my own Figuration philosophy of dance to disability, as inspired in part by John Dewey. (shrink)

Philosophical consideration of dance has gained in vigor, diversity, and sophistication in recent decades -- even though philosophers disagree sharply on what philosophy is! Divergent methodological approaches range from the phenomenological explorations of Maxine Sheets- Johnstone, the existentialist approach of Sandra Horton Fraleigh, and the postmodernist continental work of Susan Foster to more traditional "British-American" analysis by such well-known philosophers as Nelson Goodman, Joseph Margolis, and Francis Sparshott.

Dance receives relatively little attention in the history of philosophy. My strategy for connecting that history to dance consists in tracing a genealogy of its dance-relevant moments. In preparation, I perform a phenomenological analysis of my own eighteen years of dance experience, in order to generate a small cluster of central concepts or “Moves” for elucidating dance. At this genealogical-phenomenological intersection, I find what I term “positure” most helpfully treated in Plato, Aristotle and Nietzsche; (...) “gesture” similarly in Condillac, Mead and Kristeva; “grace” in Avicenna, Schiller and Dewey; and “resilience” in Fanon, (Judith) Butler and Deleuze. With these analyses in place, I apply the four Moves in analyzing various forms of dancing (including salsa dancing and the pollen dance of the honeybee) and coordinate them to outline a comprehensive philosophy of dance. This philosophy points to certain conditions for an ideally flourishing, dancing society. And these conditions create the possibility for a coalition of sympathetic discourses (including critical race theory, queer theory, disability studies and democratic theory) united in pursuit of political virtue. The development of a philosophy of dance offers a deeper understanding of the intellectual values of a practice often identified with bodily immediacy and therefore judged uninteresting. It also reinvigorates philosophy with the dynamism and bodily relevance of the practice of dancing. Most important, it demonstrates the meaningful intersection of aesthetics and political ethics, by exploring how aesthetic practices underlie and inspire human flourishing. (shrink)

'Thinking Through Dance' explores important philosophical questions raised in and by dance. Its themes include the embodiment and personhood of dancers; issues of dance work ontology and performance identity; how dance is perceived and understood; the relevance of philosophy to dance as an artform; and whether dance itself, or its associated practices, are themselves philosophical in any significant sense. Individual essays draw on different philosophical traditions, including analytic, phenomenological and poststructuralist, and the primary (...) focus is on theatre dance in the Western tradition, although the issues discussed have a much broader sweep. The volume poses fundamental questions about what it means to be or witness a dancer moving, about the nature of choreography, dance works and performances, and about the interest and value of a dialogue between philosophy and dance. The philosophy of dance is a burgeoning field of enquiry and this volume seeks to represent something of the breadth of international research currently underway. It draws together contributors who are professional philosophers, dance scholars and dance practitioners, from Britain, continental Europe, the USA and South Africa. As the first anthology of essays about philosophy and dance to be published in English for some time, the aim is to provoke debate and develop the existing reflection on dance, but in new and invigorating directions. The Editors: The editors are colleagues at University of Roehampton, London: Jenny Bunker teaches aesthetics on the philosophy programme of the Department of Humanities; Anna Pakes and Bonnie Rowell are from the Department of Dance, and have a longstanding interest in the application of analytic philosophy to dance, as well as the intersections between this and other philosophical traditions and dance studies. (shrink)

The Afro-Latin dance known as ‘salsa’ is a fusion of multiple dances from West Africa, Muslim Spain, enslaved communities in the Caribbean, and the United States. In part due to its global origins, salsa was pivotal in the development of the Figuration philosophy of dance, and for ‘dancing with,’ the theoretical method for social justice derived therefrom. In the present article, I apply the completed theory Figuration exclusively to salsa for the first time, after situating the latter (...) in the dance studies literature. My first section explores Juliet McMains’ recent history, Spinning Mambo into Salsa, with an emphasis on the dynamics of class, race and sex therein. My second section explores a resonant Afro-Latin dance history, Marta E. Savigliano’s Tango and the Political Economy of Passion, where she deploys salsa’s sister-dance (tango) as a ‘counter-choreography’ to the choreography of postmodern neocolonialism. And my third section applies Figuration’s four central aspects of dance (or ‘Moves’) to salsa qua member of its ‘societal’ family of dance. In conclusion, through partnering with salsa, Figuration emerges as a member of its own ‘discursive’ family of dance, while salsa emerges as a gestural discourse capable of helping reconstruct a more socially-just world from the postmodern ruins of today. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Modern Song: curious title, a curious book. If you bought it, as I did, because you are a devoted Dylan fan, hoping to find new Dylan songs inside, or at least new Dylan prose, you will be disappointed. In the photo of three musicians on the cover, none of them is Dylan. The one on the left is Little Richard. Who are the other two? Nowhere are we told their names, nor the names of the people (...) in any of the other photos, except for the sixty-six featured artists, though we will recognize many. The photo on the back cover might or might not be of the interior of Izzy Young's “Folklore Center,” reminiscent of Dylan's early days in Greenwich Village in the Sixties, when, together with my guitarist husband, I got to hear him perform after hours at the Gaslight and knew him well enough to say Hi when passing on the street.The basis for selecting the sixty-six songs anthologized and commented on is not immediately obvious. This is not a collection of Dylan's underappreciated favorites, though the taste represented is certainly eclectic and the choices are often surprising. The title does not help the reader who has not yet got her bearings... Philosophy? As if to justify his use of the word, Dylan eventually offers a lengthy comment on Albert Camus, but how relevant is that comment to these songs? And the word modern, too, means so many things—a sudden divergence from the past in the arts and literature; up-to-date and therefore good. These songs are not that kind of modern. If anything, the book looks backward, across the years of Dylan's long life to his musical awakening. Because we are almost the same age, I recognize the hodgepodge of styles and influences assembled here as belonging mostly to the early Fifties, when, like Bob, I was entering my teens by listening to, even dancing to, songs on the radio before I fell asleep at night. Enough about me! But no more apt basis for classifying these songs is suggested. They are not arranged alphabetically or chronologically.As for the anthologized songs, each one, once named, receives a commentary, and every commentary is called a chapter, and every chapter is divided into two parts, spelled out in letters as bold as a movie marquee. We are given the title of each song, the date of its release, and the name of the songwriter. The first part of each commentary consists of a paraphrase of “events” in the song, told almost exclusively in the second-person you rather than the more conventional I or the third-person he or she. Here is a passage from Dylan's paraphrase of “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins: You get on well with most people, and you put up with a lot, and you hardly get caught off guard, but your shoes are something else. Minor things may annoy you, but you rise above them. Having your teeth kicked in, being pounded senseless, being dumped on and discredited, but you don't put any weight on that, none of it is as real to you as your shoes. They're priceless and beyond monetary worth.The paraphrase goes on for almost six pages, and to what end? The second half of each commentary, indicated by changes in the type, takes a few steps back to consider the sociological implications of the song in the context of its time. For instance, from the second half of the commentary on “Blue Suede Shoes”: “Shoes reveal character, station, and personality.” But Dylan does not use the opportunity to talk about his own character, station, personality. His associations with Carl Perkins and “Blue Suede Shoes” morph into an anecdote about a man called “Iron Felix, trusted consort to Lenin and Stalin.”A lengthy list of all required photo credits fills the two back pages but is printed in type so small it is almost illegible. If you want more information, and more importantly if you want to experience the songs discussed, your best bet is to search for the recordings on YouTube and to follow along, reading Dylan's commentary, one song at a time, while listening. Or, I hear rumors that we will need to purchase another book, the audio version of Philosophy of Modern Song, not yet released.Every song has its commentary, but nothing about this organization is stable, and as soon as the reader/listener thinks she has discovered a rationale for the order of the works selected, she is met with an exception. Basically, these seem to be songs about which Dylan has something anecdotal to say. More usefully, perhaps, they are organized around certain themes—those that have always preoccupied him: man's inhumanity to man, injustice, self-deception, the human situation. The anonymous author of the blurb on the jacket promises a master class in songwriting, but, if it exists at all, that lecture is exhausted in one or two observations, such as: “ ‘El Paso’ is built on five stanzas, each one two verses and a bridge and then returning to the next stanza.... ”It was almost fifty pages into the book that the sense of something missing overcame me. It was not only the words of the songs and the music that were missing; it was the author, the central intelligence that I love, the singer and songwriter whose name is credited on the cover but who never appears in the book, not even in a photograph. What I missed was Dylan. He had removed himself from his book's pages, except perhaps for a single instance: “You're an eighty-year old man, being wheeled around in a home for the elderly, and the nurses are getting on your nerves.... ”Has Bob Dylan grown weary of himself and all of his creations? The commentaries are not about Bob. In the whole book, the line quoted above may be the only exception. Does he refuse the “first person singular in the hopes of transcending ego”? Maybe; but we want to hear our master's voice. As for the philosophy of song? Besides the remarks on Camus, there is only one commentary in which Dylan explicitly states anything like a philosophy, and that is the one on “Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me,” written and performed by Joe Shaver. The song has a philosophical point of view: “Keep moving, it's better, let the train keep on rolling.”. (shrink)

An innovative examination of the ways in which dance and philosophy inform each other, Dance and Philosophy brings together authorities from a variety of disciplines to expand our understanding of dance and dance scholarship. Featuring an eclectic mix of materials from exposes to dance therapy sessions to demonstrations, Dance and Philosophy addresses centuries of scholarship, dance practice, the impacts of technological and social change, politics, cultural diversity and performance. Structured thematically (...) to draw out the connection between different perspectives, this books covers: - Philosophy practice and how it corresponds to dance - Movement, embodiment and temporality - Philosophy and dance traditions in everyday life - The intersection between dance and technology - Critical reflections on dance Offering important contributions to our understanding of dance as well as expanding the study of philosophy, this book is key to sparking new conversations concerning the philosophy of dance. (shrink)

Within intellectual paradigms that privilege mind over matter, dance has long appeared as a marginal, derivative, or primitive art. Drawing support from theorists and artists who embrace matter as dynamic and agential, this book offers a visionary definition of dance that illuminates its constitutive work in the ongoing evolution of human persons. _Why We Dance _introduces a philosophy of bodily becoming that posits bodily movement as the source and telos of human life. Within this philosophy, (...) dance appears as an activity that humans evolved to do as the enabling condition of their best bodily becoming. Weaving theoretical reflection with accounts of lived experience, this book positions dance as a catalyst in the development of human consciousness, compassion, ritual proclivity, and ecological adaptability. Aligning with trends in new materialism, affect theory, and feminist philosophy, as well as advances in dance and religious studies, this work reveals the vital role dance can play in reversing the trajectory of ecological self-destruction along which human civilization is racing. (shrink)

What are Eric Mullis’s contributions to a pragmatist philosophy of dance? First, the work brings attention to aspects of dance in regional and religious contexts and to a selection of religious dance practices not typically addressed in the literature of dance philosophy, thus adding to the current scope of dance studies. This book’s main strength with respect to pragmatist philosophies is its efforts to apply existing theories of pragmatism to aspects of dance (...) in a particular regional setting. This task is accomplished with three aspects of the research: ecological study of Pentecostal dance, pragmatism in a selection of its manifestations with connections to philosophies of dance, and performance. In the final chapter, the scope is broadened with summary references to alternative theories of dance philosophy and their interdisciplinary relations to dance studies using pragmatist philosophies. The remainder of this essay examines selection of past and current studies that inform the state of dance philosophy with the aim of gathering a broader perspective on the state of dance philosophy. While there is no established long-term tradition of dance philosophy, a generation of twentieth-century scholars—Cohen, Arnheim, Sparshott, Goodman, Van Camp, Banes, Carroll, McFee, Foster, and Fraleigh, among others—has advanced recent philosophical discussion of dance. Joining these are contemporary writers on philosophy of dance, such as Anna Pakes. (shrink)

Dancing with Iris engages with Iris Marion Young's prolific writings in political theory and in phenomenology. Contributors discuss her work from a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, political science, human rights law, cultural geography and dance studies.

[First paragraph]: This article is part of a larger project in which I suggest a historically informed philosophy of dance, called “figuration,” consisting of new interpretations of canonical philosophers. Figuration consists of two major parts, comprising (a) four basic concepts, or “moves”—namely, “positure,” “gesture,” “grace,” and “resilience”—and (b) seven types, or “families” of dance—namely, “concert,” “folk,” “societal,” “agonistic,” “animal,” “astronomical,” and “discursive.” This article is devoted to the first of these four moves, as illustrated by both its (...) importance for Aristotle and also its applicability to these seven families of dance. One goal of figuration as a whole, and the central goal of this excerpt from that larger project, is to model and justify a dancing aesthetic education pursuant to psychological and political flourishing. (shrink)

Two essential components make up the semantic information that was used to pinpoint the video events. They consist of: (a) A spatial component of a video frame, such as the scenery, visible people, and visible objects. (b) A temporal component that is represented by a series of video frames across time, such as the actions of a character or the movements of an object. The video's audio, video, and text components are examined in order to provide the higher-level semantic data. (...) The semantic structure of the movie is discovered using a variety of cues from many modalities, such as auditory and visual elements, bridging the gap between high level semantic notions and low level qualities. A video contains three distinct modalities. The three are as follows: (1) Visual modality, which refers to the scene seen in the video; (2) Auditory modality, which refers to spoken words, background music, and other noises; and (3) Textual modality, which refers to written materials that describe the subject matter of the movie. There are numerous video databases and a sizable amount of video data in general. Even while there are tools for maintaining and exploring these collections, many decision-making applications increasingly require tools to extract the critical information hidden in the video data. (shrink)

Part of a larger project of constructing a new, historically informed philosophy of dance, built on four phenomenological constructs that I call “Moves,” this essay concerns the third Move, “grace.” The etymology of the word “grace” reveals the entwined meanings of pleasing quality and authoritative power, which may be combined as “beautiful force.” I examine the treatments of grace in German philosopher Friedrich Schiller, who understands it as playful, naive transformation of matter; and in American philosopher John Dewey, (...) for whom it represents rhythmic organism/environment reversal. I conclude by showing how “grace” can be used in analyzing various types of dance, which in turn suggests transformational potential for philosophy, dance, and society as a whole. (shrink)

Eric Mullis' Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance is a thoroughly multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary book that is centered on and deeply engaged in the experimental and lived experience of Pentecostal dance in the American and Appalachian South. The focal point for Mullis' research is not observation and critique of dance as embodied religious practice from a critical distance but from the inside, embedding his own person and body into the environment with all the resources of the unifying self (...) that he has at his disposal to not just understand the form but feel it and live it. This makes Mullis a true William Jamesian and John Deweyan pragmatist; he doesn't... (shrink)

This essay—part of a larger project of constructing a new, historically informed philosophy of dance, built on four phenomenological constructs that I call “Moves”—concerns the second Move, “gesture,” the etymology of which reveals its close connection to the Greek word “metaphor.” More specifically, I examine the treatments of gesture by the philosophers George Herbert Mead and Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, both of whom view it as the foundation of language. I conclude by showing how gesture can be used (...) in analyzing various types of dance, which in turn suggests transformational potential for philosophy, dance, and society as a whole. (shrink)

This book investigates how Pragmatist philosophy as a philosophical method contributes to the understanding and practice of interdisciplinary dance research. It uses the author's own practice-based research project, Later Rain, to illustrate this. Later Rain is a post-dramatic dance theater work that engages primarily with issues in the philosophy of religion and socio-political philosophy. It focuses on ecstatic states that arise in Appalachian charismatic Pentecostal church services, states characterized by dancing, paroxysms, shouting, and speaking in (...) tongues. Research for this work is interdisciplinary as it draws on studio practice, ethnographic field work, cultural history, Pentecostal history and theology, folk aesthetics, anthropological understandings of ecstatic religious rituals, and dance history regarding acclaimed works that have sought to present aspects of religious ecstasy on stage; Doris Humphrey's The Shakers, Mark Godden’s Angels in the Architecture, Martha Clarke’s Angel Reapers and Ralph Lemon’s Geography trilogy. The project thereby demonstrates a process model of dance philosophy, showing how philosophy and dance artistry intertwine in a specific creative process. (shrink)

One of the most important aspects of Gilles Deleuzes philosophy is his criticism of the traditional concept of praxis. In Aristotelian philosophy praxis is properly oriented towards some end, and in the case of human action the ends of praxis are oriented towards the agents good life. Human goods are, for both Aristotle and contemporary neo-Aristotelians, determined by the potentials of human life such as rationality, communality, and speech. Deleuzes account of action, by contrast, liberates movement from an (...) external end. In his books on cinema Deleuze argues that we need to think of events in terms of their power, and not as movements within an already determined image of life. In order to think events as such we need to confront the power of the virtual. This is achieved by a philosophy of life in which becoming is not a means towards the realisation of some end. Rather, becomings are best seen as counter-actualisations: ways in which the already-constituted actual world always bears a power to become other than it already is. If we consider dance in this new context, then dance is neither expressive of an already existing life, nor a pure act that is self-sufficient and self-constituting. Rather, dance is a confrontation with life as a plane of open and divergent becomings. (shrink)

Inspired by the philosopher Graham Parkes, this collection provides a distinctive study of aesthetics and the climate crisis. Engaging with Continental European and East Asian traditions, it challenges our definition of self in the West and asks us to re-evaluate our conventional perspectives. Through a valuable and systematic treatment of the thought of Parkes, The Wandering Dance in the Philosophy of Graham Parkes makes the case that a restoration of the intimate relation of self and nature is indispensable (...) in understanding our place in the order of things and achieving balance in the world. (shrink)

The philosophy of art and empirical aesthetics are, to all outward appearances, natural bedfellows, disciplines bound together by complimentary methodologies and the common goal of explaining a shared subject matter. Philosophers are in the business of sorting out the ontological and normative character of different categories of objects, events and behaviors, squaring up our conception of the nature of things, and clarifying the subject matter of different avenues of intellectual exploration via careful conceptual analyses of often complex conventional practices. (...) Psychologists have developed careful empirical methods for measuring and modeling behavior, methods that are fruitfully used in practice to test and evaluate hypotheses derived from our conception of the nature of our own cognitive and emotional engagement with the world. So, for all appearances, philosophy and psychology are grounded in complimentary research methods directed at the common task of sorting and testing theories about the nature of art and artistic practices, e.g. what is an artwork, what is the nature of the productive practices involved in creating these kinds of artifacts, or what is the nature of a consumer's artistic engagement with these artifacts. Unfortunately appearances can be deceptive. Despite common calls for rapprochement the two disciplines rarely meet. There are methodological and ideological reasons for this rift, and they are, not surprisingly, related. In what follows I will explore and evaluate some of the central sources of resistance on both sides this divide, introduce a model for the possibility of rapprochement, and briefly sketch the promise and pitfalls of current research in two areas, dance and film, where an active attempt at bridging the divide between philosophy and empirical aesthetics is underway. (shrink)

This book examines the sensual and mental emphases of the movement research practiced by dancers of the Batsheva Dance Company and provides a comprehensive analysis of Gaga and Ohad Naharin's aesthetic approach.

This essay is part of a larger project in which I construct a new, historically-informed, social justice-centered philosophy of dance, centered on four central phenomenological constructs, or “Moves.” This essay in particular is about the fourth Move, “resilience.” More specifically, I explore how Judith Butler engages with the etymological aspects of this word, suggesting that resilience involves a productive form of madness and a healthy form of compulsion, respectively. I then conclude by showing how “resilience” can be used (...) in the analysis of various Wittgensteinian “families” of dance, which in turn could facilitate positive educational changes in philosophy, dance and society, with particular efficacy on the axis of gender. In brief, by teaching a conception of strength as vulnerability (instead of machismo’s view of strength as apathetic “toughness”), a pedagogy of dancing resilience provides additional support for feminists (including Anzaldúa, Haraway, Butler and Concepción) who advocate a cautious openness toward seemingly-unlikely resources and allies (including analytic methodologies, Machiavellian politics, and the discourses of the natural sciences). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Lauren Kapalka Richerme, "The Diversity Bargain and the Discourse Dance of Equitable and Best," Philosophy of Music Education Review 27, no. 2 (Fall, 2019)Nasim NiknafsI was asked to write a response to Lauren Richerme's convincing research on why and how one should distinguish between "equitable educational practices"1 and what she calls following Ellen Berry the "diversity bargain" where equity as the second-best option has always (...) taken a hit from the more dashing diversity. If I may metaphorically put this conversation into a romantic comedy, equity is always the wingperson of color to diversity as the main protagonist; by the end of the show it is the main protagonist who survives the hardship and reaches salvation, be it a long-lost love, an oasis of sorts, or making it to the finish line. The rest of the cast have the function of complementing and highlighting the main actor but never substituting for it; or they are as Homi Bhabha would say, "almost the same but not quite."2 For the sake of filling in the blank of let's-add-more-color-into-it, the genuine conversation over the nuances of equitable practices gets undermined and diffused of its poignancy. And this is what Richerme is arguing against: let us not forget that a more significant challenge than a mere technicolor presence is at play. In that, my response to Richerme's essay would [End Page 215] not be so much of a response but a grand nod, a body gesture, an embedded signal of approval between two human beings born and raised in two different parts of planet earth who after years of diverse and perhaps un-equitable educational access ended up in the same room at the same time. Thus, my nod to Richerme also originated from personal experiences and intimate familiarities with unequitable educational access. Yes, people of color can be assets to their institutions and their corresponding fields who add to the diversity of knowledge creation practices, but it is not people of color's project or responsibility to act as the trophy to alleviate the unhappy conscience of educational malpractice or give a helping hand to the main protagonists for whom the scenario has already been written. Undoubtedly, they can take on that role if they want to, but it is only contingent upon where their desires lie not where they should lie.I strongly agree with Richerme's claim that music classrooms and I would add any classroom and learning environment should be a place and space for "sharing stories and insights"3 to not only learn about the content material whatever it may be but to learn to empathize with one another, understand positive and negative human behaviors toward humans and their environment, and act against discriminatory practices, racial, ethnic, religious, and gender prejudices, and to the point of Richerme's essay, unequitable practices that are insistent in today's political climate on a global scale.At this very juncture I diverge not from Richerme's fine thesis and argumentation, but from the larger issue of the premise of her arguments grounded on Thomas Green's educational framework.4 Green argues that the "rank order of political arguments that can be mustered in support of the [educational] system … [is] roughly as follows": (1) the fundamental or compelling interests of the state; (2) the aggregate of individual or parental interests; (3) societal interests; and (4) educational goods for their own sake."5 Following Green's framework Richerme analyzes contemporary music education initiatives in relation to the differing political strengths of each group of stakeholders: the state, parents, society, and educational goods for their own sake.There is a sense of mistrust in the local and national government implied by Green's framework, reminding one of the cumulative mistrust of the elite by U.S. citizens. Years of neglect, condescension, and lack of attention to the real and tangible needs of people amalgamated into what today one sees as white nationalism, plutocracy, and protectionism across borders. Green wrote his book, Predicting the Behavior of the Educational System, in 1980; historically the world order was increasingly metamorphosing and establishing itself... (shrink)

Performance-as-philosophy and Philosophy-as-performance. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Understand Dance Performance Philosophy refers to an international network of researchers, practitioners, scholars, and activists who investigate new forms of thinking, performing and practicing philosophy through international conferences and events. An independent journal and a book series of the same name also aim to define the perimeter of an emerging international interdisciplinary field of thought....

The specific goal of the article is to investigate the principles governing the perception of rhythmic structure in dance and music—taken separately and together—on the basis of a case study. I take as a starting point Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s (A generative theory of tonal music. MIT Press, 1983) conception of musical rhythm as the interaction between grouping and meter, and I examine to what extent it can apply to dance. Then, I explore how the rhythmical structures of music (...) and dance interact in a single event. I conclude that dance and music perception largely share the same abstract system, and the differences in the properties of their structure derives from the different (visual vs. auditory) modalities in which they are perceived; their modality difference also affects the perceived structure resulting from their combination in dance-music events. The exploration is guided by a detailed examination of the opening of Stravinsky’s _Augurs of Spring_ (1913) as choreographed by Nijinsky (1913), Béjart (1970) and Bausch (1975). By comparing these minimal pairs of dance-music events, I adapt the formal methodology of linguistics to other cognitive systems. The general goal of the article is to shed further light on the organizational principles of mental representations by comparing several cognitive systems in order to distinguish between general cognitive properties and modality-specific or domain-specific properties. (shrink)

[First paragraphs]: Einav Katan-Schmid’s thought-provoking new book, Embodied Philosophy of Dance, is composed of two related but at least partially separable components. Though the first (which dominates Part I of the book) contains original insights, most of it aligns with existing work in the reemerging philosophy of dance (including my own). This first component is, in essence, a hybrid dance theory derived from Katan-Schmid’s interpretations of central figures in the philosophical schools of phenomenology, hermeneutics and (...) pragmatism (including Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, and Dewey). The second component, by contrast, is more original and provocative, and consists of Katan-Schmid’s analyses of choreographer Ohad Naharin’s Gaga method of movement research. It is thus to this second component that I will thus devote most of the present review. I will then conclude with a brief look at the recent biographical documentary on Naharin, entitled Mr. Gaga: A True Story of Love and Dance, focusing on elements that resonate with Embodied Philosophy of Dance. (shrink)

Improvisation is usually either lionized as an ecstatic experience of being in the moment or disparaged as the thoughtless recycling of clichés. Eschewing both of these orthodoxies, _The Philosophy of Improvisation_ ranges across the arts—from music to theater, dance to comedy—and considers the improvised dimension of philosophy itself in order to elaborate an innovative concept of improvisation. Gary Peters turns to many of the major thinkers within continental philosophy—including Heidegger, Nietzsche, Adorno, Kant, Benjamin, and Deleuze—offering readings (...) of their reflections on improvisation and exploring improvisational elements within their thinking. Peters’s wry, humorous style offers an antidote to the frequently overheated celebration of freedom and community that characterizes most writing on the subject. Expanding the field of what counts as improvisation, _The Philosophy of Improvisation_ will be welcomed by anyone striving to comprehend the creative process. (shrink)

니체는 전통형이상학의 출발점을 인간의 이성적 능력에 대한 맹목적인 믿음이라고 지 적한다. 그러므로 니체의 사유는 전통형이상학에 전제되어 있는 로고스중심주의의 한계를 비판하고, 이전과는 전혀 다른 새로운 철학을 정초하고자 한다. 이것은 니체에게 전통형이 상학적 진리, 다시 말해 감각적 지각(aisthēsis)을 배제하고, 탈감각화의 과정을 통해 보편 적이고 초월적인 앎을 추구하는 것을 거부하는 과정을 통해 드러난다. 주지하는 바와 같이, 전통형이상학에서 신체(Körper)는 의식과 구분되는 일종의 의식의 무덤으로 정의되었다. 그러나 니체는 전통형이상학과는 달리, 감각적 지각이 오히려 진리 로 향할 수 있는 길이라고 주장한다. 물론 여기에서 주의해야 할 점은 니체는 (...) 진리가 도처 에 있다고 주장한다는 점이다. 관점주의(Perspektivismus)로 규정되는 이러한 니체의 인 식론은 니체가 근대 주관성철학과 같이 더 이상 보편적 주체의 존재를 인정하지 않는다는 것을 의미한다. 왜냐하면 니체의 관점에서 삶의 주체는 더 이상 코기토(cogito)와 같이 보 편적 의식이 아니라, 개체의 각자적인 몸(Leib)이기 때문이다. 춤(Tanz)은 여기에서 이성중심적인 전통형이상학의 해체를 수행하는 니체철학을 관통 하고 있는 핵심적인 메타포이다. 특히 실존적인 삶의 문제에서 이성이 아니라, 몸의 역할 을 강조하는 니체에게 춤은 실존적인 삶의 적극적인 긍정을 위해 제시한 그의 미래철학과 밀접하게 관련되어 있다. 따라서 니체는 자신의 저작들에서 춤에 대한 다양한 논의를 전개 한다. 이것은 니체에게 춤이 단순히 예술적인 몸짓으로 국한되는 것이 아니라, 인간의 몸 을 통해 수행되는 끊임없는 창조의 놀이(Spiel)로 규정될 수 있기 때문이다. (shrink)

The paper examines a central question in the philosophy of dance from the vantage point of a specific choreographic practice: Movenglish. Movenglish attempts to establish a one-to-one mapping between English words and dance movement equivalents in the body in a way that maximally captures both the connotative and denotative aspects of the words in question. The paper argues that the success of Movenglish has several important consequences for the philosophy of dance as well as our (...) understanding of sign systems more generally. The paper elaborates one of the strongest contributions to the philosophy of dance – the work of Susanne Langer – in order to show how the conclusions drawn from the dance produced through Movenglish both contribute to and depart from Langer’s philosophy. (shrink)

This volume brings together philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives on improvisation. The contributions connect the theoretical dimensions of improvisation with different viewpoints on its practice in the arts and the classroom. The chapters address the phenomenon of improvisation in two related ways. On the one hand, they attend to the lived practices of improvisation both within and without the arts in order to explain the phenomenon. They also extend the scope of improvisational practices to include the role of improvisation in habit (...) and in planned action, at both individual and collective levels. Drawing on recent work done in the philosophy of mind, they also address questions such as whether improvisation is a single unified phenomenon, or whether it entails different senses that can be discerned theoretically and practically. Finally, they ask after the special kind of improvisational expertise which characterizes musicians, dancers, and other practitioners, an expertise marked by the artist's ability to participate competently in complex situations while deliberately relinquishing control. Philosophy of Improvisation will appeal to researchers working in philosophy, aesthetics, and pedagogy and the arts as well as practitioners involved in different kinds of music, dance, and theater performances. (shrink)

Common themes in American Indian philosophy -- First introductions -- Common themes : a first look -- Constructing an actual American Indian world -- NelsonGoodman's constructivism -- Setting the stage -- Fact, fiction, and feeders -- Ontological pluralism -- True versions and well-made worlds -- Nonlinguistic versions and the advancement of understanding -- True versions and cultural bias -- Constructive realism : variations on a theme by Goodman -- True versions and cultural bias -- An American Indian well-made actual (...) world -- Relatedness, native knowledge, and ultimate acceptability -- Native knowledge and relatedness as a world ordering principle -- Native knowledge and truth -- Native knowledge and verification -- Native knowledge and ultimate acceptability -- An expansive conception of persons -- A western conception of persons -- Native conceptions of animate beings and persons -- An American Indian expansive conception of persons -- The semantic potency of performance -- Opening reflections and reminders about performances -- Symbols and their performance -- The Shawnee naming ceremony -- Gifting as a world constructing performance -- Closing remarks about the semantic potency of performances -- Circularity as a world ordering principle -- Goodman briefly revisited -- Time, events, and history or space, place, and nature? -- Circularity as a world ordering principle -- Circularity and sacred places -- Closing remarks about circularity as a world ordering principle -- The dance of person and place -- American Indian philosophy as a dance of person and place -- Consequences, speculations, and closing reflections. (shrink)

Dance is an art of human movements, and it is an art form that takes refined, organized and artistically processed human movements as the main means of expression, expresses people's thoughts and feelings, and reflects social life. Humans not only transfer knowledge by means of dance, but also communicate with heaven and earth and soothe the soul by means of dance. Dance drama, an art form, is more and more popular among the masses. With the development (...) of the times and science and technology, dance drama forms are constantly bringing forth the new. On the basis of the ancient stage art, it glows with new splendor and enriches the treasure house of human spirit and culture. During the development of history and culture, both religious culture and dance culture have tenacious vitality, and are constantly developing and evolving. The two are inextricably linked, interacting and influencing each other. This paper studies the relationship between dance and religion, trying to learn from historical experience, analyze the relationship between dance and religion, solve the problems in the creation of dance drama, provide theoretical basis for the development of dance drama, and promote the vigorous development of dance art. (shrink)

This study explores the cognitive and corporeal aspects of choreography as a means of expressing the human subconscious. Recent interdisciplinary research, including studies of somatic intelligence and mirror neurons, suggests that dance can influence human cognitive abilities through psychosomatics. Mirror neurons allow for kinesthetic empathy, enabling dance observers to experience movements, emotions, and experiences as their own. The authors argue that dance, which engages multiple aspects of a person, is a crucial tool for educating the younger generation (...) and should be included in compulsory education programs, rather than just as extracurricular activities. (shrink)

Philosophers sometimes wonder whether academic work can ever be truly interdisciplinary. Whether true interdisciplinarity is possible is an open question, but given current trends in higher education, it seems that at least gesturing toward such work is increasingly important. This volume serves as a testament to the fact that such work can be done. Of course, while it is the case that high-level theoretical work can flourish at the intersection of dance and philosophy, it remains to be seen (...) how we might share this with undergraduate students. For many of us in philosophy and dance, a large number of the students we teach are neither philosophy nor dance majors. As such, we are familiar with the challenge of convincing our students to care about our fields. Both philosophy and dance, qua disciplines on a college campus, face similar challenges. These disciplines are often deeply misunderstood, frequently presumed to be “impractical” (a powerful, but confused objection), intimidating, and frivolous. In this chapter, we offer an account of the course we co-taught at Southern Utah University in the Spring of 2016 titled “Movement and Space” as a rough framework for how to introduce the intersection between philosophy and dance to students. We simultaneously attempted to break students of their misconceptions about philosophy and dance, and worked to engage students and professors alike in a truly interdisciplinary educational experience. Treating philosophy as an embodied endeavor, and employing philosophical concepts through the act of dance encouraged students and faculty alike to rethink the fundamental nature of aesthetics. (shrink)

Rhythm is the fundamental pulse that animates poetry, music, and dance across all cultures. And yet the recent explosion of scholarly interest across disciplines in the aural dimensions of aesthetic experience--particularly in sociology, cultural and media theory, and literary studies--has yet to explore this fundamental category. This book furthers the discussion of rhythm beyond the discrete conceptual domains and technical vocabularies of musicology and prosody. With original essays by philosophers, psychologists, musicians, literary theorists, and ethno-musicologists, The Philosophy of (...) Rhythm opens up wider-and plural-perspectives, examining formal affinities between the historically interconnected fields of music, dance, and poetry, while addressing key concepts such as embodiment, movement, pulse, and performance. Volume editors Peter Cheyne, Andy Hamilton, and Max Paddison bring together a range of key questions: What is the distinction between rhythm and pulse? What is the relationship between everyday embodied experience, and the specific experience of music, dance, and poetry? Can aesthetics offer an understanding of rhythm that helps inform our responses to visual and other arts, as well as music, dance, and poetry? And, what is the relation between psychological conceptions of entrainment, and the humane concept of rhythm and meter? Overall, The Philosophy of Rhythm appeals across disciplinary boundaries, providing a unique overview of a neglected aspect of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

In the development of history, due to the unbalanced development of various ethnic groups, some ethnic minorities do not have their own characters. However, with the development of the times and the appearance of cultural relics, it can be seen that most ethnic groups have their own unique dances, and the performance forms and styles of dances reflect the connotation of dance culture and religious culture to a great extent. This paper makes a related research on the influence of (...) religious consciousness on the cultural connotation of dance. This paper expounds the related concepts of religious culture and dance culture, and analyzes the relationship between religious culture and dance culture in order to promote the development of religious culture and promote the unique charm of ethnic dance in religious culture. At the same time, based on the current development of religious culture and dance culture, this paper analyzes and discusses the inheritance and development of religious culture in dance culture. In this paper, an in-depth study of the relationship between dance culture and religious culture is helpful for dancers to grasp the scale of dance and religion, absorb reasonable factors, learn from historical experience and prosper dance creation. (shrink)

This paper provides an account of improvisational artistry in live dance performance that construes the contribution of the dance performer as a kind of agency. Andy Clark’s theory of the embodied and extended mind is used in order to consider how this account is supported by research on how a thinking-while-doing person navigates the world. I claim here that while a dance performer’s improvisational artistry does include embodied and extended features that occur outside of the brain and (...) nervous system that this can be construed as “agency” rather than “thought.” Further I claim that trained and individual style accounts for how this agency acquires its artistic nature. This account thus contributes to the philosophy of improvisation in dance performance in a way that includes motor as well as cognized intentions. (shrink)

Most instructors who teach introductory courses in aesthetics or the philosophy of arts use the visual arts as their implicit reference for "art" in general, yet until now there has been no aesthetics anthology specifically orientated to the visual arts. This text stresses conceptual and theoretical issues, first examining the very notion of "the visual arts" and then investigating philosophical questions raised by various forms, from painting, the paradigmatic form, to sculpture, photography, film, dance, kitsch, and other forms (...) on the borders of the visual arts. The selections represent both classical and contemporary views and include sections by artists, art historians, and critics as well as philosophers. A singularly important text for courses in the philosophy of arts or aesthetics, this anthology is designed to enrich the philosophical and critical examination of our beliefs about the visual arts. (shrink)

Most instructors who teach introductory courses in aesthetics or the philosophy of arts use the visual arts as their implicit reference for "art" in general, yet until now there has been no aesthetics anthology specifically orientated to the visual arts. This text stresses conceptual and theoretical issues, first examining the very notion of "the visual arts " and then investigating philosophical questions raised by various forms, from painting, the paradigmatic form, to sculpture, photography, film, dance, kitsch, and other (...) forms on the borders of the visual arts. The selections represent both classical and contemporary views and include sections by artists, art historians, and critics as well as philosophers. A singularly important text for courses in the philosophy of arts or aesthetics, this anthology is designed to enrich the philosophical and critical examination of our beliefs about the visual arts. (shrink)