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Papers by Anna Pakes
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 21, 2020
Focusing on Western theatre dance, Choreography Invisible explores the metaphysics of dances and ... more Focusing on Western theatre dance, Choreography Invisible explores the metaphysics of dances and choreographic works. It draws on a range of resources from analytic philosophy of art to develop the argument that dances are repeatable structures of action. The book also analyses the idea of the dance work in long-term historical perspective. Tracing different ways in which dances have been conceptualised across time, the book considers changing notions of authorship, fixity, persistence, and autonomy from the fifteenth century to the present day. The modern work-concept is interrogated, its relativity and contested status (particularly within contemporary dance practice) acknowledged. As the dance work disappears from contemporary discourse, what can be said about the kind of thing it is? Choreography Invisible considers the materials of dance making and the nature (and limits) of choreographic authorship. It explores issues of identity and persistence, including why distinct (and sometimes quite various) performances are still treated as performances of the same work. The book examines how dances survive through time and what it means for a dance work to be lost, considering the extent to which practices of dance reconstruction and reenactment can recuperate or reconstitute lost choreography. The focus here is dance, but the book addresses issues with wider implications for the metaphysics of art, including how the historical relativity of art practices should inflect analytic arguments about the nature of art works, and what place such works have within a broader ontology of human and natural worlds.
Performing Time: Synchrony and Temporal Flow in Music and Dance, 2023
Focus chapter in Clemens Wollner and Justin London (eds). Performing Time. Abstract: It is diffi... more Focus chapter in Clemens Wollner and Justin London (eds). Performing Time.
Abstract: It is difficult to explain what makes some theatre dances boring, even if certain features seem to have a propensity to bore (excessive repetition or slowness, for example). A viewer’s cultural and psychological framework also play a crucial role: aesthetic preferences and thresholds of endurance shape reactions, including reactions to dance that deliberately tests both. Moreover, an initial bored reaction can be transfigured into interest if the experience of boredom itself reveals something important about time and our relationship to it. I explore the dynamics and limits of this shift, discussing the three levels of boredom identified by Martin Heidegger, the most profound of which (he argues) enables revelation of the fundamental nature of being. I argue both that the situative nature of boredom in the theatre militates against recasting its metaphysical significance in Heideggerian vein, and that residual anxiety about finitude may ground justified resistance to the sustained reflection on duration demanded by some theatre dance.
Repères, cahier de danse, 2021
Midwest Studies In Philosophy, 2019
Oxford Handbooks Online
Commentary on the recent trend toward performance “reenactment” suggests that there is something ... more Commentary on the recent trend toward performance “reenactment” suggests that there is something distinctive about how the phenomenon enables past dances to return. This raises ontological and identity questions that this chapter explores through three central cases: Fabian Barba’s (2009) A Mary Wigman Dance Evening, Philippe Decouflé’s (2012) Panorama, and the Kirov Ballet’s (1999) restaging of Marius Petipa’s The Sleeping Beauty. Do past dances reappear in reenactment, and, if so, how? Does the reenactment offer new tokens of a choreographic work type, or a redoing of a past performance event? Critically analyzing ideas central to the reenactment literature about the body-as-archive and affective history, the chapter argues for a conception of reenactment (alongside other models of dance reconstruction) as a form of historical fiction. As such, reenactment represents, rather than “re-instances,” past dances, hazarding and testing historical claims, by presenting thought experiment...
Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, 2009
The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy, 2020
The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies, 2019
in Geraldine Morris and Larraine Nicholas eds. (2017) Rethinking Dance History: Issues and Method... more in Geraldine Morris and Larraine Nicholas eds. (2017) Rethinking Dance History: Issues and Methodologies, 2nd edition, London: Routledge, pp.56-68
In recent decades, some philosophers of music (notably Peter Kivy and Julian Dodd) have defended ... more In recent decades, some philosophers of music (notably Peter Kivy and Julian Dodd) have defended a platonist account of musical works which treats them as eternally existing types. This is in spite of the apparently counter-intuitive consequences of platonist ontology. Notoriously, such an ontology implies that works are discovered rather than created by their composers; and it seems to suggest that, as eternal existents, works are (in principle) instantiable at times other than those at which they were in fact composed. This paper explores the plausibility of a platonist ontology of dance works. It examines the idea that choreographers discover rather than creating dances, and how one might defend the eternal existence of choreographic works. In this regard, I consider how much choreographic works depend upon movement languages or idioms, themselves properly conceived as historical artefacts rather than eternal existents. The paper also explores whether historical, intentional and aesthetic properties might be intrinsic to works, compromising their status as pure sound- or movement-structures. Given arguments for the importance of conceiving dance as essentially human action rather than (mere) movement, this would suggest that dance works cannot be eternally existing abstract objects. If platonism is the view that there are such things as dance works; that they are abstract objects; and that they are “independent of intelligent agents and their language, thought and practices” (Linnebo, 2011), then it is the independence condition for abstracts objects that throws serious doubt on the plausibility of a platonist ontology of dance.
Dance Research Journal, 2011
The dimming of the house lights focuses attention on the still darkened stage, although awareness... more The dimming of the house lights focuses attention on the still darkened stage, although awareness of the others in the auditorium and its quieted bustle does not entirely fade. From the stage, the sound of several people taking five or six measured footsteps in unison, then stopping, momentarily precedes the lights (stage and house) fading quickly up to reveal nine performers. They stand, facing out, dressed in ordinary clothes (shirt and jacket, jumper and skirt, different colors), steady gaze directed at the audience. They stand in the gaps between a series of reflective slabs, each of the same regular dimensions, slightly wider and taller than the performers themselves. Behind the performers is a further line of panels cut from the same material. After a brief pause, the space darkens.
Research in Dance Education, 2003
Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, 2004
The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a dramatic expansion of contemporary dance activity in France and t... more The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a dramatic expansion of contemporary dance activity in France and the birth of what became known as la nouvelle (orjeune) danse franfaise. This development was fostered by a proactive cultural policy and a significant increase in public funding for ...
in Mark Franko ed. (2017) The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment, New York: Oxford Universi... more in Mark Franko ed. (2017) The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment, New York: Oxford University Press
This essay won the American Society for Aesthetics' Selma Jeanne Cohen Prize in Dance Aesthetics, 2018.
in Geraldine Morris and Larraine Nicholas eds. (2017) Rethinking Dance History: Issues and Method... more in Geraldine Morris and Larraine Nicholas eds. (2017) Rethinking Dance History: Issues and Methodologies, 2nd edition, London: Routledge, pp.56-68
Thinking through Dance: The Philosophy of Dance Performance and Practices, Nov 15, 2013
The dimming of the house lights focuses attention on the still darkened stage, although awareness... more The dimming of the house lights focuses attention on the still darkened stage, although awareness of the others in the auditorium and its quieted bustle does not entirely fade. From the stage, the sound of several people taking five or six measured footsteps in unison, then stopping, momentarily precedes the lights (stage and house) fading quickly up to reveal nine performers. They stand, facing out, dressed in ordinary clothes (shirt and jacket, jumper and skirt, different colors), steady gaze directed at the audience. They stand in the gaps between a series of reflective slabs, each of the same regular dimensions, slightly wider and taller than the performers themselves. Behind the performers is a further line of panels cut from the same material. After a brief pause, the space darkens.
Oxford University Press eBooks, May 21, 2020
Focusing on Western theatre dance, Choreography Invisible explores the metaphysics of dances and ... more Focusing on Western theatre dance, Choreography Invisible explores the metaphysics of dances and choreographic works. It draws on a range of resources from analytic philosophy of art to develop the argument that dances are repeatable structures of action. The book also analyses the idea of the dance work in long-term historical perspective. Tracing different ways in which dances have been conceptualised across time, the book considers changing notions of authorship, fixity, persistence, and autonomy from the fifteenth century to the present day. The modern work-concept is interrogated, its relativity and contested status (particularly within contemporary dance practice) acknowledged. As the dance work disappears from contemporary discourse, what can be said about the kind of thing it is? Choreography Invisible considers the materials of dance making and the nature (and limits) of choreographic authorship. It explores issues of identity and persistence, including why distinct (and sometimes quite various) performances are still treated as performances of the same work. The book examines how dances survive through time and what it means for a dance work to be lost, considering the extent to which practices of dance reconstruction and reenactment can recuperate or reconstitute lost choreography. The focus here is dance, but the book addresses issues with wider implications for the metaphysics of art, including how the historical relativity of art practices should inflect analytic arguments about the nature of art works, and what place such works have within a broader ontology of human and natural worlds.
Performing Time: Synchrony and Temporal Flow in Music and Dance, 2023
Focus chapter in Clemens Wollner and Justin London (eds). Performing Time. Abstract: It is diffi... more Focus chapter in Clemens Wollner and Justin London (eds). Performing Time.
Abstract: It is difficult to explain what makes some theatre dances boring, even if certain features seem to have a propensity to bore (excessive repetition or slowness, for example). A viewer’s cultural and psychological framework also play a crucial role: aesthetic preferences and thresholds of endurance shape reactions, including reactions to dance that deliberately tests both. Moreover, an initial bored reaction can be transfigured into interest if the experience of boredom itself reveals something important about time and our relationship to it. I explore the dynamics and limits of this shift, discussing the three levels of boredom identified by Martin Heidegger, the most profound of which (he argues) enables revelation of the fundamental nature of being. I argue both that the situative nature of boredom in the theatre militates against recasting its metaphysical significance in Heideggerian vein, and that residual anxiety about finitude may ground justified resistance to the sustained reflection on duration demanded by some theatre dance.
Repères, cahier de danse, 2021
Midwest Studies In Philosophy, 2019
Oxford Handbooks Online
Commentary on the recent trend toward performance “reenactment” suggests that there is something ... more Commentary on the recent trend toward performance “reenactment” suggests that there is something distinctive about how the phenomenon enables past dances to return. This raises ontological and identity questions that this chapter explores through three central cases: Fabian Barba’s (2009) A Mary Wigman Dance Evening, Philippe Decouflé’s (2012) Panorama, and the Kirov Ballet’s (1999) restaging of Marius Petipa’s The Sleeping Beauty. Do past dances reappear in reenactment, and, if so, how? Does the reenactment offer new tokens of a choreographic work type, or a redoing of a past performance event? Critically analyzing ideas central to the reenactment literature about the body-as-archive and affective history, the chapter argues for a conception of reenactment (alongside other models of dance reconstruction) as a form of historical fiction. As such, reenactment represents, rather than “re-instances,” past dances, hazarding and testing historical claims, by presenting thought experiment...
Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group, 2009
The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy, 2020
The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies, 2019
in Geraldine Morris and Larraine Nicholas eds. (2017) Rethinking Dance History: Issues and Method... more in Geraldine Morris and Larraine Nicholas eds. (2017) Rethinking Dance History: Issues and Methodologies, 2nd edition, London: Routledge, pp.56-68
In recent decades, some philosophers of music (notably Peter Kivy and Julian Dodd) have defended ... more In recent decades, some philosophers of music (notably Peter Kivy and Julian Dodd) have defended a platonist account of musical works which treats them as eternally existing types. This is in spite of the apparently counter-intuitive consequences of platonist ontology. Notoriously, such an ontology implies that works are discovered rather than created by their composers; and it seems to suggest that, as eternal existents, works are (in principle) instantiable at times other than those at which they were in fact composed. This paper explores the plausibility of a platonist ontology of dance works. It examines the idea that choreographers discover rather than creating dances, and how one might defend the eternal existence of choreographic works. In this regard, I consider how much choreographic works depend upon movement languages or idioms, themselves properly conceived as historical artefacts rather than eternal existents. The paper also explores whether historical, intentional and aesthetic properties might be intrinsic to works, compromising their status as pure sound- or movement-structures. Given arguments for the importance of conceiving dance as essentially human action rather than (mere) movement, this would suggest that dance works cannot be eternally existing abstract objects. If platonism is the view that there are such things as dance works; that they are abstract objects; and that they are “independent of intelligent agents and their language, thought and practices” (Linnebo, 2011), then it is the independence condition for abstracts objects that throws serious doubt on the plausibility of a platonist ontology of dance.
Dance Research Journal, 2011
The dimming of the house lights focuses attention on the still darkened stage, although awareness... more The dimming of the house lights focuses attention on the still darkened stage, although awareness of the others in the auditorium and its quieted bustle does not entirely fade. From the stage, the sound of several people taking five or six measured footsteps in unison, then stopping, momentarily precedes the lights (stage and house) fading quickly up to reveal nine performers. They stand, facing out, dressed in ordinary clothes (shirt and jacket, jumper and skirt, different colors), steady gaze directed at the audience. They stand in the gaps between a series of reflective slabs, each of the same regular dimensions, slightly wider and taller than the performers themselves. Behind the performers is a further line of panels cut from the same material. After a brief pause, the space darkens.
Research in Dance Education, 2003
Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, 2004
The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a dramatic expansion of contemporary dance activity in France and t... more The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a dramatic expansion of contemporary dance activity in France and the birth of what became known as la nouvelle (orjeune) danse franfaise. This development was fostered by a proactive cultural policy and a significant increase in public funding for ...
in Mark Franko ed. (2017) The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment, New York: Oxford Universi... more in Mark Franko ed. (2017) The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment, New York: Oxford University Press
This essay won the American Society for Aesthetics' Selma Jeanne Cohen Prize in Dance Aesthetics, 2018.
in Geraldine Morris and Larraine Nicholas eds. (2017) Rethinking Dance History: Issues and Method... more in Geraldine Morris and Larraine Nicholas eds. (2017) Rethinking Dance History: Issues and Methodologies, 2nd edition, London: Routledge, pp.56-68
Thinking through Dance: The Philosophy of Dance Performance and Practices, Nov 15, 2013
The dimming of the house lights focuses attention on the still darkened stage, although awareness... more The dimming of the house lights focuses attention on the still darkened stage, although awareness of the others in the auditorium and its quieted bustle does not entirely fade. From the stage, the sound of several people taking five or six measured footsteps in unison, then stopping, momentarily precedes the lights (stage and house) fading quickly up to reveal nine performers. They stand, facing out, dressed in ordinary clothes (shirt and jacket, jumper and skirt, different colors), steady gaze directed at the audience. They stand in the gaps between a series of reflective slabs, each of the same regular dimensions, slightly wider and taller than the performers themselves. Behind the performers is a further line of panels cut from the same material. After a brief pause, the space darkens.
Studies in Dance, Columbia University Seminar, 2022
Invited talk for the "Studies in Dance" seminar at Columbia University (via Zoom). 24th October 2... more Invited talk for the "Studies in Dance" seminar at Columbia University (via Zoom). 24th October 2022.
Revaluing the life model in art practice, 2022
Keynote presentation, Revaluing the life model in art practice, British Society for Aesthetics Sy... more Keynote presentation, Revaluing the life model in art practice, British Society for Aesthetics Symposium at the University of Kent at Canterbury, 7th May 2022.
Words, Voices, Bodies, 2022
Presentation to the Words, Voices, Bodies online conference, 11th January 2022.
Encoding Embodied Creativity Symposium, 2021
Invited talk, Encoding Embodied Creativity Symposium, Body and AI series by C-DARE Invites. Organ... more Invited talk, Encoding Embodied Creativity Symposium, Body and AI series by C-DARE Invites. Organised by Daniel Bisig. 7th September 2021.
Producing Memory in Dance, 2021
Keynote talk for the Mnemedanse international webinar, Producing Memory in Dance: Archiving, Tran... more Keynote talk for the Mnemedanse international webinar, Producing Memory in Dance: Archiving, Transmitting, Forgetting, 22nd October 2021. Universita Ca' Foscari Venezia and Universite Cote d'Azur CTEL.
University of Johannesburg, 2021
Invited talk, Department of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg (via Zoom). 19th May 2021.
NeuroLive project, 2021
Contribution to panel discussion, Online Liveness Symposium, 26th March 2021. Part of NeuroLive, ... more Contribution to panel discussion, Online Liveness Symposium, 26th March 2021. Part of NeuroLive, a European Research Council funded project: https://neurolive.info/Introduction-to-Neurolive
American Society for Aesthetics Eastern Division meeting, 2021
Author-meets-critics session on Choreography Invisible: The Disappearing Work of Dance, American ... more Author-meets-critics session on Choreography Invisible: The Disappearing Work of Dance, American Society for Aesthetics Eastern Division meeting, 17th April 2021. Response to commentaries by Andrew Kania, Aili Bresnahan and David Davies. Chaired by Renee Conroy.
London School of Economics, 2018
Contribution to panel discussion (chaired by Sarah Fine), 5th November.
Philosophy of Art conference, Inter-University Centre, Dubrovnik, 2019
Joint presentation with Professor Stephanie Jordan.
Part of invited symposium on Dance-making, authorship and collaboration at British Society of Aes... more Part of invited symposium on Dance-making, authorship and collaboration at British Society of Aesthetics annual conference, 8-10th September 2017
Keynote presentation to the Dialogues on Dance, Philosophy and Performance in the Contemporary Ne... more Keynote presentation to the Dialogues on Dance, Philosophy and Performance in the Contemporary Neoliberal Moment conference, 1-2nd June 2017, Coventry University
Keynote presentation to the Engagement Symposium of Philosophy and Dance, Texas State University,... more Keynote presentation to the Engagement Symposium of Philosophy and Dance, Texas State University, 8th - 10th September 2016
Presentation to the Dubrovnik Philosophy of Art conference, Dubrovnik (Croatia), 19th - 22nd Apri... more Presentation to the Dubrovnik Philosophy of Art conference, Dubrovnik (Croatia), 19th - 22nd April 2016
Presentation to the Higher Seminar in Aesthetics, Uppsala University, Sweden, 8th December 2015
Presentation as part of invited symposium on Philosophy of Dance, American Society for Aesthetics... more Presentation as part of invited symposium on Philosophy of Dance, American Society for Aesthetics Eastern Division meeting, Philadelphia (USA), 20-21st March 2015
Presentation to the Dance Studies Colloquium, Temple University, Philadelphia (USA), 17th March 2015
Part of invited symposium on The Performing Arts, American Society for Aesthetics Pacific Divisio... more Part of invited symposium on The Performing Arts, American Society for Aesthetics Pacific Division meeting, Pacific Grove, CA (USA), 3rd - 5th April 2013
What is the dance past, and what is – or should be – the nature of our concern with it? Dance has... more What is the dance past, and what is – or should be – the nature of our concern with it? Dance has traditionally been conceived as an ephemeral art form. Although it has its traditions and canonical practices, dance lacks the kind of canon of acknowledged “masterworks” present in many other arts. I argue that this is bound up with the rather particular ontology of dance works and the phenomenon of “lost” dance. I also maintain that such loss has both negative and positive consequences. On the one hand, dance historical understanding is impoverished because it is no longer possible to experience many dances that might be identified as important for the art form’s development. On the other hand, practice is liberated from what might be considered the burden of tradition, unconstrained (or at least differently constrained) by the precedents of the canon and apparently free of archival “house arrest”.
I also explore some of the philosophical puzzles presented by “lost” dance. What does it mean for a dance work to be lost? In calling it lost, am I making an epistemological or a metaphysical claim? How do dance revivals and reconstructions make lost or past dances present again, if indeed they do? A central contention here is that they do not do this by “imitating” or constructing “replicas” of original works, since that is both metaphysically and practically impossible. Works are not the sorts of things that can be copied, and nor are their first performances, given the problems of knowing how they looked. So it is not reasonable to expect revivals and reconstructions to hold up the mirror to the dance past and show us what it was.
The contemporary interest in re-enactment as distinct from reconstruction acknowledges the problems of an imitative approach to restaging. Promoters of re-enactment prefer strategies that generate new creative possibilities through recognizing the impossibility of fully re-embodying past dance. I am interested in the implications of pursuing such strategies, and of following through the logic of skepticism about the recoverability of the dance past. Do they render re-enactments or revivals capable only of reflecting contemporary concerns? And is there an ethical imperative to do more than this, and understand that past in its own terms, even if that can only ever be partially achieved? I argue the importance and interest of recognizing the dance past’s otherness, of passing through the looking glass to discover a strange and wonderful world beyond, rather than simply seeing the reflection of our own present in its surface.
Focusing on Western theatre dance, Choreography Invisible explores the metaphysics of dances and ... more Focusing on Western theatre dance, Choreography Invisible explores the metaphysics of dances and choreographic works. It draws on a range of resources from analytic philosophy of art to develop the argument that dances are repeatable structures of action. The book also analyses the idea of the dance work in long-term historical perspective. Tracing different ways in which dances have been conceptualised across time, the book considers changing notions of authorship, fixity, persistence, and autonomy from the fifteenth century to the present day. The modern work-concept is interrogated, its relativity and contested status (particularly within contemporary dance practice) acknowledged. As the dance work disappears from contemporary discourse, what can be said about the kind of thing it is? Choreography Invisible considers the materials of dance making and the nature (and limits) of choreographic authorship. It explores issues of identity and persistence, including why distinct (and sometimes quite various) performances are still treated as performances of the same work. The book examines how dances survive through time and what it means for a dance work to be lost, considering the extent to which practices of dance reconstruction and reenactment can recuperate or reconstitute lost choreography. The focus here is dance, but the book addresses issues with wider implications for the metaphysics of art, including how the historical relativity of art practices should inflect analytic arguments about the nature of art works, and what place such works have within a broader ontology of human and natural worlds.
Unpublished MA Dissertation, University of Surrey, 2023
This dissertation investigates whether neural machine translation (NMT) can extend the cognition ... more This dissertation investigates whether neural machine translation (NMT) can extend the cognition of professional human translators. It explores the translator-technology relationship in light of the philosophy of extended cognition and its attendant controversies. Extended cognition offers one way to conceptualise the importance and intimacy of the human-machine relationship within contemporary translation practice and the concept is employed in existing translation research. But there is a lack of consensus about how extended cognition should be understood and little detailed attention has been paid to whether it applies to the use of NMT. This study aims to clarify the concept of extended cognition and critically reflect on (1) its pertinence to translation technologies, particularly NMT; and (2) its explanatory value for translation studies research. Ultimately, I argue that translators’ interactions with NMT technologies are more aptly viewed as instances of embedded or scaffolded cognition than as extended cognition, despite the interest and intuitive appeal of the latter concept for translation research.