Sarah Pini | University of Southern Denmark (original) (raw)

Book Chapters by Sarah Pini

Narrative Medicine: Trauma and Ethics, 2024

Trauma is notoriously difficult to communicate, as it often defies understanding. It unfolds over... more Trauma is notoriously difficult to communicate, as it often defies understanding. It unfolds over time and cannot be told through linear narratives. Nevertheless, we show that narratives can become a medium through which experiences of trauma may be shared, alleviating the sense of alienation common to post-traumatic experience. Drawing from one of the authors’ lived experiences of cancer and her illness narrative, we focus on the question of whether traumatic events can be narrated, known, and shared. In conversation with one another, and building on phenomenological literature on trauma (Husserl, 1973, Walther, 1923), illness (Carel, 2021, 2016), and working with an autoethnographic approach to cancer (Pini, 2022; Pini and Maguire-Rosier, 2021; Pini and Pini, 2019) in this chapter we address the ways in which creative and expressive illness narratives—particularly the sharing of such experiences—can help patients heal or repair from trauma. We identify the moment of the cancer diagnosis as a traumatic event, as it constitutes the expulsion of the individual into an alienworld: the world of the sick. We demonstrate how a philosophical account of unification (Walther 1923) may help shed light on the complexities of traumatic experience and highlight the potential of embodied narratives to re-establish a sense of belonging through sharing trauma experiences. We present a case in which performance art serves not only as an act of creatively re-modelling the performer’s illness narrative, but as a means to communicate this experience. Sharing the experience of trauma and recovery contributes to a re-constitution of a sense of belonging. We highlight that the (re-)constitution of feelings of belonging is a dyadic process between the traumatized individual and others. An illness narrative needs to be heard, seen, or otherwise witnessed in order to fulfil its full healing potential. In this way, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of how a narrative approach can be fruitfully applied in clinical practice.

Collaborative Embodied Performance: Ecologies of skill, 2022

This chapter explores the practice of Body Weather (BW), a postmodern dance methodology, address... more This chapter explores the practice of Body Weather (BW), a postmodern dance methodology, addressing how BW performers experience and enact agency in this context of practice. By adopting a cognitive ecological, ethnographic, and phenomenological approach, this work focuses on the creation of AURA NOX ANIMA (2016)—a short dance film directed by Sydney-based visual artist Lux Eterna and filmed on the sandy dunes in Anna Bay, NSW, Australia—to underscore the role played by the physical and cultural environment in shaping BW performers’ sense of agency. Through the analysis of salient features of BW methodology, that include the practice of bisoku, slow movement, and the cultivation of an attention to the changing ‘weather’ of the performance ecology, this chapter suggests an ecological notion of agency as key concept to the study of embodied cognition in performance. The chapter emphasises the relevance of addressing the environment-culture context situatedness in the study of performance practices.

Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet, 2021

This work addresses the case of the Ballet National de Marseille (BNM) and the 2017 re-creation o... more This work addresses the case of the Ballet National de Marseille (BNM) and the 2017 re-creation of the piece Passione by Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten. This study, informed by a phenomenological approach, adopts ethnographic methods including participant observation, in-depth interviews and one researcher’s direct involvement with the practices of enculturation and enskillment in this dance form. It investigates how the dancers of the Ballet National de Marseille articulate their diverse forms of agency in relation to the choreographer’s artistic vision and demands. By looking at the specific case of the BNM staging of Passione, we can isolate some significant features of Contemporary Ballet’s trajectory as an emergent dance genre on the edge between innovation and tradition.

Papers by Sarah Pini

Qualitative Inquiry, 2024

In this article, we discuss the potential of artist-researchers inviting research participants to... more In this article, we discuss the potential of artist-researchers inviting research participants to engage directly in arts-and practice-based ethnographic work. To enable openings for this engagement, we find that the artist-researcher ontologically must stay oneself but also be able to share the self so that embodied knowing and years of embedded repertoires may find pathways of externalization, which may be walked co-creatively with research participants. In a reflexive conversation, we-Pini (dance artist, anthropologist) and Høybye (collaborative songwriter, ethnographer)-share insights from our respective artistic and academic fields to discern which areas of practice and knowledge creation may be similar, and which may be different. The aim is to identify how ways of working that have been transformative for us may be facilitated in interventions for others, and more specifically young cancer patients in our joint ongoing research project.

Working Titles – Journal of Practice Based Research, 2023

This article presents an interdisciplinary conversation between the authors discussing the potent... more This article presents an interdisciplinary conversation between the authors discussing the potential of cultivating a feminist, embodied, ecological approach to screendance and environmental attunement in video dance performance. It draws from Lux Eterna’s artistic research and body of work including the film AURA NOX ANIMA (2016) filmed on the sandy dunes in Anna Bay, New South Wales, Australia, and her current development in dance film production: THE EIGHTH DAY (2023) in conversation with Sarah Pini to consider the presence and embodied situatedness of the artist-maker in shaping visual experience in screendance. Through open-ended interviews to one another, the authors ask if the cultivation of an ecological perspective can offer forms of resistance to hegemonic modes of seeing and experiencing the body on screen. These reflections are theoretically contextualized through establishing their relation to ecological frameworks, feminist literature and an ethnographic approach to dance and the lived body. With this dialogical article, the authors invite a reconsideration of the notion of place and emplacement as key elements informing processes of screendance and aesthetic experience.

Nordic Journal of Dance, 2023

Presence is a central yet controversial topic in the study of performing arts and theatrical trad... more Presence is a central yet controversial topic in the study of performing arts and theatrical traditions, where the notion of ‘stage presence’ is generally understood as the performer’s ability to enchant the audience’s attention. How do dancers relate to the idea of presence in performance, and how do they understand, enact, and perform presence in their artistic work and practices?
In this paper I offer an investigation into presence’s variations in three different dance practices and choreographic contexts: the case of the Ballet National de Marseille during the staging of Emio Greco’s piece Passione; Contact Improvisation in the case of independent groups of contacters in Italy and Australia; and Body Weather, a radical movement ideology developed by Japanese choreographer Min Tanaka in the context of the company Tess de Quincey and Co. in Sydney.
To illustrate how presence in dance practices emerges in relation to a complex and dynamic environment, I propose a cognitive ecological approach to the notion of ‘stage presence’, which considers both the co-presence of audiences and performers and the socio-cultural context of the performance event. By exploring how dancers articulate their lived experiences of presence in relation to their different dance contexts and traditions, I suggest framing phenomena of presence in an embodied ecological sense.

Synthese, 2022

In exploring skilled performance in Contact Improvisation (CI), we utilize an enactive ethnograph... more In exploring skilled performance in Contact Improvisation (CI), we utilize an enactive ethnographic methodology combined with an interdisciplinary approach to examine the question of how skill develops in CI. We suggest this involves the development of subtleties of awareness in intra- and inter-kinaesthetic attunement, and a capacity for kinaesthetic negative capability – an embodied ‘not knowing yet’ - including an ease with being off balance and waiting for the next shift or movement to arise, literally a ‘playing with’ balance, falling, nearly falling, momentum and gravity. We draw on insights from an interdisciplinary approach, including from a developmental perspective concerning the experience of dyadic interpersonal embodied skill development in both infancy and CI, and we suggest that a key aspect of skill development in both contexts involves an interkinaesthetic sense of agency. These interdisciplinary insights also elucidate limitations within current conceptualisations of sense of agency, including the relationship between sense of agency and sense of control.

Performance Research, 2021

Dance as a complex human activity is a rich test case for exploring perception in action. In this... more Dance as a complex human activity is a rich test case for exploring perception in action. In this article, we explore a 4E approach to perception/action in dance, focusing on the intersubjective and ecological aspects of kinaesthetic attunement and their capacity to expand empathic and perceptive experience. We examine the question: what are the ways in which the performance ecology co-created in different dance practices influences empathic and perceptive experience? We adopt an enactive ethnographic and phenomenological approach to explore two distinct dance forms: Contact Improvisation [CI], a duet-system based practice, aimed at fostering interkinaesthetic awareness and challenging habits of movement; and Body Weather [BW], an anti-hierarchical movement practice sensitive to the surrounding environment. We argue that through intersubjective kinaesthetic attunement, CI scaffolds the development of perceptive awareness of subtle shifts within ourselves and others, allowing the cultivation of a capacity for flexibly traversing between conscious initiation of action, attuned responding, and the intersection between them. Similarly, we investigate the expansion of perceptive experience through kinaesthetic attunement in BW. We suggest that the capacity for empathy is enhanced in BW through drawing attention to, and perception of, the fullness of a place in a way that we do not typically experience. By focusing on the variations in which embodied perceptual skills are enacted in specific dance forms and the expansion of perceptive experience through kinaesthetic attunement, we stress the potential of the performing arts to cultivate and create new ways of empathic engagement with the world in which we find ourselves.

The Australian Journal of Anthropology (TAJA) , 2022

This paper tackles the concept of alterity through an embodied perspective. By questioning my liv... more This paper tackles the concept of alterity through an embodied perspective. By questioning my lived experience of cancer and how illness—as a disruptive event (Carel, 2008, 2016, 2021)—enables philosophical reflection and the exploration of ‘other’ ways of being-in-the-world (Merleau-Ponty, 2012 [1945]), I ask if an embodied ‘chimeric-thinking’ can be used to question established notions of alterity and reshape our relationship with ‘Otherness’ (Leistle, 2015, 2016b). Building on a phenomenological approach to illness (Carel, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2021), and a feminist post-humanist approach (Haraway 1990; 1991, 2016), I present a case in which an autoethnographic and phenomenological approach focused on embodied experience can help revise dominant perspectives, providing entry gates to understand and engage with profound biopsychosocial and somatic transformations.

Frontiers in Psychology - Performance Science, 2021

This conversational opinion article between two parties – Kate, a disability performance scholar ... more This conversational opinion article between two parties – Kate, a disability performance scholar and Sarah, an interdisciplinary artist-scholar with lived experience of disability – considers the dancing body as redeemer in the specific case of a dancer experiencing ‘chemo fog’, or Chemotherapy-Related Cognitive Impairment (CRCI) after undergoing oncological treatments for Hodgkin Lymphoma. This work draws on Pini’s own lived experience of illness (Pini & Pini, 2019) in dialogue with Maguire-Rosier’s study of dancers with hidden impairments (Gibson & Maguire-Rosier, 2020). In an exploratory account based on an interview with one another, the authors ask: when our senses and perceptions of ourselves and the world we become are obfuscated, what is the nature of the new relationship between the performing self and its absent body/mind/world? How can we shape our narrative and articulate who we are, what we are doing or where we are going, if we are moving in the ‘fog’? Our discussion reveals how Pini’s dancing body elucidates healing, while recovering an agentic perspective in her experience of alienation and frustration tied to chemo fog and related impairments. With this work we offer an original perspective on how a dancing body can resist theoretical diagnosis.

Journal of Embodied Research, 2019

According to the biomedical model of medicine, the subject of the illness event is the pathology ... more According to the biomedical model of medicine, the subject of the illness event is the pathology rather than the person diagnosed with the disease. In this view, a body-self becomes a ‘patient’ body-object that can be enrolled in a therapeutic protocol, investigated, assessed, and transformed.
How can it be possible for cancer patients to make sense of the opposite dimensions of their body-self and their body-diseased-object? Could a creative embodied approach enable the coping with trauma tied to the experience of illness?
By applying a phenomenological approach and auto-ethnographic analysis to the experience of cancer, this visual exploration provides support for rethinking the cancer event through a performative perspective. This work previews images and video material collected over ten years of haematological treatments, video dance performances and physical explorations. This work displays how processes of healing can be set in motion by creative embodied practices, physical explorations and unexpected journeys. By resisting the biomedical model and allowing the emergence of new meanings, it illustrates how dance and performative practices offer ground for transformation.

Antropologia E Teatro. Rivista Di Studi, 2021

Il concetto di presenza scenica nelle arti performative è generalmente inteso come la capacità de... more Il concetto di presenza scenica nelle arti performative è generalmente inteso come la capacità del performer di catturare l’attenzione del pubblico, una qualità propria dell’artista, che occupa una posizione di potere rispetto allo spettatore. Questo lavoro mette in discussione l’interpretazione classica di presenza come qualità intrinseca del performer, proponendo invece un’interpretazione secondo un quadro etnografico ecologico cognitivo che prende in esame il ruolo svolto da vari attori sociali — il pubblico e i performers, immersi in un preciso contesto storico-culturale, sociale e ambientale — altrettanto partecipi dell’esperienza performativa. Attraverso un’analisi etnografica e fenomenologica del concetto di presenza scenica in diversi contesti performativi, questo lavoro propone un approccio ecologico cognitivo, suggerendo possibili direzioni metodologiche.

Human Movement Science, Apr 2021

Observational learning can enhance the acquisition and performance quality of complex motor skill... more Observational learning can enhance the acquisition and performance quality of complex motor skills. While an extensive body of research has focused on the benefits of synchronous (i.e., concurrent physical practice) and non-synchronous (i.e., delayed physical practice) observational learning strategies, the question remains as to whether these approaches differentially influence performance outcomes. Accordingly, we investigate the differential outcomes of synchronous and non-synchronous observational training contexts using a novel dance sequence. Using multidi-mensional cross-recurrence quantification analysis, movement time-series were recorded for novice dancers who either synchronised with (n = 22) or observed and then imitated (n = 20) an expert dancer. Participants performed a 16-count choreographed dance sequence for 20 trials assisted by the expert, followed by one final, unassisted performance trial. Although end-state performance did not significantly differ between synchronous and non-synchronous learners, a significant decline in performance quality from imitation to independent replication was shown for synchronous learners. A non-significant positive trend in performance accuracy was shown for non-synchronous learners. For all participants, better imitative performance across training trials led to better end-state performance, but only for the accuracy (and not timing) of movement reproduction. Collectively, the results suggest that synchronous learners came to rely on a real-time mapping process between visual input from the expert and their own visual and proprio-ceptive intrinsic feedback, to the detriment of learning. Thus, the act of synchronising alone does not ensure an appropriate training context for advanced sequence learning.

Antropologia e Teatro – Rivista di studi, 2016

We adopted a phenomenological approach, directly engaging with the community of practice of the f... more We adopted a phenomenological approach, directly engaging with the community of practice of the form of movement under study. We discuss some methodological approaches that we considered in investigating the lived experience of a heterogeneous group of Contact Improvisation (CI) practitioners. We delineate how such a system of movement could provide a unique example for the analysis of the interpersonal dynamics between movers with a different degree of expertise, re-tracing some common paths towards the acquisition of interkinaesthetic knowledge.

Humanity, 2018

Stage presence in theatrical traditions is generally understood as the singular actor's ability t... more Stage presence in theatrical traditions is generally understood as the singular actor's ability to enchant an audience, in what has been called the 'classic model of presence' (Sherman, 2016). According to such a model, presence is conceived as a prerogative of the skilled performer, resulting from intrinsic charisma and regimens of training. Whether stage presence is described as a kind of innate intensity or as skilful practice, the performer occupies a position of power, and audiences are conceived as merely receivers, without agency. Is presence an intrinsic aesthetic quality or rather is a state of mind that both audience and actors can share and experience? Some researchers have argued that the sense of stage presence emerges from interaction with the audience and the context, and that audience and performers constitute the performance event by their phenomenal co-presence (Zarrilli 2009, 2012; Fischer-Lichte, 2012), others claim equal responsibility for audience and performers in shaping the performance's reception (Heim, 2016). Through critical analysis of the existing literature, this work proposes an ecological framework for the study of stage presence. By moving away from a classic model, it suggests possible methodological directions for a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of stage presence.

Body, Space & Technology (BST), 2022

The short experimental film Shifting Perspectives stems from a collaborative research project ini... more The short experimental film Shifting Perspectives stems from a collaborative research project initiated in 2019 in Sydney, Australia, during the ‘Choreographic Hack Lab'—a week-long laboratory co-presented by Critical Path and Sydney Festival in partnership with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS), which asked artists and academics to rethink and respond to the idea of the Anthropocene (Pini & George, 2019). The film was later developed in 2020 during a Responsive Residency at Critical Path, Sydney, awarded to anthropologist and choreographer Sarah Pini in collaboration with Jestin George, biotechnologist and visual artist, and Melissa Ramos, visual artist and filmmaker. This work aims to open a multivocal interdisciplinary dialogue across screendance, performance and synthetic biology. Inspired by a recent conversation between two leaders in the field of synthetic biology (Sarah Richardson and Tom Knight) and their divergent approaches to working with microbial life (Agapakis, 2019), the film invites to consider how collaborating with microorganisms can reshape our future in a more-than-human world.

Critical Dialogues, 2019

The Choreographic Hack Lab, a week-long laboratory co-presented by Critical Path, Strange Attract... more The Choreographic Hack Lab, a week-long laboratory co-presented by Critical Path, Strange Attractor and Sydney Festival in partnership with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS), asked artists and specialists from other disciplines to respond to the idea of the Anthropocene, the present geological epoch in which the earth’s ecosystems and biodiversity are being disrupted by human impact on the planet.
During the Lab, we worked on exploring synthetic biology’s core principles kinaesthetically. We addressed synthetic biology as a possible solution to the problems entailed by the Anthropocene, considering what synthetic biology is and what it can do through choreographic thinking. By moving away from binary thinking–and rethinking the idea of ‘solution’, we suggested a reconsideration of the relationship with our lived environment and its inhabitants, including the ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’ we interact with as part of our practices.

ANTHROPOSPHERE The Oxford Climate Review, 2019

"Moving Perspectives" – an art collaboration investigating the binary concepts of nature and tech... more "Moving Perspectives" – an art collaboration investigating the binary concepts of nature and technology, to open an unusual perspective to ‘Laboratory Life’ and the human and non-human organisms that inhabit it. "Synthetic Organisms’ Variations" leads the viewer to explore synthetic biology’s core principles choreographically. Currently published on ANTHROPOSPHERE The Oxford Climate Review: anthroposphere.co.uk/post/moving-perspectives

This work has been developed during the ‘Choreographic Hack Lab’ a week-long research laboratory organised by Critical Path and Sydney Festival in partnership with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney in January 2019. The Lab asked dance artists and specialists from other disciplines to respond to the idea of the Anthropocene, the present geological epoch in which the earth’s ecosystems and biodiversity are being disrupted by human impact on the planet. An insight into the creative process underpinning the video creation can be found in Critical Dialogues Issue 11, HACKING THE ANTHROPOCENE : issuu.com/critical_path/docs/criticaldialogues_final

Awards and Grants by Sarah Pini

The AAS Article Prize is awarded for the best scholarly article published in an Australian journa... more The AAS Article Prize is awarded for the best scholarly article published in an Australian journal. The call is sent out to the editor(s) of the following five eligible journals, who are responsible for nominating candidates.
Anthropological Forum
Oceania
The Australian Journal of Anthropology (TAJA)
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology (TAPJA)
Australian Aboriginal Studies (anthropological articles only)
Nominated articles are judged by a panel of three judges against the following criteria: Theoretical sophistication, Ethnographic depth, Lucid writing, Originality.

The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) Student Prize is awarded for a p... more The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) Student Prize is awarded for a project, performance, or exhibition that best exemplifies the contribution of humanities and social science areas to our understanding of our nation and us.

Narrative Medicine: Trauma and Ethics, 2024

Collaborative Embodied Performance: Ecologies of skill, 2022

Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet, 2021

Qualitative Inquiry, 2024

Working Titles – Journal of Practice Based Research, 2023

Nordic Journal of Dance, 2023

Synthese, 2022

Performance Research, 2021

The Australian Journal of Anthropology (TAJA) , 2022

Frontiers in Psychology - Performance Science, 2021

Journal of Embodied Research, 2019

Antropologia E Teatro. Rivista Di Studi, 2021

Human Movement Science, Apr 2021

Antropologia e Teatro – Rivista di studi, 2016

Humanity, 2018

Body, Space & Technology (BST), 2022

Critical Dialogues, 2019

ANTHROPOSPHERE The Oxford Climate Review, 2019

ABISSO is a short performative documentary film developed in 2018 by Sarah and Ruggero Pini. This... more ABISSO is a short performative documentary film developed in 2018 by Sarah and Ruggero Pini. This video exploration applies a phenomenological approach and auto-ethnographic analysis to the experience of illness. ABISSO acts as a visual metaphor of Sarah's inner landscape during her medical journey. As a performative act, ABISSO marks the acknowledgement of Sarah's deepest fear and the courage to embrace her fate.

https://vimeo.com/302645384

Category Films under 5 - Winner: Sarah Pini, ABISSO.
This is a suggestive, quite beautiful audiovisual piece that explores illness and recovery and the relationship between inner and outer lives as integral to human experience and reflection. We felt this creative, autoethnographic submission was inspirational of the kinds of directions visual anthropology can take, if the researcher is able to draw on the requisite resources and skills—and to do so with theoretically driven forms of enquiry in mind.

Jennifer Deger and Melinda Hinkson
6 September 2018

3 Minutes Talk Poster Competition - 2017 Australasian Skill Acquisition Network (ASAN) Conference... more 3 Minutes Talk Poster Competition - 2017 Australasian Skill Acquisition Network (ASAN) Conference, Australian Catholic University (ACU), Brisbane, Australia

AAS2019 conference programme: Values in anthropology, values of anthropology, 2019

In Greek mythology the Chimaera was a fearful fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Min... more In Greek mythology the Chimaera was a fearful fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, one of the offspring of monsters Typhon and Echidna. The Chimaera is usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat protruding from its back, and a tail that might end with a snake or a dragon head. The term ‘chimera’ has come to describe anything composed of different parts, anything that is perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or unattainable. In medicine and genetics this term indicates an organism containing a mixture of genetically different tissues. How does it feel to incorporate such dreadful hybridity? What does it mean to become a ‘chimaera’? Inspired by a feminist post-humanist approach and based on phenomenological and auto-ethnographic approach to illness (Carel 2016), this exploration investigates how embracing the concept of hybridity (Latour, 1991) can help us overcome dualistic thinking and reshape our relationship to the world. By looking at ‘other’ ways of being-toward-the-world (Merleau-Ponty, 1945). This work shows how drawing on embodied knowledge can challenge dominant perspectives and help us explore ways to engage with transformative and uncertain times. It shows how monsters and chimeras can help us rethink our categories and cope with impending threats and radical transformations.

DISPLACEMENTS CONFERENCE PANEL - BODY AND IMAGE: TRAJECTORIES OF TRANSFORMATION, 2018

Presented at 'Displacements' the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Cultural Anthropology 2018 ... more Presented at 'Displacements' the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Cultural Anthropology 2018

Displacing suggests moving from a certain place, generally considered as usual, and familiar, to an elsewhere that is perceived as alien, different, unknown. What is it that becomes displaced in someone’s life after receiving a cancer diagnosis? When the body suddenly becomes uninhabitable, where does the exiled occupier of this body go? Through auto-ethnographic analysis and the images collected over ten years of oncological treatments and dance performances, this video essay displays how processes of healing can be set in motion by practices of displacement, physical explorations and unexpected journeys.

In Western culture, the concept of presence holds a cluster of different connotations. Theatrical... more In Western culture, the concept of presence holds a cluster of different connotations. Theatrical and performance studies have generally focused on the intrinsic actor’s ability to impact audience’s attention or on the mutual relationship with the audience, what Zarrilli (2012) refers as the ground for the emergence of presence as experience. Is presence then a state that our minds can regularly experience, or is a special condition that can be accessed only under very particular circumstances? What is the role played by a larger ecology that includes other performers on stage, different technologies and unusual environments, in shaping the experience and perception of presence? We investigate presence’s variations by tackling the phenomenon of stage presence, and we are developing a cognitive ethnography (Hutchins 1995) that addresses questions of embodied cognition in three different dance forms: Contemporary Ballet, in the case of the National Ballet of Marseille and the staging of the piece Passione; Contact Improvisation, a duet-system based practice, aimed at fostering interkinaesthetic awareness and challenging habits of movement; and BodyWeather, a dance training originating from Butoh, significant for its relationship with nature, Shinto and Buddhism (Fraleigh 1999). By adopting a phenomenological approach, which requires a direct engagement with the different dance trainings and contexts of practice analysed, we tackle the diversity of the cognitive ecologies in which stage presence is understood and performed, addressing the variations in which embodied skills are enacted, and emphasizes how different aesthetics and cultural factors shape habits, social cognition and perception of self.

Item one: 10am Dr Susanne Ravn [Denmark] -Aikido and tango -sensing movement through the other [I... more Item one: 10am Dr Susanne Ravn [Denmark] -Aikido and tango -sensing movement through the other [I hour] Coffee [30 minutes]

PhD Thesis, 2019

The concept of presence in performing arts and theatrical traditions has historically been relate... more The concept of presence in performing arts and theatrical traditions has historically been related to the intrinsic quality of the performer to enchant the audience's attention. In this view, presence is conceived as the prerogative of the skilled performer, resulting from regimens of training, as well as intrinsic charisma. The main problem with the classic model of stage presence is the performer's position of power, and the relative concealment of audience' participation. According to this view the performer 'captures' the attention of spectators, who are generally conceived as passive receivers. This thesis suggests addressing stage presence through a cognitive ecological approach to explore how presence in performance emerges in relations to a complex and dynamic environment, that includes audiences and performers co-presence and the socio-cultural situatedness of the performance event. Through a phenomenological and ethnographic approach, this work investigates variations of presence in three different dance practices: Contemporary Ballet, in the case of the Ballet National de Marseille and the staging of Emio Greco's piece Passione; Contact Improvisation and the community event of the Global Underscore 2017 in Italy; and Body Weather, a radical movement ideology in Australian dance company De Quincey Co. By exploring how theatrical presence emerges kinaesthetically in dance and how dancers' mindful bodies make sense of their lived experience of presence, this work shows how different performance' ecologies shape different experiences of presence, framing phenomena of presence in a cognitive ecological sense.