Body in crisis (original) (raw)

BODY IN CRISIS CUERPO EN CRISE

Revista Antropología del Cuerpo, Salamanca, n. 0, p. 144-158, jul./dec. 2015., 2015

The reason I wrote my first book, an exploration of how certain territories of the body have been traditionally debased and underdeveloped in Western culture was because I needed to understand more about the obstacles that I constantly encountered and suffered as a dancer, movement teacher and choreographer. In that same book and in order to establish yet another necessary terrain of expressing in words the experience of movement, I also wrote about many movement experiments and dance creations that I had directed with my dance company during many years of research and practice. My dance creations can be seen, and my book, Cuerpo Como Territorio de la Rebeldía, downloaded from the blog or facebook page of my dance company Aktion Kolectiva: www.facebook.com/aktionkolectiva, www.aktionkolectiva.com As a continuation of that research, I am presently writing a book, which deals with how to help remedy the problem of how we approach the body. This time outside the domain of my particular aesthetic interests which are very widely explored in the work I have done with my company Aktion Kolectiva. The following conference is an extract of this recent investigation.

Heurtebise, J-Y. 2012. Rethinking the Body with Reference to Modern Dance and Gender Studies.

Heurtebise, J-Y. 2012. Rethinking the Body with reference to Modern Dance and Gender Studies, 運動文化研究, n° 20: 7-37, 2012

Though the Body is now a hot topic in cultural studies, philosophy of Dance is still in its infancy. However Dance, this living oxymoron, can provide to the philosopher a unique occasion to re-think the relationships between subject and object, artist and work, mind and body and overcome the traditional dualisms of Western Philosophy. Actually, because of its ambivalent understanding of the Body, classical philosophy seems unable to furnish the conceptual keys to understand the dancing phenomenon. From Plato to Husserl via Descartes, the definition of human subjectivity and personal identity has been based on intellectual and rational characteristics. Analyzing Dance gives the opportunity to elaborate a new conceptualization of the Body, in its anthropological, aesthetical and ontological dimensions. Firstly, the historical and structural links between the emergence of Modern Dance and the rise of Feminism will be analyzed. Then, the implications for the understanding of the constitution of dancing bodies will be developed. Finally the philosophical consequences of the dancing artistic practice on the redefinition of the Body will be addressed.

The creative process of dance and performance artists. On the relevance of bodily experience.

This work is written in German and English for both languages offer my writing very distinct qualities which I find productive in my own scientific and creative process of engaging with this topic. Just as performance and bodily experience are the subject matter of the paper at hand, giving space for these instances to find expression as subjects enriches my ability to encounter this topic. German is my mother tongue which -as I have realized -propels an aspiration to articulate myself as poet. English being a foreign language allows a certain distance to words and their meanings and thereby a playfulness that is mirrored not only in my thinking and acting. More so, the playful quality curves back upon my use of the German language. The twisted, colorful, elaborate patterns of words, spoken and unspoken, veiled and unveiled will hopefully reveal the dance of words, gestures, and emotions that 'performing' this paper has been for me. "Gnädige! Vielleicht entzieht sich nichts dermaßen dem Wort, wie der Tanz. … Ich sehe nur ein Mittel, hier im Richtigen zu bleiben. Eine Sprache, die sich ganz dem Sichtbaren nähert, deren Klang wiederum zum Dank den Körper bewegt; aber dies ist der Dichter, der über seiner inneren Schönheit, über seinen Worten sich unterfinge, Ihren Tanz zu einer neunen -uns hier gleichgültig -zu umsingen. Wir aber wollen nicht vom Dichter entzaubert werden, sondern im Kreis Ihrer Bewegung gefangen bleiben. ... Gesten, beschlossen von der Klugheit Ihres Körpers, das Wissen Ihrer Glieder. Linien, die den Raum durchschmeicheln, Kurven, die unvergeßlich in dem leeren Theater Nächte lang wirbeln. Es ist Ihnen alles einheitliche Bewegung voller Form. … Wir sehen Ihren Tanz, gleichsam wie Sie ihn erfinden, wir belauschen ihn im Entstehen. Welche Ökonomie der Geste. Wir begreifen bei Ihnen, wie je Dinge erfunden wurden, und ist dies nicht die erlauchte Mitteilung eines schöpferischen Körpers?" (Carl Einstein, Brief an die Tänzerin Napierkowska, in: Brandstetter 1993: 186-189) Content

Una Popović, The Subject of Dance, Kultura 2018.pdf

2018

Despitethefactthatdanceisinconceivablewithoutabody dancing,thesoulwastraditionallyunderstoodasthesubjectofdance. Giventhefactthattheartofdanceunderwentitsfirstaestheticalanalysis duringthemodernera,asoneofthefinearts,itwasphilosophically understoodagainstthebackgroundofdualism,ofsoulandbodybeing separated and mutually exclusive entities. In such context, the body wasseenasamerematerialobject,deprivedofanyfeaturesrequired for the subject of any art. On the other hand, the soul was seen as active, productive, creative, as the origin of meaning and as using bodytoconveymeaningstootherminds.Therefore,forthefirstdance aesthetics the soul was interpreted as the subject of dance, and the bodyasitsinstrument.However,themodernideaofdancebecamethe basisforitstheoreticalinquiry,tobequestionedonlyinthesecondhalf of the 20 th century. Relying on phenomenology, contemporary dance aestheticiansinvertedsuchidea,proclaimingbodyasthetruesubject of dance, and ascribing to the body all creative and artistic features thatweretraditionallyascribedtothesoul.InthisessayIwillexamine suchinversion,bycomparingthemostimportantconsequencesofthe traditional idea with new, contemporary and alternative solutions, basedontheideaofbodyasаkinaestheticphenomenon.Theanalysis willshowtheproblemsofsuchinversion,aswellaspossiblefurther consequencesoftheideathatbody,akinaestheticphenomenon,isthe truesubjectofdance.

Artistic body interventions as tactics of resistance to the governance over the bodies

Technoetic arts, ISSN 1477-965X, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 315-322, 2018

The article presents artistic body interventions as strategies tactics of minimal resistance to the governance over the bodies, i.e., resistance to the apparatuses that govern, control and manage our bodies, and those that also make our bodies sacred. This means the resistance to the apparatuses that separate my body from my own management. Giorgio Agamben calls for the strategy of profanation, for bringing back what was sacred to the use and property of humans. The author offers a thesis, that the artistic acts that resist to the power over the bodies do not construct counter-apparatuses to the apparatuses of power¸ but they do challenge or even sometimes subvert the machines of governance over the bodies.