Back to the Dance Itself: Phenomenologies of the Body in Performance

by Sondra Horton Fraleigh, Karen Barbour (Contribution by), Christine Bellerose (Contribution by), Robert Bingham (Contribution by), Kara Bond (Contribution by)

Overview

In Back to the Dance Itself, Sondra Fraleigh edits essays that illuminate how scholars apply a range of phenomenologies to explore questions of dance and the world; performing life and language; body and place; and self-knowing in performance. Some authors delve into theoretical perspectives, while others relate personal experiences and reflections that reveal fascinating insights arising from practice. Collectively, authors give particular consideration to the interactive lifeworld of making and doing that motivates performance. Their texts and photographs study body and the environing world through points of convergence, as correlates in elemental and constant interchange modeled vividly in dance. Selected essays on eco-phenomenology and feminism extend this view to the importance of connections with, and caring for, all life.

Contributors: Karen Barbour, Christine Bellerose, Robert Bingham, Kara Bond, Hillel Braude, Sondra Fraleigh, Kimerer LaMothe, Joanna McNamara, Vida Midgelow, Ami Shulman, and Amanda Williamson.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252042041
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	10/24/2018
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Karen Barbour is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. She is a member of the World Dance Alliance and the Congress on Research in Dance.

Hillel D. Braude completed his medical education and training at the University of Cape Town Medical School and his PhD at the University of Chicago. Since completing further studies as a postgraduate fellow and research assistant in McGill University’s Biomedical Ethics Unit and Religious Studies Faculty, his main area of research is neuroethics.

Amanda Williamson is director of the Centre for Somatic Movement and Dance Therapy and the Association of Somatic Movement Therapies, UK and the Republic of Ireland. She is the founding editor of the journal Dance, Movement & Spiritualities and an honorary professor at Coventry University (C-dare).

 

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Acknowledgments xv

Author Biographies and Places xvii

Back to the Dance Itself: An Introduction 1

I World as Body

Chapter 1 Phenomenology and Lifeworld Sondra Fraleigh 11

Chapter 2 Branching into Phenomenologies Sondra Fraleigh 27

Chapter 3 Improvising Meaning in the Age of Humans Robert Bingham 38

II Performing Life and Language

Chapter 4 Improvisation as Paradigm for Phenomenologies Vida L. Midgelow 59

Chapter 5 Falling in Love with Language Amanda Williamson 78

Chapter 6 Living Phenomenology Sondra Fraleigh 99

III Body and Place

Chapter 7 As the Earth Dances: A Philosophy of Bodily Becoming Kimerer L. LaMothe 123

Chapter 8 Filming Jitdance: Detroit Redux Joanna McNamara 141

Chapter 9 Being Ma: Moonlight Peeping through the Doorway Christine Bellerose 161

IV Questions of Self-Knowing

Chapter 10 "What If…": A Question of Transcendence Hillel D. Braude Ami Shulman 183

Chapter 11 "Me, a Tree": Young Children as Natural Phenomenologists Karen Bond 205

Chapter 12 Dancing Epistemology, Situating Feminist Analysis Karen Barbour 233

Bibliography 247

Index 265

Color Illustrations follow page 120

Editorial Reviews

"A primer of phenomenological categories and their application in varying contexts . . . Back to the Dance Itself is like a tribute, an unplanned Festschrift, celebrating Fraleigh's contribution to the dynamic entwining of dance and phenomenology." --Journal of Folklore Research

"This beautiful collection is a choreography of voices emanating directly from movement. It celebrates Sondra Fraleigh's lifetime of integrating philosophical knowledge with somatic experiences at the same time as providing an empathic space for the contributions of others. Pressing contemporary issues such as climate change, the vitality of matter, and escaping from anthropocentrism are addressed, revealing new resonances for the philosophy and practices of phenomenology."--Susan Kozel, author of Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology

"Diving deep inside the boundary spaces that link body and language, this book is a tour de force. Asking 'What makes dance what it is?', Fraleigh et al. thread experiential paths that will appeal to movement practitioners across the dance and somatics spectrum. Plural phenomenologies are made philosophically accessible, with evocative exemplars revealing dance's immense horizons: diverse, relationally purposeful and always closer than we think."--Daniel Deslauriers, California Institute of Integral Studies

From the Publisher