The Lived Body

I have chosen 'Dance and The Lived Body' as literature to aid my inquiry, Sondra Fraleigh talks about how dance always reflects life and does this because it is the lived body through which we express it. All of my interviewees talk of drawing from life experiences to involve emotion, I am considering whether dance will always have emotion because it is always reflecting our own life experiences and emotions no matter how abstract.

Another interesting topic is whether we have an action or movement first or is it an emotional or are they both enacted simultaneously? I believe most would say feeling comes before an action but what if an action gave us a feeling or emotion. William James a Psychologist and Philosopher would argue that 'you feel sad because you cry'. Martha Graham uses a beckoning action, this she hoped would instigate an emotion. One of my interviewees mentioned that each dancer would  then draw from their own experiences of the world they had lived in and the sensory experiences they had lived and merge this into the movement. I wanted to know what other dancers felt about this? Often we ask a dancer to feel something when we are teaching and add emotion to the piece.

The Light Bulb Moment!

As I mentioned considering what contemporary dance means and how it is defined has been a small but valuable question and has led me to view my inquiry in a new light. I have been consulting literature about my inquiry and felt that I needed not only the descriptions of my interviewees and myself but of others that have made considerable impact within contemporary dance. Most of my interviewees have mentioned Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, who have both published books on contemporary which include personal thoughts and feelings. Although in hindsight this is a rather obvious discovery it has pushed me forward within my inquiry. I have also had an idea to include a video of myself participating or performing a contemporary dance and use this within my artefact to provide my audience with a visual representation of what I have started to discover.

How many doors is it wise to open?

I have now completed all my interviews and re written the recordings into note form, through this process I have started to notice similar ideas and themes, but how many doors is it wise to open? As I previously mentioned looking at the history of contemporary dance and how people define and see contemporary dance is a part of my inquiry, even though this was something I had not previously considered. I have been reading ‘Dance and The Lived Body’ the writer describes dance through her consciousness and through the Existentialism and Phenomenology literature. It has been hard looking for literature on personal descriptions of what dancers feel they gain from participation in a dance class and this book is a descriptive Aesthetics.

I have been looking into philosophy and many theories. Senses and emotions have played a huge part in the knowledge the interviewees have felt they have gained. Although through reading this book as literature based around my inquiry I have to question as to whether I think we have a consciousness something that is unexplainable or unreachable. Some of my interviews have touched on this subject, talking about relating something or movements to past knowledge that cannot be explained, some have even mentioned reflecting and this has again borough me to Dewey, at first I could not see how something not primary dance related or discussed in dance terms could be and would be useful as literature for my inquiry, but my fear is I will get stuck looking into philosophers and theories, Aesthetics or study of senses play a huge part within my inquiry. Another running theme that I have started exploring is the knowledge of one’s self and boundaries it pushes the way it makes you feel and how it is used as therapy to others, so I have started exploring dance movement therapy.

I had a very interesting interview whereby the interviewee explained how she had taught disabled children for many years, she worked with a blind student and use to make her roll into a ball to create a rock and crawl out of positions from underneath her body to try and get her to feel the shapes. I have found this extremely interesting as emotions and senses have been a running theme throughout my interviews, how does it feel to dance with only 4 senses? Could the student actually feel what the teacher was trying to convey. One interviewee spoke about actions/ movements that made her feel emotion- like beckoning. I feel really excited by these diversions in what I originally though would be an inquiry into what knowledge is- but how many roads is it rise for me to follow, I do not what to become lost in my inquiry. Is anyone else having a similar problem?