An Agentic Ontology of Oppositional Improvisation

Abstract

In spite of the pressures exerted by the movement habits embedded in their trained bodies, dancers can engage in improvisational practices that oppose such restraints and engender new movement solutions. The capacity to oppose the normativity of their trained body implies that they possess and apply agency. However, constructivist interpretations negate this possibility, regarding the body as the product of cultural moulding, passively perpetuating the norms and unable to enact independent decisions. This reading of the body denies artists of their legitimate claim to creative originality, as their actions are deemed to reflect the logic of powers beyond their decision-making. With a view to reclaiming dancers’ ownership of their creative endeavours, I extrapolate from Jacques Rancière’s and Michel de Certeau’s notions of collective and individual resistance a theoretical grounding for the existence of agency, thus countering deterministic visions of the body and providing a framework for the existence of oppositional improvisation.