Bodily Knowledge: Epistemological Reflections on Dance

Abstract

This article is concerned with epistemological questions of dance, specifically, the nature of dance knowledge. The aim is to address the role of our bodily activity and the tactile-kinaesthetic sense in epistemology and to clarify the concept “bodily knowledge”—knowing in and through the body. I start with reflection on the standpoints of traditional epistemology and a feminist critique of it, then, extending the concern with epistemological inquiry of dance knowledge, explore Sondra Fraleigh's and Maxine Sheets-Johnstone's notions of cognitive capacities of the moving body. Finally, setting out from the groundwork of Edmund Husserl's, Edith Stein's, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body, I use some key concepts from Michael Polanyi's epistemology to describe the nature of bodily knowledge. The argument is that there is a distinction and a connection between “skill” and “knowledge” in respect to the body's movement. Gilbert Ryle's “know how” implies abilities ranging from bodily skills to abstract contemplative cases, but it cannot explain “know how” in the absence of skill. Thus, the rationale underlying this discussion can be put more clearly by asking why dance teachers are able to teach dance students movements they can no longer execute themselves.