Expanding intersubjective awareness: the anthropology of kinaesthetic diversity

Abstract

AbstractWhen people with widely diverse bodily characteristics collaborate in dancing together, an exploration and communication of movement and embodied knowledge takes place through dialogue and shared practice. Engagement in these activities develops participants’ awareness of and appreciation for kinaesthetic complexities and diverse embodiments, promoting an understanding of bodily difference as contributing to, rather than detracting from, the realm of physical arts and society as a whole. Based on fieldwork conducted in Israel and the United States with integrated dance projects bringing together people with and without disabilities, this article offers an ethnographic analysis that continues the anthropological endeavour of revealing the ways kinaesthetic knowledge (awareness and knowledge of the movement and spatial orientation of one's body) is fostered. Introducing disability into movement theory, I offer an understanding of movement/stasis as a spectrum of ways of moving, looking at what happens when individuals who are different from one another engage in shared, critical reflection upon their movement practices.