Abstract
The paper is based on an autoethnographic study of dancing via Zoom over the Covid19 lockdown in Sydney, Australia. Its theoretical framework takes up Iris Marion Young's critical phenomenology and work on domestic space to think about certain focal points of the experience, such as having a room to move in, the floor, and the screen. The aim is to examine how important dance-space is to the experience of dancing, and what the specifics of our current situation have revealed about dancing that were obscured to a greater extent before: for instance, the embeddedness of a dancer in their context and what this means for thinking about privilege, as well as the curatorial work that goes into making domestic space an aestheticized dance-space. In this way, I propose that Zoom classes, as well as being a distinct new phenomenon, also have much to teach us about 'conventional,' pre-Covid dance practice.
Highlights
The paper is based on an autoethnographic study of dancing via Zoom over the Covid[19] lockdown in Sydney, Australia
Its theoretical framework takes up Iris Marion Young's critical phenomenology and work on domestic space to think about certain focal points of the experience, such as having a room to move in, the floor, and the screen
The aim is to examine how important dance-space is to the experience of dancing, and what the specifics of our current situation have revealed about dancing that were obscured to a greater extent before: for instance, the embeddedness of a dancer in their context and what this means for thinking about privilege, as well as the curatorial work that goes into making domestic space an aestheticized dance-space
Summary
My home’s extensive carpeting caused another clashing of body-schema with domestic world, which was pronounced in my attempt to execute fundamental ballet steps such as tendus. Because carpets are made to caress our bare feet in the morning after climbing out of bed—not to allow for a tendus, jumps, and multiple turns—when these challenges to dance practice brought by the sediments of our domestic lives are confronted, and navigated (albeit imperfectly), there is an opportunity to debunk the almost mythologized pre-eminence of studio space Through this account of carpeted floor told through tendus, I have been able to examine the ways that the domestic conflicts with and rubs-up against my ballet body-schema. In a phenomenological sense, everything about my classical ballet training makes me resistant to the way dancing on carpet feels, because so many of the pleasurable sensations of body-meets-world are missing: the pressure of my foot moving against the smooth floor in a tendu; the reverberating rebound of jumping on sprung studio floor; and the satisfying squeak of my shoe on tarkett as I pirouette. It is not surprising that an investigation into layered notions of, and assumptions about, feminized work and the spaces this occurs in, has provided insight into how it may be possible and productive to dispute the primacy of specialized work spaces such as a dance studios, where the assumed “real,” transcendent business happens
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