Abstract
AbstractThe characteristic features of ensemble dance improvisation (EDI) make it an interesting case for theories of intentional collective action. These features include the high degree of freedom enjoyed by each individual, and the lack of fixed hierarchical roles, rigid decision procedures, or detailed plans. We present a “reductive” approach to collective action, apply it to EDI, and show how the theory enriches our perspective on this practice. We show, with the help of our theory of collective action, that EDI (as typically practiced) constitutes a significant collective achievement, one that manifests an impressive, spontaneous, jointly cooperative and individually highly autonomous activity that meets demanding aesthetic standards. Its being good in this way is not a mere extrinsic feature of the artwork, but part of its aesthetic value. We end by discussing how this value is easily missed by classic aesthetics, but is revealed by more contemporary frameworks like social aesthetics.
Highlights
The characteristic features of ensemble dance improvisation (EDI) make it an interesting case for theories of intentional collective action
As we put it at one point in the previous section, the beauty of this sort of sociality is partly a function of our admiration and love for cooperative achievements of autonomous individuals in society more broadly. It can model alternative social structures in the dance-institutional landscape and in society more broadly. In both senses described above, social aesthetics treats the features of EDI made perspicuous by the collective action theory as aesthetically valuable
We end with some questions for further research, suggested by our examination of the case of EDI: What might be the socio-political import of a collective act that
Summary
Any account of collective action must distinguish it from a mere aggregate of individual acts. As just discussed, the former appeals to an irreducible group agent or plural subject; the latter focuses instead on the mode of intention in an individual’s mind, and claims it is a special we-mode that cannot be understood as an I-mode directed at some specific content. The project might be of interest to those attracted to nonreductive theories, or who hold that there can be group agents or plural subjects while denying that every collective intentional action requires such agents (see Pettit and Schweikard 2006 for discussion of such views) As the latter possibility indicates, one might accept the reductive account as an explanation for at least some collective actions, while accepting the phenomenon of group agency. We will clarify other parts of the account in the sections that follow
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