Dancing Body Research Articles

Analysis of the Corporeality and Existence of Social Dance

individuals and society as a whole from the perspective of embodied phenomenology. By examining how individuals express themselves and experience social relationships through dance, it reveals the critical role of the body in social dance and analyzes how dance serves as a bridge for interaction between individuals and society. Simultaneously, it investigates the limitations and potentials of social dance at the phenomenological level, exploring how this bodily practice may constrain or expand individuals' perceptions and experiences of social existence under specific conditions. Through this comprehensive analysis, the paper aims to offer a novel perspective on social dance research and establish a foundation for further understanding the complex relationship between the body and society.

Odissi on Screen: A Meditation on Regional Television

This article aims to interrogate the role of the television screen in creating, re-creating, disseminating, and deconstructing the dancing body. It presents a study of the contemporary landscape of odissi dance, a nationally recognized Indian traditional art form from the eastern Indian state of Odisha, through its on-screen representation. As an odissi soloist, I register, analyze, and interpret screenic data, mainly televised interviews of dancers, live telecasts of dance festivals in Odisha, and performances recorded for the camera in the studios. I focus on content primarily broadcast on the state-owned satellite channel broadcasting in Odia, the official language in Odisha. My position is of a Sahrdaya, an observer tutored in the codes and conventions of the art form and critically responsive to the structure of emotion in the presentation. I locate the dancing body across discursive, disseminative, and choreographic renditions. This subjective positioning, I argue, democratizes the expressive ethos of odissi embodiment. Commenting on the contemporary curation of the dancing body by the state network, this essay brings larger questions around the representation of gender, sexuality, caste, and regionalism on the television screen.

Twyla Tharp’s Making Television Dance (1977) and the Technologized Dancing Body

This article looks at the technologized dancing body on television, particularly in videodance. It asks and begins to answer the question: What were emerging technologies of the late twentieth century able to do with, to, or for the dancing body that was not possible previously, and which built the foundation for the ways today’s digital technologies interface with the dancing body? In beginning to answer this question, the article closely examines Twyla Tharp's Making Television Dance (1977) and argues that Tharp's piece condenses and summarizes the experiments of videodance during the late twentieth century, highlighting its foundational shift from using technology to exclusively do things to the body or extract things from it, to instead using the body to interface with and demonstrate the capabilities of a new technology—​triggering the machine’s capabilities using the body’s cues. In other words, videodance reframes the body as a (technologized) tool. Ultimately, this article reveals that late 1960s and 1970s videodance was a transitional interstice between two more enduring forms of screendance: celluloid dance film and digital dance data.

The Viennese waltz: social transformation and the shock of the new

ABSTRACT The Viennese waltz was the first vernacular, modern dance. Modern, here, Carrie’s the meaning of modernity. Such dances have an expressive relationship with the body and this requires a specific discursive understanding of what a body is and how it can be experienced. That is, modern, vernacular dancing is a function of the modern body. The modern body evolved as part of the social transformation of society from a feudal order to one founded on capitalism and industrialisation. The modern body is understood, and experienced, as limited by the body’s physical form, distinct from its environment. The body is the site of the individual, and, at the same time, it is the expressive site of mental stimulation. Notoriously, René Descartes theorised this construction in terms of a distinction between the ‘mind’ and the ‘body’ in Meditationes de Prima Philosophia published in 1641. A problem for modern, bourgeois society then became, how to control the expressiveness of the body in dance. This problem of management pervades modernity and is central to this article. The Viennese Waltz was the first modern dance, the first manifestation of dance as individual expression and, consequently, the first time the problem of how to control expression presented itself, and what the consequences might be if the dancing body was not controlled.

The masculinized feminine body: The body politics and the construction of female identity in Mohiniyattam

The article explores the sociocultural construction of aesthetic identities and the ways in which the dominant ideologies have perpetuated specific narratives of the development of Mohiniyattam. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘episteme’ and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, the study examines the femininity embodied in Mohiniyattam and argues that the dance form has been a tool for patriarchal ideologies, transmitted through generations of dancers manifested in their performance practice. The analysis extends to the contemporary scope of Mohiniyattam, questioning the rigid notion of femininity that has defined the dance form through erotic expressions of the dancer and exploring how innovative choreographies and performative interpretations can challenge such norms. The study uses oral histories and case studies to present a multifaceted view of Mohiniyattam’s historical evolution as a dance form. The revival of Mohiniyattam at different times reflects the dominant epistemes, marked by an embedded male gaze on the female dancing body. The performers’ own initiatives reframed the concept of femininity and its portrayal by exploring the potential of the trained dancing body.

Modern Dance “Body – Mind Teaching Method’’ Rooted in National Culture

As dance programs in higher ed works to de-center Euro centric styles, learning how dance in China draws upon Confucianism would be a valuable addition to the field. Philosophical perspective, this paper describes modern dance teaching that values the national symbolic experience of the dance body and constructs the national cultural thinking of the dance individual as an experiential practice of college arts education that focuses on the performance of students’ spiritual existence.

Inter-Viewing Socialist Dancing Bodies

In October 2021, I interviewed three Chinese professional dancers who had completed undergraduate dance degrees in China and pursued their MFA in Dance degrees in the US. Their bi-cultural experiences and unique training narratives motivated me to re-search the Chinese dancing bodies beyond the borders. In this article, I draw on Robin Nelson’s methodologies of Practice/Performance as Research and Diana Taylor’s Performance Studies theory of the archive to examine the performativity of my interviewees’ dance experiences and my own educational experiences in both the US and in China. I explore how Chinese dancers, with their distinctive, yellow-skinned appearance, embody the national spirit and cultural traditions of China as they navigate various dance practices across the diverse landscape of the United States. Through their daily movements, these dancers inhabit a space of in-betweenness, leaving indelible but untraceable traces of their experiences on their bodies. My analysis delves into how these dancers, through their encounters in the field of dance and performance in the US, reinterpret their cultural memories, social identities, and socialist ideologies through choreography. Drawing from my own cross-border experiences between the US and China, I approach the examination of their performances through interviews, textual analysis, and movement interpretations.

Application of motion capture technology based on wearable motion sensor devices in dance body motion recognition

In recent years, people have been committed to studying how to recognize human behavior through the use of wearable devices and understand the intentions expressed by human actions, which has also attracted much attention in human-computer interaction. At present, research on dance mainly relies on computer simulation, while wearable devices can more realistically reflect the details and dynamic processes of dance movements. In order to realize the recognition of dancing human movements, this paper proposes a system that combines Motion capture technology and wearable devices, and uses wearable devices for recognition. Before the experiment began, we established a process for collecting and preprocessing dance action data. On the basis of in-depth research and analysis of Motion capture technology, we have successfully constructed a human Motion capture data-driven system, which can obtain the data needed by the human body to dance through wearable devices. After experimental verification, the system designed in this article performs excellently in recognizing human movements in dance. The recognition results not only contribute to dance training and correcting errors, but also gradually become an important way for dance learning, providing new ideas for dance learning and inheritance.

Hybrid choreographic femininities: DanceSport, physical culture, and performative corporeality in contemporary China

ABSTRACT The integration of conventional Western styles and Chinese (physical) cultural elements has become an increasingly utilised choreographic trend in Chinese DanceSport. In major competitions and televised events, choreographers have sought to create distinctive performance-based identities and practices that at once adhere to Western stylistic and competitive conventions but also incorporate traditional Chinese physical and cultural aesthetics. In this study, we draw from Foucault’s theorisations of power and knowledge and disciplinary techniques to offer a dispositive analysis of the bodily performances of Chinese female DanceSport dancers – specifically analysing 19 prized dance pieces in two national competitions. Through the analysis of discursive, non-discursive, and material choreographic elements, we seek to examine how the bodies of Chinese female dancers interact with multiple forms of Western DanceSport and Chinese socio-cultural and political power/knowledge. We conclude that Chinese female dancing bodies are subject to the anatomical knowledge regarding the physical execution of Western technical skills as well as adhering to the norms of Western feminine aesthetics. However, our analysis illustrates how Chinese female dancers strategically utilise Western dance movements and techniques to navigate and potentially negotiate with traditional Chinese norms. Yet, these practices may still function within an anatomopolitical framework of female dancing bodies that is shaped through the promotion of Chinese national identity by the state.

Development of Body Movement Skills Using Illustrative Music as a Stimulus in Dance Learning

This research explores the use of illustrative music as a stimulus for skill development in the field of body movement within the Dance Education program at Padang State University (UNP). Illustrative music aids in motivation, rhythm regulation, concentration, emotional expression, memory, creativity, body mobility, and flexibility in the dance body movement courses. The research employs a qualitative methodology involving interviews, observations, and document analysis to investigate the impact of illustrative music. The findings of the study indicate that the use of illustrative music, such as Minangkabau ethnic music and classical music, during dance body movement exercises provides a positive boost to skill development, emotional expression, and movement comprehension within the art of dance. Through this approach, the Dance Education program at UNP creates a deep, holistic learning environment for body movement in the art of dance.

Emoji

Abstract Online users devise different strategies and techniques to make up for the absence of physical bodies in online communications, one of which is using emojis. Emojis are a diverse set of small images, symbols, or icons, standardized by the Unicode Consortium for utilization in electronic communication platforms. Their primary role is to effectively convey the emotional attitude of the writer, succinctly provide information, and playfully communicate messages. This article posits that bodily emojis (emojis portraying a body gesture or facial expression) are a form of digital embodiment. Their usage, thus, creates a form of digital performance. Emojis appear as a screen body in a space that lacks the physical one. Furthermore, I suggest that this body could be described as aesthetically Baroque. My proposition is that emojis exhibit Baroque characteristics such as dynamic and exaggerated forms and decorate texts. Emojis share similarities with the appearance and function of the Baroque body both in Baroque visual art and Baroque dance.

The Body That Counts

This article is intended to analyze the “digital techniques of dance” implied in the different dance notations from the perspective of Medienwissenschaft. Medienwissenschaft, which is often translated as German “media theories,” regards media as techniques through which concepts are developed. The digital technique is therefore redefined here as the technique of counting in general through which the concept of number is developed. The digital technique of dance in this article is also defined as the “technique of counting number with the body in dance.” This article's analysis of the digital techniques of dance begins with the notation developed by Rudolf Laban for the Western modern dance and that developed by Zhu Zai-yu for the ancient Chinese dance. These notations were once researched by one of the most important dance researchers and choreographers, Liu Feng-hsueh, for her Chinese modern dance. The analysis of these notations indicates that the digital technique of Laban's notation is based on partition of time and space and the digital technique of Zhu Zai-yu's notation is based on interpretation of force. The article argues that it is only through the analysis of the digital technique of dance that “Chineseness” in modern dance can be based not only on the “spirit of the arts,” which haunts dance like a ghost, but also on digital technique as the technique of the body. For research on Chinese modern dance, it is the body that counts.

Correlation Between Technical Characteristics and Performance Style of Amateur Youth Latin Dance

As a new sport in China, Latin dance has gradually developed and matured and formed its own system. It collaborates in the form of amateur youth characteristics to demonstrate a willingness to work hard and a positive and healthy sports spirit in pursuit of collective honor. Based on the technical characteristics of Latin dance and the results of its performance style, this paper discusses that its rhythm is faster than that of other dances, sometimes accompanied by singing, and dancing can produce an internal feeling of the body. Then the Latin dance body movements and various elements of the favorable analysis through the method of Latin dance briefly describe the specific existence of the style. Finally, the amateur youth Latin dance experiment plays a key role in the average scoring of Latin dance players in three regions.

Discurso feminista e identidad americana en la danza moderna: Martha Graham y el significado social del cuerpo femenino

. Este artículo reflexiona acerca de los conceptos del discurso feminista y de la identidad americana en el contexto de la significación social del cuerpo danzante tal y como está representado en las coreografías de la bailarina americana Martha Graham. Aquí abordamos el impacto de las obras revolucionarias Heretic (1929) Lamentation (1930), Primitive Mysteries (1931), Frontier (1935), Letter to the World (1940) y Appalachian Spring (1944), explorando su significado social con referencia a la demarcación de la masculinidad y de la feminidad en la visión de danza de Graham. La iconografía visual, las partituras extraordinarias y la atmósfera sensorial creada por y para estas coreografías seminales son experiencias únicas de una danza artística específica que construye el discurso feminista. La contribución de Martha Graham a la formación de la danza moderna y sus característicos movimientos de ‘contract and release’ que forman la Graham Technique, en la que la energía se localiza en el centro del cuerpo, está saturada de emoción humana. El discurso feminista incorporado en estas coreografías habla del amor y de la muerte, de la opresión y de la libertad, de las limitaciones del género y de la lucha por identidad. Su contribución iluminadora a la danza contemporánea se basó en sus frases de movimiento corporal únicas y en su cuestionamiento sin concesiones de los cuerpos construidos socialmente. Martha Graham creó un nuevo vocabulario de movimiento que revolucionó la danza y se configuró debido al ‘cultural embodiment, cultural communication and the whole shift in the Western lifeworld at the beginning of the twentieth century’ . Palabras clave. Martha Graham, Graham Technique, danza moderna, significado social, discurso feminista, cuerpo femenino, grupos sociales, identidad americana, paisaje musical, cuerpo danzante femenino.

Queer, Brown Dancing Bodies in a White Cube: Refusal and mourning in Gerald Casel’s Not About Race Dance

I sit in a theatre in San Francisco in December 2021 feeling a palpable anticipation in the air. As Gerald Casel performs a choreographic accumulation to TLC's ‘Waterfalls', my body remembers learning Accumulation in dance history class. Indeed, words are soon projected on the back wall: ‘I am performing an accumulated sequence'; ‘It's an adaptation of Trisha Brown's choreographic device'; ‘She made a dance entitled ‘Accumulation' in 1971'. This performance is Casel's response through the body to the unacknowledged racial politics in postmodern dance and is the primary study of my investigation. In ‘Queer, Brown Dancing Bodies in a White Cube: Refusal and mourning in Gerald Casel's Not About Race Dance', I analyse Not About Race Dance (2021) choreographed by Gerald Casel as a queer, decolonial performance that engages with mourning as regenerative refusal. In this article, I define constructions for queer dance and decolonial performance that are foundational to my reading of Gerald Casel's Not About Race Dance. I then outline the relationship between Not About Race Dance and Neil Greenberg’s Not-About-AIDS-Dance. The titles of both works use irony to emphasize that the performances are, in fact, about AIDS and race respectively. Finally, I argue that this queer, decolonial performance work encompasses interplay between refusal and racial mourning, and propose that this performance is a manifestation of queer, decolonial performance and embodying the profound heaviness of loss and mourning that occurs because of racism. This is significant because it reveals the connections between queerness and decoloniality through performance and examines their links as acts of refusal and mourning in the work of a queer, BIPOC improvisational artist.

Work that: Kamala Harris, resistance, and the black dancing body

Work that: Kamala Harris, resistance, and the black dancing body

The Visual Guidance of Dance Images in Humanities Documentaries

Do communicators' emotional expressions in dance-themed visual expressions in humanities documentaries depend on the visual guidance of dance camera language? There is limited information related to humanities documentaries with dance as a theme in the literature. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the creator's visual guidance on an audience's perception of dance images. Based on a humanities documentary’s overall tone, the communicator selected appropriate dance sequences and dance clips and recorded them from a dancer's point of view to capture an image's moral expression and bring the humanities documentary to a climax. The study explored whether an audience’s perspective of visual information from a dance in which the dance body language is guided by a video varies from that perceived when watching the dance in the past. This analysis opens up new avenues for video display and dance representation for the expression of dance video, to satisfy an audience's sense of observation and communicate an emotional expression.

The Aging Body in Dance: A cross-cultural perspective (extract)

Le processus biologique, social et artistique du vieillissement contraint voire inhibe la capacité de mouvement ; pourtant, il stimule aussi d’autres désirs de danse. Nanako Nakajima partage avec nous le récit de sa rencontre avec le danseur Kazuo Ôno **** , alors centenaire : comment engager la transmission de son art, dans les corps comme dans les mémoires ?

Drawing body, movement and space in architecture and dance

This article discusses drawing as a tool for thinking and understanding embodied spatial experience in an educational context within architecture and dance. In both disciplines, body, movement and space are important components of the creative process. Besides, they also share drawing as a tool for thinking and understanding. However, the types of drawings and drawing techniques used in both disciplines are very different. Based on a literature review, this article offers insights into the knowledge and shortcomings produced by discipline-specific drawings regarding body, movement and space, as well as how it impacts the creative process. Starting from the identified shortcomings, experimental setups in educational environments are used to investigate to what extent the sharing of drawing techniques between both disciplines enables new ways of thinking and understanding, allowing for different attitudes and awareness of the concept of embodied spatial experience. Overall, the article contributes to the discussion of drawing as a creative thinking tool in both disciplines involved.

The dancing body: labour, livelihood and leisure

ABSTRACT In India, discourses around the dancing body have long been trapped within the historical studies in and around dancers and their dance practices. During the last few decades, however, significant scholarly inroads were made into the domain of dance by shaking up the stereotypes, assertions and labels, shaped and moulded by patriarchy, class, caste and power. In the current times, the body discourse has given many of us tools to focus on socio-culturally excluded and dispossessed performers, whose presence and representation have historically been marginalised in the developing discourses on dance. It is, therefore, time to energise research that can generate new ideas of looking at existing binaries around the dancing body and challenging them as well. This essay is an attempt to bring together emerging issues and discourses around dance and the body that have become central through the cultural politics of the Indian nation-state in the post-independence years. Contemporary discourses around identity politics, survival strategies, neo-liberal dispossessions and the problematic constructions of the commodification of the erotic body vis a vis sexual labour, pleasure, desire and agency of dancers in diverse performing contexts, have helped us frame the focus around labour, leisure and livelihood concerning the concrete everyday existence of the body in dance.