This book elucidates the technical aspects of improvised dance performance and reframes the notion of labour in the practice from one that is either based on compositionally formal logic or a mysterious impulse, to one that addresses the (in)corporeal dimensions of practice.
Mobilising the languages and conceptual frameworks of theories of affect, embodied cognition, somatics, and dance, this book illustrates the work of specialist improvisers who occupy divergent positions within the complex field of improvised dance. It offers an alternative narrative of the history and current practice of Western improvised dance centred on the epistemology of its (in)corporeal knowledges, which are elusive yet vital to the refinement of expertise.
Written for both a disciplinary-specific and interdisciplinary audience, this book will interest dance scholars, students, and practising artists.
Author(s): Nalina Wait
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 238
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures
Credit List
Acknowledgements
1. Western Improvised Dance: Practices, Pedagogies, and Language
Introduction
What is improvised performance in contemporary dance?
The rise of improvisation
An overview of improvisation theory
Theorising forces through a lineage of practice
Documenting corporeal knowledges
Asserting improvisational (in)corporeal knowledges
Dancing subject-object
Philosophical interiority via affect theory
Contingency methods
2. Dewey and the Pre-History of Western Improvisation
Introduction
H’Doubler, Dewey, and alternative science at Columbia
H’Doubler’s Deweyan approach to dance pedagogy
Natural movement
Feeling tones of physical origin
Affective phase of movement
Dewey and Ethics
Alternative sciences, institutional recognition, and divergence
Halprin
3. Embodied Consciousness
Introduction
Embodied consciousness
Thinking-through-the-body
The body’s mind
Conclusion
4. Resonance of Affect and Immanent Evaluation
Introduction
Affect and improvisation
Training and habit
Style and tone
Immanent evaluation
Science, affect, and sympathetic resonance
Conclusion
5. The Aesthetics of an Ethics of Being
Introduction
Spinoza’s Ethics
Eva Karczag: moving and allowing one’s self to be moved
Ethical actions
6. Cultivating Movement Systems
Introduction
The “Forsythe aesthetic”
Post-control choreography
Riley Watts: pattern-seeking
Complex relational situation
Nicole Peisl: polarities supporting a field of tension
Circulation of affective forces
7. Prohibitive and Emancipative Self-Surveillance
Introduction
Self-observation
Ideokinesis
Emancipative and prohibitive self-surveillance
Anatomical truth
Dissolving binaries to innovate improvisation
Listening to body-mind and composing improvisation
Authentic Movement
Conclusion
Glossary
Index
