Towards a Phenomenological Account of the Dancing Body : Merleau-Ponty and the Corporeal Schema

• The essay discusses the dancing body from a phenomenological perspective, against the background of the philosophical conception of the lived body in tradition. In the very young discipline of dance theory, there is a shortage of philosophical concepts and analyses that I believe phenomenology can partly remedy. Although Merleau-Ponty has not written on dance other than in passing, I argue that his thoughts on the body-proper are useful in order to elucidate bodily expression in general and the significations that the dancer’s body manifests in performing a choreographic work in particular. The dynamic notion of the corporeal schema that he appeals to can make us understand how significations are inscribed in the body, and thus how something such as an expression or a choreographic language can exist in dance. Further, the specific forms of spatiality that Merleau-Ponty considers are opened up by artworks, within and beyond the concrete space of the physical body, gives us a clue to the elaboration of a phenomenology of dance.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Filosofi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Philosophy (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Merleau-Ponty

phenomenology of dance

expression

living body

corporeal schema

Theoretical Philosophy

teoretisk filosofi

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kap (subject category)