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Bodies Moving and Moved: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Dancing Subject and the Cognitive and Ethical Values of Dance Art
Abstract
Developing a phenomenological theory of the body which focuses on the analysis of movement, Jaana Parviainen outlines the dancing subject in contemporary dance, exploring the cognitive and ethical values of dance practice and danceworks. The present study explains the moral issues of dance art, not only as representation or symbolic presentation, but with the human body itself as the standpoint from which moral issues emerge. Developing a philosophical dance discourse, Parviainen brings both Western philosophy as a tradition of thinking and Western dance as a tradition of thiking in movement into a mutual dialogue. The ontological standpoint is Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception and its theory of the body. In addition to Merleau-Ponty's theory of the body, the study draws on the work of David Michael Levin, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and Martin Heidegger.
... During the act of performance, control over bodily movements eludes the grasp of the body, brain, and consciousness. Instead, a dynamic relationship is established with the body through the interplay of our senses-perception, smell, touch, and more-rendering it a conduit of bodily agency (Parviainen, 1998). For instance, from the moment a new life is born, and even within the mother's womb, the infant establishes its initial connection with the outside world through movements like kicking and stretching. ...
... Although normal individuals have similar perceptual structures, synesthetic experiences enable us to have different perceptual abilities. Our perception relies on the use of synesthesia, which helps us penetrate each other's sensory perceptions in the process of appreciating and creating art, resulting in sensory stimuli triggering experiences of other sensations (Parviainen, 1998)，this function is particularly important in dance. For example, when we taste sour grapes, the sourness stimulates our taste buds while simultaneously evoking associations with certain plants. ...
This paper employs the theoretical framework of phenomenology of the body to explore embodiment and existentialism in contemporary Chinese dance. With the backdrop of the current status and influence of Chinese contemporary dance in the realm of dance arts, it analyzes the unique forms and techniques of bodily expression in Chinese contemporary dance, attempting to explore how personal emotions, inner experiences, and spiritual states are conveyed through bodily expression in Chinese contemporary dance. The paper utilizes case analysis and observational research methods to delve into the cognition of bodily expression and identity construction in Chinese contemporary dance, as well as how the body is used to reflect on the cognition and positioning of Chinese traditional and modern cultural identities, exploring the diversity and changes in Chinese cultural identity. Finally, by applying Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body theory, it deeply analyzes the significance and existentialism of bodily expression in contemporary Chinese dance, experiencing and understanding the relationship between bodily subjectivity and self through dance. Through these studies, we can gain a deeper understanding of the complexity and diversity of bodily expression in contemporary Chinese dance, enabling dancers to reassess their ability to express emotions, as well as the application and insights of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body therein.
... The sensory, emotional, and cognitive dimensions are inextricably intertwined in artistic, embodied ways of knowing. This kind of experiential knowledge is often multifaceted and thus difficult to discuss (Parviainen 1998). However, this should not be seen as a weakness in arts-based research because one of its central values is its ability to bring out momentary and partial knowledge and, at the same time, perhaps capture the essence of humanity and reality (Kallio 2010). ...
... Through my artworks, I looked at how humans are in direct contact with the world precisely through their sensuous bodies. Through bodily perceptions, it is also possible to understand how the world is in us, as we carry sensations, emotions, and memories in our living bodies (Merleau-Ponty 2008;Parviainen 1998). ...
What was it like growing up during the Cold War? What can childhood memories tell us about state socialism and its aftermath? How can these intimate memories complicate history and redefine possible futures? These questions are at the heart of the (An)Archive: Childhood, Memory, and the Cold War. This edited collection stems from a collaboration between academics and artists who came together to collectively remember their own experiences of growing up on both sides of the ‘Iron Curtain’. Looking beyond official historical archives, the book gathers memories that have been erased or forgotten, delegitimized or essentialized, or, at best, reinterpreted nostalgically within the dominant frameworks of the East-West divide. And it reassembles and (re)stores these childhood memories in a form of an ‘anarchive’: a site for merging, mixing, connecting, but also juxtaposing personal experiences, public memory, political rhetoric, places, times, and artifacts. These acts and arts of collective remembering tell about possible futures―and the past’s futures―what life during the Cold War might have been but also what it has become.
(An)Archive will be of particular interest to scholars in a variety of fields, but particularly to artists, educators, historians, social scientists, and others working with memory methodologies that range from collective biography to oral history, (auto)biography, autoethnography, and archives.
... To end this presentation, I would like to argue against the previously held view in phenomenologically oriented dance studies, that posits that there is a sharp distinction between bodily experience and its verbal expression (e.g. Parviainen 1998). On the contrary, especially when writing is informed by a focal awareness of our situationally embedded embodiment and its lived spatiality, there is a continuity between bodily experience and verbal expression. ...
This keynote presentation, held at the 16th Nordic Forum for Dance Research (NOFOD) conference, scrutinises how two cases of progressive forms of site-specific and language-based choreographic practices by performing dancers enact embedded embodiment. The addressed works of Paula Kramer (2021) and Kirsi Heimonen and Leena Rouhiainen (2022; 2024a) both entail motional exploration of chosen physical environments as well as their language-based articulation. The presentation introduces concrete examples from these works and discusses the site-specificity and language-use by the dancer-performers in dialogue with conceptions from embodied cognition and phenomenology. The examination of the notions of embedded embodiment or intercorporeality and the gestural base of language is the means through which the presentation suggests that there is a continuity between situated lived bodily experience and writing. The presentation likewise recommends that we consider language and linguistic expression integral to the medium of dance.
... Dance and choreographic work in general requires a high degree of intellectual reflection on movement from both dancers and choreographers. At the same time, the quality of verbalisation is very mixed, depending on the teacher or the creator [24]. ...
... Dance and performance scholars increasingly use phenomenology to articulate their practice (Fraleigh, 1987;Kozel, 2007;Parviainen, 1998;Sheets-Johnstone, 2015) or expand the field of performance analysis (Garner, 1994;Johnston, 2017). However, when it comes to the wide deployment of phenomenology as an analytical model in the performing arts, a rigorous qualitative research method seems to be missing or remains underdeveloped. ...
While the use of phenomenological approaches in qualitative research increases in the field of performing arts, their legitimate application as research methods can prove to be challenging. The article introduces the dominant dichotomies and challenges in phenomenological research, such as concerns emerging from the researcher’s position, interdisciplinarity and mixed methods. The paper is addressed to novice researchers, researchers-practitioners and scholars with an interest in the theory of phenomenology. Drawing from a phenomenological research project that examined embodiment in Greek tragedy in the context of performer training and theatre directing, the article illustrates the methodological approach employed both in theory and practice. To this end, it proposes a model of data collection, organisation and analysis in interview design and practice-based research in performance. The proposed model sets subjectivity at its core and invests in the participants’ lived experience in an inclusive manner, concurrently calling on the investigator’s transparency as defined by the Husserlian epochè. It, therefore, comes into an inclusive step-by-step guide based on scientifically evident and ethically approved methods that accumulate Husserl and Giorgi’s phenomenological methods, Schön’s action research combined with Kolb’s reflective practice and tools for findings validation by Colaizzi (1978), Van Manen (1997) and Van Kaam (1966). Finally, in order to make phenomenological interviews more accessible, the article includes an interview schedule, which can be further developed and applied to practice-based research in both physical and digital environments.
Philosophical counseling helps people see issues in their lives more clearly by making them the subject of philosophical conversations. For the most part, the language used during such conversations is phenomenologically transparent to the interlocutors, which means that it exists only at the background of their attention. However, there are exceptions. Sometimes, especially when dealing with particularly deep or elusive issues, some counselors find it appropriate to bring the language itself to the forefront of the client’s attention. This way of speaking may be called opaque. The present paper argues that the use of opaque language in philosophical counseling allows people to disclose truth in a special, intimate manner. Philosophical counselors should master the art of switching between transparent and opaque language, in response to the needs of a given client and the pragmatics of a particular conversation.
Artykuł jest poświęcony wizji tańca w estetyce środowiskowej Arnolda Berleanta. Autorka przywołuje historyczne koncepcje estetyczne podkreślające znaczenie medium dla tożsamości poszczególnych sztuk (Gottholda E. Lessinga i Clementa Greenberga). Charakteryzuje problemy, które wynikają z uznania ludzkiego ciała za specyficzne medium tańca. Na tym tle przedstawia sposób ujmowania tańca jako performance’u w pismach Berleanta i stawia tezę, że pojęcie medium, którym Berleant się niekiedy posługuje, nie ma u niego ontologicznego zaplecza. Berleant bowiem nie opisuje świata w kategoriach substancji czy materii, lecz w kategoriach procesów i interakcji, a zamiast separowania sztuk czy odrywania sztuki od życia akcentuje ciągłość i holistyczny charakter doświadczenia. Taniec jest w jego koncepcji integralnym doświadczeniem, podczas którego ruch kreuje obszar przedstawienia, zespala tancerza i widza, ciało i świadomość, percepcję i myśl. Ważnym kontekstem tej teorii, w której doświadczenia estetycznego nie oddziela się od doświadczenia środowiskowego, jest ekologia.
This article presents theoretical viewpoints for considering and understanding expression in popular music singing and pedagogy from the perspective of embodiment as outlined in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological philosophy. In our study, we apply his interpretations of such notions as intentionality, body schema, gesture, reversibility, and intersubjectivity to bring forth and discuss the holistic, embodied, and interpersonal nature of voice expression in singing. We argue that expression should be viewed as an intentional activity, based on the body’s innate mindful functioning as a whole, and in singing guided by the lyrics and emotions to be communicated. We propose that this requires a “free voice”, based on healthy vocal production, that also allows for the immediacy of expression as and through gestures that bring the meaning into existence. We further argue that expression is an interpersonal, interactive, and intersubjective process in which the performer and listener influence each other in many ways. The reversibility of perception in expression means that perception and the object perceived are intertwined and action and perception are interconnected. There is also a gap in reversibility, which implies that the perception of (one’s own) expression is never complete. In addition to our theoretical arguments, we make pedagogical suggestions, such as that the body itself has a lot of understanding of how and should be trusted in singing, both in terms of voice production and expression. The expression should not be primarily approached as a technical issue but taught in connection with and through expression. The expression should be viewed from the inside out, not the opposite. This means that expression builds on one’s personality and (emotional) experiences.
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