Embodiment

Consider…

How (and when) have you engaged with embodiment in Moving Body this year?

Rene Descartes

Cogito Ergo Sum

Phenomenology

‘Rejecting the exclusive assumption of the natural sciences and modem psychology, which treats the

physical body (Korper) as a thing, object, instrument, or machine under the command and

control of an all-knowing mind, thereby challenging the Cartesian cogito, Merleau-Ponty (re)claimed the

centrality of the lived body (Leiv) and embodied experience as the very means and medium through

which the world come sin to being and is experienced.’

(Zarilli, 2007: 48)

‘the integration of mind and body as central to the dancer’s lived experience’

(Pakes, 2006: 88)

‘Our bodies are both a moving conduit for the flow of information and the fleshy core of our

expressive selves.’

(De Spain, 2014: 93)

In Dance…

We are embodied

But what is embodiment?

‘‘embodiment’, in which meaning and form are inseparable’

(Reid, 2008: 296)

‘The dancer wrestles with sensation and images of movement, its meaning, quality, shapes and

texture, struggling to capture some half-grasped or intuitive complexity of visual-kinetic form.’

(Parviannen, 2002: 13)

Embodiment in Dance

Movement is ‘the lens through which that audience can view the inner world of the mover.’ (De Spain,

2014: 98)

‘turn [your] attention away from the general idea of movement and find more benefit in the ideas and

processes that instead result in movement.’ (De Spain, 2014: 99)

‘Movement may be the medium, but the substance that it convey arises from the fullest possible range

of the human experience.’ (De Spain, 2014: 101)

‘embodiment as a process of encounters opens up “the body” not as an object and “carries us past the inveterate tendency to reify what we

are trying to think and understand and engage” (Levin 1999: 128).’

(Zarilli 2007: 38)

How (and when) have you engaged with embodiment in Moving Body this year?

An Example in Practice 1

‘As with many other dance practices, the use of guided imagery and metaphor is core to the work of SRT. For example

in class two, students are presented with imagining their ‘breath transforming into a white mist’. It is then suggested

that perhaps ‘we can allow our mind to soften so that we can blend with the image. Perhaps we can see in our mind’s eye and feel kinaesthetically the breath as white mist travelling

along our bones ... perhaps travelling along the spine, curling around each vertebra ... trailing over the ribs ... spiralling out through our limbs, and as we blend with the image of white

mist perhaps it can move us a little or not.’ What lies beneath this image is the suggestion that the breath can move the

dancer as they lengthen, spiral and expand.’ (Emslie, 2009: 172)

An Example in Practice 2

Particular focus on kinaesthetic engagement with the site

Engaging not with rubbing feet against the steps but attending to the sensation of the feet on the

steps and responding to it through movement

Embody the water by engaging not with it as a reified or abstract concept, but engaging with

sensations of water on skin

What other examples have you seen?

What is the difference between embodiment

and representation?