This project creates a dialogue between artistic form and everyday function by examining stylised dance through the lens of the behavioural patterns of daily life. Kinetic ‘snapshots’[1] will be taken of everyday settings and dance contexts, and investigated for comparisons between stylised dance and everyday movement. Written and choreographic work will produce practice-based responses to complexities underlying concepts of ‘embodied’ meaning.
With the advent of post-modern dance, site-specific work, and dance/physical theatre in the 1960s and 1970s, pedestrian movement, and explorations between movement and space are now more commonplace in dance (Banes, 1987). Building on these practices, this research will interrogate synergies between everyday movement and stylised dance by making new choreographic work that foregrounds sociokinetic frameworks. By creating and analysing ‘kinetic snapshots’ of movement in everyday/vernacular settings, this project will examine, through choreographic workshops with dancers, the interplay between kinetic and spatial factors in socialised human movement.
The overarching research question, drawn from Lakoff and Johnson’s (1999) proposal that abstract thought derives from bodily experience, and is linked via the mechanism of metaphor, is: If abstract thinking is reducible to bodily experience, then are there metaphoric links also between stylised/abstract dance and everyday movement?
My interest in everyday movement stems from teaching ‘body language’ and non-verbal communication to actors and dancers. Illustrating how everyday gestures, postures, and spatial configurations can reveal the interplay between text and sub-text, has implications for literal and non-literal figurations within dance with respect to embodied meanings.
Embodied meanings consist of non-verbal layers of intelligence in movement and the body (Olson, 2002). Various disciplines have focussed on these layers providing important tools for use in this choreographic investigation. Godard’s (in Dobbels, D. & Rabant, C., 2004) and Olson’s (2002) somatic approach to anatomy and physiology will contribute holistic, dance-based methods of enquiry into embodied meaning for use in choreographic workshops with dancers. Architectural theory (Hillier, 2001) and ecological psychology (Gibson, 1986) will guide practical and theoretical analysis of the interactions between environments and movement, and the role spatiality plays in socialising human behaviour. Methods for notating and mapping kinetic activity will be informed by Preston-Dunlop’s (2002) Laban-based work. Phenomenological perspectives on the connectedness of lived space and animate form will provide a philosophical base, and contribute to critical discussions and rationalisations of embodied meaning. (Merleau-Ponty 1962, Sheets-Johnstone, 1999).
This investigation will also use a combination of phenomenological and Action Research methods to produce interactive dialogues between:
With the advent of post-modern dance, site-specific work, and dance/physical theatre in the 1960s and 1970s, pedestrian movement, and explorations between movement and space are now more commonplace in dance (Banes, 1987). Building on these practices, this research will interrogate synergies between everyday movement and stylised dance by making new choreographic work that foregrounds sociokinetic frameworks. By creating and analysing ‘kinetic snapshots’ of movement in everyday/vernacular settings, this project will examine, through choreographic workshops with dancers, the interplay between kinetic and spatial factors in socialised human movement.
The overarching research question, drawn from Lakoff and Johnson’s (1999) proposal that abstract thought derives from bodily experience, and is linked via the mechanism of metaphor, is: If abstract thinking is reducible to bodily experience, then are there metaphoric links also between stylised/abstract dance and everyday movement?
My interest in everyday movement stems from teaching ‘body language’ and non-verbal communication to actors and dancers. Illustrating how everyday gestures, postures, and spatial configurations can reveal the interplay between text and sub-text, has implications for literal and non-literal figurations within dance with respect to embodied meanings.
Embodied meanings consist of non-verbal layers of intelligence in movement and the body (Olson, 2002). Various disciplines have focussed on these layers providing important tools for use in this choreographic investigation. Godard’s (in Dobbels, D. & Rabant, C., 2004) and Olson’s (2002) somatic approach to anatomy and physiology will contribute holistic, dance-based methods of enquiry into embodied meaning for use in choreographic workshops with dancers. Architectural theory (Hillier, 2001) and ecological psychology (Gibson, 1986) will guide practical and theoretical analysis of the interactions between environments and movement, and the role spatiality plays in socialising human behaviour. Methods for notating and mapping kinetic activity will be informed by Preston-Dunlop’s (2002) Laban-based work. Phenomenological perspectives on the connectedness of lived space and animate form will provide a philosophical base, and contribute to critical discussions and rationalisations of embodied meaning. (Merleau-Ponty 1962, Sheets-Johnstone, 1999).
This investigation will also use a combination of phenomenological and Action Research methods to produce interactive dialogues between:
- human activity in everyday life
- studio practice with dancers
- theories of embodied meaning and sociokinesics
Phenomenological investigative techniques, with their ‘bracketing’ of phenomena and inclusion of the researcher’s position in the field of study (Groenewald, 2004), will dominate the observation and gathering of everyday movement data. Action Research, with its ‘symbiotic relationship between theory and practice’ involving heuristic feedback loops (Rubidge, 2000), will guide the choreographic workshops.
In spite of the availability of various systems for deconstructing movement (e.g. Laban, 1971; Preston-Dunlop; 2002), contemporary analysts often privilege socio-political, art historical, ethnographic and philosophical frames of reference to investigate dance (Fraleigh, 1987). By re-examining the interface between spatiality and movement, and adopting movement-based research methods, this project will reintroduce the importance of movement analysis for a study of embodied meaning. The resulting choreographic and written work will evaluate the impact of sociokinesis on current dance practices examining its implications for new compositional outcomes.
SCHEDULE
Year 1 – (primarily practice-based)
- preliminary experimentation into practical concepts (e.g. everyday movement, stylisation, space/environment, sociokinetic meanings of movement)
- trialling the making of ‘kinetic snapshots’ and testing them with dancers
- review of relevant literature and of the work and practices of other artists
- trialling the making of ‘kinetic snapshots’ and testing them with dancers
- review of relevant literature and of the work and practices of other artists
Year 2 – (primarily practice-based)
- in-depth studio-based practice to analyse kinetic snapshots taken from movement behaviour in a) everyday settings and b) dance settings, with the goal of
- producing a preliminary performance piece using sociokinetic principles in a choreographic context
- close analysis of theoretical ideas relevant to the emerging practice in order to deepen the practice and illuminate research issues
Year 3 – (practical and theoretical)
- focused reflection on practical research followed by
- the production of a final choreographic work based on refined sociokinetic dance-making principles and techniques
- completion of written thesis
OUTCOMES
A body of documented practice in the form of choreographic work and a 30,000-40,000 word thesis elucidating the interconnections between sociokinesis and choreography will result. The completed research should increase practical and theoretical understandings of movement, dance, and space from the perspective of sociokinetic meaning.
[1] ‘Kinetic snapshots’ will be scores that map movement and space using video footage, diagrams, and written description for the purposes of choreographic analysis with dancers.
REFERENCED TEXTS
Adams, Constance, M. (2002). Sociokinetic Analysis as a Tool for Optimization of Environmental Design. Retrieved 19 July 2007 from
Banes, Sally. (1987). Terpsichore in sneakers: post-modern dance. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.
Dobbels, D. & Rabant, C. (2004). The missing gesture: an interview with Hubert Godard. Writings on Dance 5. April edition.
Fraleigh, Sondra. (1987). Dance and the lived body: a descriptive aesthetic. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press.
Gibson, James J. (1986). The ecological approach to visual perception. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Groenewald, T. (2004). A phenomenological research design illustrated. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(1). Article 4. Retrieved 20 July 2007 from
Hillier, Bill. (2001). A theory of the city as object: or, how spatial laws mediate the social construction of urban space. Proceedings, 3rd International Space Syntax Symposium Atlanta.
Laban, Rudolf (1971). The mastery of movement. London: MacDonald & Evans.
Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). The phenomenology of perception. London: Routledge.
Olson, Andrea. (2002). Body and Earth: an experiential guide. Middlebury: Middlebury College Press.
Preston-Dunlop, Valerie, & Sanchez-Colberg, Ana (eds.). (2002). Dance and the performative: a choreological perspective: Laban and beyond. London: Verve.
Rubidge, Sarah. (2000). Identity in flux: a theoretical and choreographic enquiry into the identity of open dance work. Thesis. London: Laban Centre and City University.
Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. (1999). The primacy of movement. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co.
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