Metaphors We Dance By:

On ‘Falling’ and Kinaesthetic Experience

Sarah Pini, Doris McIlwain and John Sutton

Department of Cognitive Science, Australian Hearing Hub, 16 University Avenue, Macquarie University Sydney, NSW 2109

Email: sarah.pini@students.mq.edu.au

Introduction

Contact Improvisation (CI) is a dance form initiated in

1972 by the dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton

and his colleagues.

Characterized by the encounter between two or more

dancers and deeply grounded in improvisation and

the development of bodily awareness, it was

influenced by civil rights and anti-war movements.

This research aims to address the practice of CI as

an example of the study of intersubjectivity.

Through this study we will provide a philosophical

account of the kinaesthetic experience of dancing ‘off

balance’ highlighting the role played by socio-cultural

and historical factors in shaping skilled movement

experience.

4. ‘Falling’ and Spatial Disorientation

By focusing on contact improvisers’ physical experience of

‘falling’, or disorientation10, this work considers how

metaphors shape and are shaped, enacted and performed

by dancers’ kinaesthetic experiences.

While, as cultural metaphor11, ‘Falling’ is often associated

with negative values such as ‘Failure’12; in CI falling, as well

as being ‘lost’ or ‘suspended’ are perceived as chances to

open up multiple possibilities and different orientations11.

References:

1. Crossley, N., 1995. Merleau-Ponty, the Elusive Body and Carnal Sociology. Body & Society, 1(1), pp.43–63.

2. Csordas, T.J., 1993. Somatic Modes of Attention. Cultural Anthropology, 8(2), pp.135–156.

3. Samudra, J.K., 2008. Memory in our body: Thick participation and the translation of kinaesthetic experience. American Ethnologist, 35(4), pp.665–681.

4. Wacquant, L., 2005. Carnal Connections: On Embodiment, Apprenticeship, and Membership. Qualitative Sociology, 28(4), pp.445–474.

5. Koteen, D., Smith, N.S. & Paxton, S., 2008. Caught Falling: The Confluence of Contact Improvisation, Nancy Stark Smith, and Other Moving Ideas

Northampton: Contact Editions.

6. Novack, C.J., 1990. Sharing the dance: contact improvisation and American culture, Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

7. Cohen Bull, C.J., 1997. Sense, Meaning and Perception in three dance cultures. In J. C. Desmond, ed. Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance.

Duke University Press Books, pp. 269–287.

8. Legrand, D. & Ravn, S., 2009. Perceiving subjectivity in bodily movement: The case of dancers. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 8(3), pp.389–408.

9. McIlwain, D. & Sutton, J., 2014. Yoga From the Mat Up: How words alight on bodies. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 46(6), pp.655–673.

10. Behnke, E.A., 2003. Contact Improvisation and the Lived World. Studia Phaenomenologica, 3, pp.39–61.

11. Cooper Albright, A., 2013. Falling. Performance Research, 18(4), pp.36–41.

12. Gibbs, R.W.J., 2003. Embodied Meanings: Performing, Interpreting and Talking about Dance Improvisation. In A. Cooper Albright & D. Gere, eds.

Taken by Surprise: a dance improvisation reader. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, p. 279.

13. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M., 1980. Metaphors we live by 2003rd ed., Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press.

14. Foucault, M., 1988. Technologies of the Self: A Seminar With Michel Foucault L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, & P. H. Hutton, eds.,

Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press

15. Burkitt, I., 2002. Technologies of the Self : Habitus and Capacities. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 32(2), pp.219–237.

16. Turner, R., 2010. Steve Paxton’s “Interior Techniques”: Contact Improvisation and Political Power. The Drama Review, 54(3), pp.123–135.

17. Schaffman, K., 2003. Weighting Metaphors: a response to Raymond W. Gibbs and “Hilary.” In A. Cooper Albright & D. Gere, eds.

Taken by Surprise: a dance improvisation reader. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, p. 279.

1. Framework

Through the analysis of biographical5 and

ethnographic works6 as well as the active first

person descriptions of bodily perceptions in play

with CI, this work will reframe the relationship

between cognitive and sensory structures in the

phenomenal experience of the mindful dancing

body.

2. Sensory Structures

CI privileges certain sensory modalities:

• internal awareness6

• a predominance of the sense of touch over sight7

• and of proprioceptive attention over vision8

Steve Paxton, Contact Improvisation Concert, 1975. Kathy Landman

Methods

At this early stage, two different groups of Contact

Improvisers have been considered. One based in

Sydney (Australia) led by choreographer Alejandro

Rolandi and since August 2014 a second one based in

Bologna (Italy).

This research employs a phenomenological and mixed-

method approach. Sources of inspiration include:

• Merleau-Ponty’s carnal intersubjectivity1

• Ethnographic data-gathering techniques

• Assessment of personality differences

• Participant observation

• Somatic attention2

• Thick participation3

• Carnal sociology4

3. Bodily Knowledge

Considering how thought and movement are interrelated9

and the formation and transmission of knowledge as

intersubjective3, in CI the body emerges as the locus for the

coexistence of both kinaesthetic autonomy and

interkinaesthetic connectivity10.

Sarah Pini and Céline Larrère,

Improvisation, 2005. Guillaume Gaudart

Manfredi Perego and Marzio de Nardo, Ferrara

Contact Improvisation Workshop, 2014. Sarah Pini

Manfredi Perego, Ferrara Contact Improvisation Workshop, 2014. Sarah Pini

5. Metaphors and Technologies of Self

Metaphors are rooted in bodily experiences13 that are

interconnected with the physical and cultural environment1.

According to Foucault, certain practices or technologies14

instill in the subject certain attitudes15 or habitus that shape

the self. CI as a technique of the body encompasses radical

political potential16 and personal transformation .

Conclusions

CI is at the nexus of aesthetics and politics. We consider both its cultural and historical context and its intrinsic

aperspectival or multiperspectival structure10. Yet the level of the personal is also at play. It is characterized by

the development of a ‘habit of attention’16. This research displays CI as an intersubjective technique of

awareness of the self16, which presents an embodied alternative to the conceptual metaphors of space and

failure17. By shedding light on the role played by aesthetics and politics embedded in culture-specific

technologies of the body in shaping the perception of world and self, this work will contribute to the

understanding of skilled bodies’ forms of intelligence.