Back to the Dance Itself: Phenomenologies of the Body in Performance
by Sondra Horton Fraleigh contributions by Vida Midgelow, Ami Shulman, Amanda Williamson, Karen Barbour, Christine Bellerose, Robert Bingham, Kara Bond, Hillel D. Braude, Sondra Fraleigh, Kimerer LaMothe and Joanna McNamara
University of Illinois Press, 2018 Paper: 978-0-252-08373-0 | Cloth: 978-0-252-04204-1 | eISBN: 978-0-252-05078-7 Library of Congress Classification GV1588.3.B33 2017 Dewey Decimal Classification 792.8
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK In Back to the Dance Itself, Sondra Fraleigh edits essays that illuminate how scholars apply a range of phenomenologies to explore questions of dance and the world; performing life and language; body and place; and self-knowing in performance. Some authors delve into theoretical perspectives, while others relate personal experiences and reflections that reveal fascinating insights arising from practice. Collectively, authors give particular consideration to the interactive lifeworld of making and doing that motivates performance. Their texts and photographs study body and the environing world through points of convergence, as correlates in elemental and constant interchange modeled vividly in dance. Selected essays on eco-phenomenology and feminism extend this view to the importance of connections with, and caring for, all life.
Contributors: Karen Barbour, Christine Bellerose, Robert Bingham, Kara Bond, Hillel Braude, Sondra Fraleigh, Kimerer LaMothe, Joanna McNamara, Vida Midgelow, Ami Shulman, and Amanda Williamson.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Sondra Fraleigh is a professor emeritus of the Department of Dance at State University of New York College at Brockport. She is the editor of Moving Consciously: Somatic Transformations through Dance, Yoga, and Touch and the author of Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy.
REVIEWS
"A primer of phenomenological categories and their application in varying contexts . . . Back to the Dance Itself is like a tribute, an unplanned Festschrift, celebrating Fraleigh's contribution to the dynamic entwining of dance and phenomenology." --Journal of Folklore Research
"This beautiful collection is a choreography of voices emanating directly from movement. It celebrates Sondra Fraleigh's lifetime of integrating philosophical knowledge with somatic experiences at the same time as providing an empathic space for the contributions of others. Pressing contemporary issues such as climate change, the vitality of matter, and escaping from anthropocentrism are addressed, revealing new resonances for the philosophy and practices of phenomenology."--Susan Kozel, author of Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology
"Diving deep inside the boundary spaces that link body and language, this book is a tour de force. Asking 'What makes dance what it is?', Fraleigh et al. thread experiential paths that will appeal to movement practitioners across the dance and somatics spectrum. Plural phenomenologies are made philosophically accessible, with evocative exemplars revealing dance's immense horizons: diverse, relationally purposeful and always closer than we think."--Daniel Deslauriers, California Institute of Integral Studies
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Author Biographies and Places
Back to the Dance Itself: An Introduction
I. World as Body
Chapter 1. Phenomenology and Lifeworld Sondra Fraleigh
Chapter 2. Branching into Phenomenologies Sondra Fraleigh
Chapter 3. Improvising Meaning in the Age of Humans Robert Bingham
II. Performing Life and Language
Chapter 4. Improvisation as Paradigm for Phenomenologies Vida L. Midgelow
Chapter 5. Falling in Love with Language Amanda Williamson
Chapter 6. Living Phenomenology Sondra Fraleigh
III. Body and Place
Chapter 7. As the Earth Dances: A Philosophy of Bodily Becoming Kimerer L. LaMothe
Chapter 8. Filming Jitdance: Detroit Redux Joanna McNamara
Chapter 9. Being Ma: Moonlight Peeping through the Doorway Christine Bellerose
IV. Questions of Self-Knowing
Chapter 10. “What If . . .”: A Question of Transcendence Hillel D. Braude and Ami Shulman
Chapter 11. “Me, a Tree”: Young Children as Natural Phenomenologists Karen Bond
Back to the Dance Itself: Phenomenologies of the Body in Performance
by Sondra Horton Fraleigh contributions by Vida Midgelow, Ami Shulman, Amanda Williamson, Karen Barbour, Christine Bellerose, Robert Bingham, Kara Bond, Hillel D. Braude, Sondra Fraleigh, Kimerer LaMothe and Joanna McNamara
University of Illinois Press, 2018 Paper: 978-0-252-08373-0 Cloth: 978-0-252-04204-1 eISBN: 978-0-252-05078-7
In Back to the Dance Itself, Sondra Fraleigh edits essays that illuminate how scholars apply a range of phenomenologies to explore questions of dance and the world; performing life and language; body and place; and self-knowing in performance. Some authors delve into theoretical perspectives, while others relate personal experiences and reflections that reveal fascinating insights arising from practice. Collectively, authors give particular consideration to the interactive lifeworld of making and doing that motivates performance. Their texts and photographs study body and the environing world through points of convergence, as correlates in elemental and constant interchange modeled vividly in dance. Selected essays on eco-phenomenology and feminism extend this view to the importance of connections with, and caring for, all life.
Contributors: Karen Barbour, Christine Bellerose, Robert Bingham, Kara Bond, Hillel Braude, Sondra Fraleigh, Kimerer LaMothe, Joanna McNamara, Vida Midgelow, Ami Shulman, and Amanda Williamson.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Sondra Fraleigh is a professor emeritus of the Department of Dance at State University of New York College at Brockport. She is the editor of Moving Consciously: Somatic Transformations through Dance, Yoga, and Touch and the author of Butoh: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy.
REVIEWS
"A primer of phenomenological categories and their application in varying contexts . . . Back to the Dance Itself is like a tribute, an unplanned Festschrift, celebrating Fraleigh's contribution to the dynamic entwining of dance and phenomenology." --Journal of Folklore Research
"This beautiful collection is a choreography of voices emanating directly from movement. It celebrates Sondra Fraleigh's lifetime of integrating philosophical knowledge with somatic experiences at the same time as providing an empathic space for the contributions of others. Pressing contemporary issues such as climate change, the vitality of matter, and escaping from anthropocentrism are addressed, revealing new resonances for the philosophy and practices of phenomenology."--Susan Kozel, author of Closer: Performance, Technologies, Phenomenology
"Diving deep inside the boundary spaces that link body and language, this book is a tour de force. Asking 'What makes dance what it is?', Fraleigh et al. thread experiential paths that will appeal to movement practitioners across the dance and somatics spectrum. Plural phenomenologies are made philosophically accessible, with evocative exemplars revealing dance's immense horizons: diverse, relationally purposeful and always closer than we think."--Daniel Deslauriers, California Institute of Integral Studies
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Author Biographies and Places
Back to the Dance Itself: An Introduction
I. World as Body
Chapter 1. Phenomenology and Lifeworld Sondra Fraleigh
Chapter 2. Branching into Phenomenologies Sondra Fraleigh
Chapter 3. Improvising Meaning in the Age of Humans Robert Bingham
II. Performing Life and Language
Chapter 4. Improvisation as Paradigm for Phenomenologies Vida L. Midgelow
Chapter 5. Falling in Love with Language Amanda Williamson
Chapter 6. Living Phenomenology Sondra Fraleigh
III. Body and Place
Chapter 7. As the Earth Dances: A Philosophy of Bodily Becoming Kimerer L. LaMothe
Chapter 8. Filming Jitdance: Detroit Redux Joanna McNamara
Chapter 9. Being Ma: Moonlight Peeping through the Doorway Christine Bellerose
IV. Questions of Self-Knowing
Chapter 10. “What If . . .”: A Question of Transcendence Hillel D. Braude and Ami Shulman
Chapter 11. “Me, a Tree”: Young Children as Natural Phenomenologists Karen Bond