The Invisible of the Dancing Body

Ruth Ronen

INTRODUCTION

How is the moving body experienced in dance by the observer? This question, which preoccupies in different ways dance theorists, historians of art, performance experts, and dance therapists, is posed and addressed in this chapter philosophically. In the present context, the philosophical approach means that we address the a priori conditions that make our visual experience of bodies in dance possible, even if these conditions may appear to counter common intuitions regarding the moving body. A common intuition would be that of assuming an immediacy regarding the moving body, since movement, unlike speech or intentional actions, appears not to require knowledge in order to be enacted, nor deciphering to be apprehended. This fundamental intuition regarding the primacy of movement and the immediate presence of the body as an object of experience, may also have to do with our apprehension of our own body as being “known immediately to everyone” (Schopenhauer, 1969, p. 100). For Schopenhauer the division of the world into will and representation commences from one’s encounter with one’s own body which attests to the force of will immediately present in the movement of the individual body.

However, despite this primary intuition regarding the immediacy of the moving body, this chapter will assess the presence of a priori assumptions regarding the body that condition the way the body is experienced. These assumptions vary according to the context in which the body is moving: in the theater, for instance, the moving body is assumed to be split between the body of the character it configures and the person of the actor. In the psychoanalytic clinic the body is taken as a reflection of the psyche (i.e., the body is symptomatic of the person, its psyche and pathologies, as having a headache due to stress); in social contexts the moving body is thought of in terms of a mediating site between the external social world and the person’s needs. These are obviously generalizations that can be disputed, yet their importance lies in indicating that no body is immediately given as is: the body is always already given through prior assumptions determining the way the body if and is experienced.

In this chapter we aim to tackle and articulate the a priori principles that guide our encounter with the body moving in dance. By describing these principles as a priori, it is emphasized that the issue is not that of the conventions of dance. Rather, prior to conventions, there are conditions that determine the very visibility of the body in dance. To clarify the distinction between convention and a priori condition, let us consider an analogy from the theater. In (mostly realistic) theater, it is conventionally assumed that although the stage is open on one side to the hall and the audience, the missing fourth wall is there, completing the enclosure of the scene between four walls. Prior to this convention of theatrical presentation, an a priori principle that separates the scene on stage from the reality of the onlooker stipulates the visibility of a fourth wall in the first place. Without this ontological division given in the theatrical scene, the observer will not only fail to perceive the scene as taking place in the confines of a room, but may decide to jump on stage to rescue the heroine from an approaching train. In other words, we are concerned here with the ontological (related to the mode of being) and the phenomenological (related to the mode of experiencing) conditionswhich determine how a theatrical scene is apprehended. Once these conditions are determined, only then is it possible to experience the scene on stage as taking place in an enclosed space of a room (i.e., assume a fourth wall).

What is the a priori condition for experiencing the dancing body?

We claim that the dancing body is a body to itself and as such it is a priori detachedfrom external principles of unity (whether unity is understood in terms of the body’s own complete shape or function, or in terms of subjectivity, selfhood, purpose, or meaningfulness). It will be shown that detachment is an invisible dimension of the body (described as the body’s mode of givenness), which yet conditions the dancing body’s visibility.