Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance

Abstract

On the cover of both of these two books are photographs of women in loose white pants-arms extended, wrists twisted, each wearing concentrated facial expressions; both seen from front and back as if doubling in a mirror. Perhaps suggested by the reaching gesture, the bodies seem to implore the viewer. It is as if movement is held out and yet in abeyance, incomplete within the image, thus awaiting further fulfillment and explanation. As with the images, both books grapple with the conundrum of how movement communicates to a viewer, and how feelings might be evoked, whether kinesthetically or choreographically. Similar but different-one more historical, the other more fragmented-they also address the timely question of empathy in creative practice.Susan Leigh Foster's monograph is organized into four large chapters: the first three are essays on the key terms of choreography, kinesthesia, and empathy, followed by a final culminating reflection on "choreographing empathy." This latter has its own argument and offers readings of contemporary choreographies by artists from Thailand, Japan, native America, France, Britain, Germany. The edited collection by Dee Reynolds and Matthew Reason, on the other hand, arises from an interdisciplinary research project called "Watching Dance," and is organized into six sections each with an introduction, and includes case studies about kinesthetic empathy from fields as diverse as sports science, film, therapy, theater, dance, and photography. One might argue that these two books therefore represent some of the differences circulating in the field of dance studies, particularly as it is constituted in North America and Britain. Britain's well-developed conception of "practice as research" gives precedence to the phenomenological and interdisciplinary terrain of ideas about performance, whereas the prevalence of the concert dance tradition in the United States is aligned with the artistic and technical virtuosity of a choreographic canon elaborated within national and conceptual borders.Via the concept of empathy, both books address the burgeoning interest in embodiment and the phenomenology of experience, which is active in scholarly discourse across a range of diverse disciplines. In order to consider how empathy plays such an important role within contemporary cultural theory and creative practice, my discussion will be in three parts, provoked as much by the complementarity of these books as their differences in and through the use of key terms, images, and references. First, I will discuss their methodological contribution to choreography, and an expanded terrain of artistic research, from the perspectives of the U.S. and the UK academy. From there, I will consider the value of these books to interdisciplinary research in relation to "kinesthesia." I will conclude with discussion of the common term "empathy" as a means of addressing the place of the "affective turn" in performance and creative practice, with brief reference to wider debates in cultural studies.

»Det skal ikke se rigtigt ud« – Et koreografisk designeksperiment om den flertydige legende krop

“…Vi har fundet inspiration i koreografi-begrebet for at udvikle undervisningsdesigns, som kan skabe muligheder for, at legende bevaegelser kan opstå. Vi foreslår en bred opfattelse af begrebet koreografi, der kan rumme og beskrive den dynamiske og spontane kropslige kommunikation (Foster, 2011), som opstår, når vi bevaeger os fysisk sammen i legesituationer (Pedersen, 2023b). Laeseren inviteres således til at forestille sig, at de fysiske bevaegelser, der spontant udføres under en leg, efterfølgende kan forstås som en koreografi.…”

Diffracting Through an Ethical Itch: Becoming a Response-Able Dance Education Researcher

“…The following quote from Klien and Valk (2007) shapes my understanding of choreography: "If the world is approached as a reality constructed of interactions, relationships, constellations and proportionalities, then choreography is seen as the aesthetic practice of setting those relations or setting the conditions for these relations to emerge" (p. 220). Choreography is in this sense no longer about composing dances or organizing movement (Foster, 2010), but is rather an apparatus of possibilities, creating movement (or stillness) of any kind (Foster, 2011). For example, I choreographed the dance workshops, with the aim of creating different possibilities for the pupils to create their own bird dances rather than copying mine.…”

“…Doing research with the body supports my relational approach to choreography and inquiry but is also rooted in the dance practice that I engage in, both in the dance project and as a tool for analysis in the inquiry. My dance practice builds on the post-modern wave where improvisation was an approach to both creating dances and performing dances (e.g., Foster, 2011;Fraleigh, 1987). The dance is entangled with the lived body (Fraleigh, 1987) of the dancer, emerging through a bodily listening to the human and non-human matter that I dance with.…”

“…This guides me towards an embodied perspective on ethics (Pullen & Rhodes, 2015), or what Ellingson (2017) refers to as "ethics of being-with" (p. 46). Moreover, ethics is of choreographic matter through the empathic relations created through, for example, dance (Foster, 2011). I experienced that a strong empathic connection between the children, the teachers and I was created and maintained through dancing together in the dance workshops (see Flønes et al, 2022).…”

Music and dance: The comparison between non-dancer's aesthetic experience and their bodily sensations

“…Finally, such engagement of the observer with the work of art is followed by kinaesthetic responses, i.e. bodily sensations (Foster, 2008(Foster, , 2011Jola et al, 2011;Martin, 1939;Reason & Reynolds, 2010;Reynolds & Reason, 2012;Strukus, 2011).…”