Abstract
The research of the last ten years in the field of dance has resulted in a number of works that make it necessary to theorize the radical potential of dance as a platform for political activity in the context of global, social and economic crises. The author, as a practitioner, teacher and theorist of dance and performance, working at a British university, is interested in exploring the possibilities of somatics in order to counter the utilitarian inclusion of somatic principles in the context of neoliberalism in post-Fordism conditions. The present study is built on the basis of the previous theoretical justifications by the author of the article of the practice of working together with various interdisciplinary points of view, including philosophical, political and performative. In the article, somatics acts as a common term to facilitate discussion of practices, related to contemporary dance art, including protests, dance walks, flash mobs and choreographic studies of performative participation. Although these practices are not widely recognized as somatic practices, they nonetheless operate at the somatic level and indicate the ever-changing relationship between the individual, the collective, and the social environment. The author seeks to theorize somatics as a critical and political practice of collective forms of being and cooperation. In the article, based on examples of collective embodiment (dance performance), the author emphasizes the politicization of somatic practices, since it is associated with the ideas of affect, ethics and time. It is assumed that the embodied expressions of collectivity in the form of politicized somatics can develop a valid tactic to counteract what can be called a mimetic phenomenon between dance practices and capitalism. In addition, it should be noted that the situation was only aggravated by the COVID 19 pandemic.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | pp. 10–27 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Central Asia Journal of Art Studies |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 20 Dec 2021 |
Keywords
- Somatics
- Collectivity
- Togetherness
- Ethics
- Affect
- Post-Fordism