Embodying the Dance Rehearsal: The Time, Space and Situatedness of Dance Making

ABSTRACT

One of my principle aims as a dance educator is to cultivate somatic-based learning environments so that students develop, integrate, and hone a holistic, embodied sense of self. In order to achieve this objective, I strive to help students connect their movement to their ongoing thoughts, sensations, and perceptions. In this article, I describe the work that I have developed in relation to M.M. Bakhtin’s dialogism and the practice-based approach of F.M. Alexander. I suggest that while these objectives are readily attainable in dance technique classes and somatic-specific courses, the process is decidedly more challenging during the dance rehearsal. In an effort to design a somatic-based learning environment that supports the rehearsal process, this article describes work on self-other relations and the conveyance of meaning through embodied movement, with an eye to creating an approach to the rehearsal process that focuses on embodiment and dialogism.

KEYWORDS:

• Dance studies
• somatics
• choreography
• interdisciplinary
• rehearsal

Notes

1. I use the pronoun “she” throughout to denote the he/she/her/they individuals to whom I refer.

2. See the biography of M. M. Bakhtin by Clark and Holquist written in 1984.

3. See for example Pushkin (2017).

4. A broad array of AT teachers have worked on relevant performance inquiry: see for example (Madden 2014; Johnson 2020).