Friday, April 20th, 2018.
3:00 pm.
Venue: Carlos Santamaria Zentroa, Room A1.
Abstract:
The original sense of kinesthesia captures a reference to movement (kine) with sensation and perception (aesthetics), which has been related in various manners to a faculty of “taste” for dance. Dance critic John Martin famously advocated that dance appreciation requires “a kinesthetic sense in working condition” in order to grasp artistically relevant properties. In its modern version, the sense has been called proprioception (Montero) or refers to a broad specter of sensory-motor capacities (Carroll and Seeley), but the core idea still: an enhanced bodily sense of movement means a better appreciation insofar it allows the grasping of kinesthetic (aesthetic and/or artistic) properties.
Nowadays, “kinaesthesia,” “kinesthesia,” and related terms like “metakinesis” have become popular in dance discourse: You hear it in the studio, after a performance or in academic debates. The relevance of kinesthetic phenomena for dance practice is undeniable, but it is often unclear to understand its role in an account of dance appreciation, in part because it is unclear what the meaning of “kinesthetic” is. I propose to distinguish two uses—a broad use and narrow use—and two emphases—one highlights the bodily experience, the other the movement features. Using it one way or the other does not require a commitment with a particular model of appreciation, but it may have implications for an account on dance appreciation e.g. when applied to account on dance aesthetic judgements.
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