Philosophy and the Bodily Arts

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes I would like to thank Joanne Faulkner for her reading and commentary on an earlier version of this paper, and to thank Elizabeth Grosz for her ongoing support, critical feedback and helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank the two editors of this issue for their critical reading of this paper. The discussion of dance in this paper is informed by the understanding and generosity of those artists and practitioners with whom I have worked over many years. This is difficult to make visible according to the conventions of academic acknowledgement but is key to my having anything to say about dance. I would therefore like to acknowledge Margaret Lasica, Russell Dumas, Sally Gardner, Julia Scoglio and Anneke Hansen; and also Eva Karczag, Pam Matt, Lisa Nelson, Deborah Hay and Joan Skinner. 1. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science 1882, ed. Bernard Williams, trans. Josefine Nauckhoff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), §381. 2. Claire Colebrook writes, ‘The very concept of the subject is tied to a strategy of being and essence, rather than becoming’; Claire Colebrook, ‘A Grammar of Becoming: Strategy, Subjectivism and Style’, in Becomings: Explorations in Time, Memory and Futures, ed. Elizabeth Grosz (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp.117–40 (p.117). 3. Maxine Sheets‐Johnstone, The Phenomenology of Dance (London: Dance Books, 1966), p.4. 4. Thomas Csordas, ‘Embodiment and Cultural Phenomenology’, in Perspectives on Embodiment: The Intersections of Nature and Culture, ed. Gail Weiss and Honi Fern Haber (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp.143–162. 5. Thomas Csordas, ‘Somatic Modes of Attention’, Cultural Anthropology, 8 (1993), pp.135–56 (p.138). 6. Thomas Csordas, ‘Embodiment and Cultural Phenomenology’, p.149. 7. For a more detailed discussion on this point, see Philipa Rothfield, ‘Attending to Difference: Phenomenology and Bioethics’, in Ethics of the Body: Postconventional Challenges, ed. Margrit Shildrick and Roxanne Mykituik (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), pp.29–48; and Philipa Rothfield, ‘Differentiating Phenomenology and Dance’, Topoi, 24:1 (2005), pp.43–53. 8. Philipa Rothfield, ‘Differentiating Phenomenology and Dance’, p.48. See also David Hoy, ‘Critical Resistance: Foucault and Bourdieu’, in Perspectives on Embodiment: The Intersections of Nature and Culture, ed. Gail Weiss and Honi Fern Haber (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp.3–21. 9. Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality 1887, ed. Keith Ansell‐Pearson, trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 3–10. 10. Friedrich Nietzsche, Will to Power, ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale, (New York: Vintage, 1968), §291. 11. Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘On Truth and Lie in an Extra‐Moral Sense’ 1873, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufman (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), pp.42–50 (p.44). 12. See for example, Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §372. 13. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle 1969, trans. Daniel Smith (London: Continuum, 2005), p.20. 14. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p.23. 15. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p.23 16. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p.35 17. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p.20. 18. The very notion of an inside is, however, also a product of the self's interpretation: ‘Our depth is governed by a completely different system of designations, for which there is neither outside nor inside’, Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p.30. 19. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §354. 20. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p.25. 21. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p.19. 22. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p.26. 23. cf Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music, ed. Michael Tanner, trans. Shaun Whiteside (London: Penguin, 1993). 24. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §369. 25. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §369. Eva Karczag notes ‘actually the performance often clarifies things for me and I begin to see more layers that exist within a piece than I realised during the process of making it’. Elizabeth Dempster, ‘Explorations Within the New Dance Aesthetic: An Interview with Eva Karczag’, Writings on Dance, 14 (Summer 1995/1996), pp.39–52 (p.48). 26. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §369. 27. Deborah Jowitt, ‘Russell Dumas: On Film, An interview by Deborah Jowitt’, Writings on Dance, 17 (1997/1998), pp.1–14 (p.7). 28. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, p.29. 29. Libby Dempster, ‘Ballet and its Other: Modern Dance in Australia’, Movement and Performance (MAP) Symposium, 25–26 July, 1998, ed. Erin Brannigan (Melbourne: Ausdance, 1999), pp.10–17 (p.16). 30. Pierre Klossowski, Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, pp.30–1. 31. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §369. 32. Lisa Nelson has, in recent years, conducted a practice that investigates the role and nature of vision within dance. She is one of the founders of Contact Improvisation in the United States, as well as founding Editor of the journal Contact Quarterly. See Lisa Nelson, ‘The Sensation is the Image’, Writings on Dance 14 (Summer 1995/1996), pp 4–16. Eva Karczag is a dancer, dance maker and educator. Her performance work and her teaching are informed by dance improvisation and mindful body practices, including T'ai Chi, the Alexander Technique, Ideokinesis and Yoga. Eva danced with the Trisha Brown Dance Company from 1979–1986, and has taught dance at major colleges throughout the USA, Australia and Europe. See Eva Karczag, ‘Explorations Within the New Dance Aesthetic: As Yet Untitled’, Writings on Dance 14 (Summer 1995/1996), pp.39–52. 33. Eva Karczag, ‘Explorations Within the New Dance Aesthetic: As Yet Untitled’, p.49. 34. Eva Karczag, ‘Moving the Moving’, Writings on Dance 14 (1995/1196), pp.33–38 (p.33). 35. Russell Dumas has been Artistic Director of Dance Exchange, Australia since 1976. Before then he performed with Twyla Tharp and Dancers (USA), Trisha Brown and Company (USA), The Royal Ballet (UK), London Festival Ballet (UK), Ballet Rambert (UK) and Nederlands Dans Theatre (Holland). 36. It does however confront traditional and classical dancers who want to manipulate their inherited and embodied forms (See Jérôme Bel and Pichet Klunchun, ‘Pichet Klunchun and Myself’, Melbourne International Arts Festival, October 2006). 37. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, p.8. 38. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, p.14.