Returning to Lacan: Psychoanalytic Theory and the Uses of Language in Rehearsal Processes of European Contemporary Dance

In this article, I examine the role and different uses of language within the creative processes of European contemporary dance. Focusing mainly on the creation of William Forsythe’s performance Sider (2011), but also considering a few other examples such as Taneli Törmä’s Effect (2019), I trace a search for language that helps to make movement concepts tangible. In doing so, I draw on a concept of language that follows from Lacan’s psychoanalysis and his theory of the signifier. By returning to Lacan, I develop a reading of his work that challenges the predominant view that, within a Lacanian framework, the entry into the symbolic order means the (dancing) body is inevitably limited in its possibilities because it is either caught in a cultural and ideological grid, or subject to social normativity. In this attempt to revitalise Lacan, I discuss the influential critique of his psychoanalysis by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, whose own philosophical work has been particularly prominent in recent dance studies where psychoanalysis consequently lost its interpretative appeal. By shedding light on not only the divergences but also the commonalities between Lacan and Deleuze/Guattari, I intend to show what value Lacan’s theorisation of language still might have for probing the complex relationship between linguistic expressions and bodily enactment within contemporary dance.