The Invisible Score: Phenomenology and the Excess of Dance Improvisation

This paper explores the intersection of embodiment, perception, and aesthetic experiences in dance through the lens of phenomenological theory. Drawing from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's perceptual phenomenology, Jean-Luc Marion's notion of phenomenological excess, and Jean-Louis Chrétien's responsorial phenomenology, I propose variations of audiencing informed by my lived/living experiences as a dance improviser. Audiencing reveals dance improvisation as a response to a call that urges one to transcend personal boundaries. This call is felt in ways that resonate with a developed phenomenology of audiencing as an act of responsiveness. The paper posits that dancing inherently exceeds any effort to fully comprehend or encapsulate it. Beginning with the contextualization of audiencing within media and performance studies, the discussion extends to a phenomenology of improvisational audiencing and an analysis of the dance's phenomenological excess. The paper concludes by introducing the concept of the ever-present invisible or intangible score: the excess of the dance that cannot fully be captured in words.