Abstract
This chapter examines theoretical methodologies often used to analyze dance process, performance, and reception. After discussing the ability of the methodologies to account for the plurality of dance experience, Mullis argues for a pragmatic instrumentalism which holds that different theories may be applied to distinct areas of an interdisciplinary performance research project. In addition, a theory-in-process approach is discussed which holds that theory provides the artist with conceptual resources that facilitate the understanding and negotiation of choreographic and dramaturgical problems. Mullis concludes by considering whether and how theatrical performance can advance philosophical inquiry, as well as the efficacy of political performance, the reach of performance philosophy, and standards of interdisciplinary performance research.
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Notes
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“For Derrida, it is by naming entire zones of existence as belonging to the ‘animal’ that an onto-anthropo-phalogocentric-carnivorous mode of discourse reaffirms and redraws the arbitrary and vague line between human (power) and animal (subjection). One reiterates the animal as an animal precisely because the line that divides animals from humans is tenuous and constantly under threat of dissolving” (Lepecki 2016: 101).
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Another marker of poetic methodology is the use of often a dizzying array of continental thinkers.
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This approach is less common in contemporary academic contexts where interdisciplinarity is valued and in which authors focus, not generically on dance writ large, but on specific dances and dance artists (for example, see Wittje 2015). Further, the aims are more modest because of an awareness that existing philosophical ideas can be helpful in theorizing aspects of dance, but that other modes of analysis may be equally valuable.
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To flesh out the analogy with ethics, there are points of tension between the methodologies, for example, with contextualists emphasizing the negative socio-political implications of philosophical abstraction and generalization, and poetic advocates critiquing the analytic approach’s emphasis on logical analysis. For a discussion of such tensions, see Cull Ó Maoilearca (2018) and Cvejić (2015).
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As an aside, it should be noted that Pragmatism does not hold that all aspects of experience can be rationally disclosed. James emphasized that one should find time to wonder at the ineffable and Dewey remained sensitive to the fact that the unknown is felt as pregnant with possibility, that it is aesthetically sensed before it is clarified through research and experimentation. At the same time, experience does not end when a problem is solved, for doors always open to new situations with unique issues that often cannot be anticipated. Pragmatist inquiry produces awareness of and appreciation for the dynamic fields that one is contextualized by, fields that can never be totalized by reason.
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A relevant example is Jérôme Bel’s Disabled Theater (2012) which features actors from Theater Hora, a Zurich-based company consisting of professional actors with learning disabilities. Bel’s website features an interview that clearly articulates his reasons for working with the company: http://www.jeromebel.fr/index.php?p=2&s=15&ctid=1 [accessed 2/22/2019].
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Another condition is that film or performance must advance new philosophical thinking; however, I agree with Carroll that this condition is too strong, for a great deal of philosophical work entails qualifying, developing, and finding new applications for existing ideas that the original thinker did not or, because of their historical situatedness, could not consider (2009: 131).
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Foucault’s notion of “docile bodies” is similarly an affair of the means-ends continuum, for embodied experience of the student, solider, prisoner, or patient is indicative of an institution organized in terms of hierarchical socio-political principles. Individuals come to enact such ideological principles in activity and thereby support the power dynamics that define the institution. Surveillance and examinations are observational techniques that then confirm that the reciprocal dynamic between space and embodiment is functioning correctly. For more on this topic as it pertains to dance education in different pedagogical contexts see Green (1999, 2001, 2003).
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The notion of performance provoking philosophical inquiry answers the critique of pragmatic instrumentalism. It is arguably unreasonable to expect performance to advance a sustained philosophical position on, say, the veridicality of religious experience but, following Corby, performance philosophy is valuable because it “simultaneously opens a space for philosophy while challenging it to respond” (2019: 588). For a sustained response to the critique of Pragmatist instrumentalism, see Rorty (2016).
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A collaborative approach would also mitigate a constraint of autobiographical performance praxis: Later Rain has been theorized from the inside by one person, but observers of the completed work may find theoretical implications that I have not.
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Mullis, E. (2019). Conclusions: On Pragmatist Performance Philosophy. In: Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance. Performance Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29314-7_8
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