Abstract
In this opening chapter, synergies between bodily structures/forms and material structures on site are introduced and explored. The chapter presents reflection on enmeshments instigated through movement practice, and the potentially affective outcomes of site-based body practice are explored. The theoretical discussions draw on the fields of architectural design and urban planning (Sennett, Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization. London: Faber and Faber, 1994; Bloomer and Moore, Body, Memory, and Architecture. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978; Gins and Arakawa, Architectural Body. Tuscaloosa and London: The Architectural Press, 2002), new materialism (Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010; Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016; Barad, Meeting the Universe Half Way: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007), experiential anatomy and biomimetics (Knippers et al. 2016; Olsen and McHose, The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2014) to consider and explore ideas of body-site porosity and articulate practical approaches through which body-site relationships might be deliberated. Through this approach, the chapter explores: How are bodily forms and structures reflected and enmeshed within the built environments we inhabit? What is the affective potential of these synergies and how might ‘site-based body practice’ expose and explore intra-active dialogues between bodies and sites?
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Notes
- 1.
In a discussion of urban park design, for example, she critiques town planning practices and presents an alternative narrative to the often posited perspective of urban parks as intrinsically life-affirming, health-giving spaces. She argues that human actions and engagement with public parks and squares confer the success of such spaces as opposed to their intrinsic possession of these qualities which, she asserts, are convenient tropes and narratives adopted by town planners and architects: ‘Parks are volatile places. They tend to run to extremes of popularity and unpopularity. Their behaviour is far from simple. They can be delightful features of city districts, and economic assets to their surroundings as well, but pitifully few are. They can grow more beloved and valuable with the years, but pitifully few show this staying power’ (1961, p. 89).
- 2.
In modern-day medicine, however, the term is commonly applied to describe a sudden loss of consciousness caused by a temporary loss of blood flow to the brain, a condition commonly referred to as a black-out.
- 3.
For further details, see: http://danceindevon.org.uk/commondance/.
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Hunter, V. (2021). Material Structures: Bodies and Sites. In: Site, Dance and Body. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64800-8_2
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