The Special Interest Group in Dance Anthropology of the Association of Social Anthropologists Greece, with the support of the Department of Performing and Digital Arts, the University of the Peloponnese hosts the panel discussion
Experiences of the dance phenomenon: Materialities of practice & observation
Friday, 09 December 2022, 18:00-21:00 EET / 16:00-19:00 GMT
On Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81434138597
A productive contrast can be traced in contemporary dance practices and conceptualisations of the dance phenomenon. On the one hand, UNESCO’s definition of the intangible cultural heritage incorporates dance in such an approach of culture that emphasises notions of preservation practices, dimensions of tradition and processes of identity-making. On the other hand, contemporary dance practices by artists such as William Forsythe’s Choreographic Objects as well as theoretical analyses of choreography (Andre Lepecki; Thomas Kampe) reveal quite remarkably the connection between materiality, the body and dance. Simultaneously, theoretical approaches such as “the body as flesh” suggest that perceptions regarding the material and immaterial status of the body itself do remain fluid (Eleni Papagaroufali).
We suggest a non-binary approach of the dual material-immaterial, one that designates the broad area of their multiple conceptualisations through which new ways can be identified to shed light on interesting enquiries and dimensions of the dance phenomenon. Through such a prism we can re-approach and re-negotiate the following:
• Various conceptualisations of dance as cultural heritage and as lived experience.
• Dance as a phenomenological and embodied experience as well as a sight deriving from the cultural product, consumerism and commercialisation.
• The typologies of performers as ‘creators of experience’ and the audience as ‘consumers’, and the various processes of identity-making related to these two.
• Embodied perception, materiality of the senses, and repercussions of research frameworks concerning the choreographic process and the theoretical discourse about dance.
• Notions of the body archive, memory, traces and tradition.
• Dimensions of preservation politics and re-enactment.
Steriani Tsintziloni & Eleni Kotsira
Panel Convenors / Οι Συντονίστριες του πάνελ
Panel programme
Introduction | Dr. Steriani Tsintziloni
Basement Dances: Re-Tracing a Fading Heritage | Dr. Thomas Kampe
Swirling materialities: Historical time, social memory and paradoxical experiences of vertigo through the vortex of dance | Dr. Mimina Pateraki
Ephemerality and Embodied Materiality in Contemporary Dance Performance: Exploring Polarities between Praxis & Capturing | Dr. Gina Giotaki
Looking at the Materiality of Intangible Cultural Heritage | Dr. Panas Karampampas
Afterword | Dr. Eleni Kotsira
> Panel working language: English
> See and download the abstracts and short bios of the participants in Greek and English here > Materiality of Dance – Panel programme_EN-EL
This panel is part of a series of events organised by the academic events committee of the Special Interest Group in Dance Anthropology.
Special Interest Group in Dance Anthropology Coordinator: Ioannis Manos
Academic events committee members (in alphabetical order): Virginia Christou, Gina Giotaki, Varvara Kosmatou, Eleni Kotsira, Natalia Koutsougera, Ioannis Manos, Betina Panagiotara, Mimina Pateraki, Steriani Tsintziloni, Natalie Zervou.