Rhizikon – Chloé Moglia

In many scientific fields, a state denotes a stable disposition of elements. As regards the dancing body, talking about a state presupposes, as such, that at the heart of a momentum of never-ending change, something must be stable. This « something » would denote that which triggers the desire to initiate a vigorous dialogue with the environment – just like the trapeze artist Chloé Moglia seeks to do in her solo Rhizikon by drawing together the memories of her work on this piece of apparatus.  

Waiting – Carlotta Ikeda

The result of the hours spent in the studio, a sort of "core of experience" for dancers, could be compare to the idea of state.  

Butoh, exemplary dance from this point of view emphasizes the precedence that imagination and feelings have on producing the gesture. The dance try to remember noteworthy experiences, whether they are rooted in dance or in life in general.

Wilfride Piollet

The etoile dancer Wilfride Piollet, evoking the different ways of expression, from classical dance to modern dance, suggests in this excerpt that this notion of state, of the dancer's interiority, is not peculiar to modern dances and contemporary.

Mergulho – Ana Rita Barata

Moreover, dancers are aware of how space influences gesture: dancing outdoors, modify the dance space with lights are all variables that can affect how movement is produced.

Basically, the state of a dancer’s body would reflect this blend of intentions, postures and emotions – the core of experience – which punctuates the performer’s personal experience and would unfurl through time and space, but also through the relationship with others and through other conditions specific to each performance.  

Pororoca – Lia Rodrigues

In the above excerpt, where Odile Duboc explains her focus on the sensory experience of the dancers in contact with materials to nourish his dance of sensations, the spectator that we are, remains confronted with the difficulty to say what he actually perceives.
With this excerpt, the impression of permanent movement perceived by the spectator is quite close to the intention of Lia Rodriguez, the choreographer, who seeks to restore the movement of shoals of fish. As if the degree of porosity between the body of the dancer and the perception of the spectator was the result of the confrontation of their two corporeities.

Odile Duboc, une conversation chorégraphique

Dancing and watching dance are two different activities yet which stem, on a number of points, from the same desire for movement.

State of the body, for us therefore refers to all the tensions and intentions that develop inwardly and resonate outwardly (state of the dancing body).

These considerations illustrate that the term “state of the body” partially covers other notions, which are just as imprecise, and which exist in the sphere of performing arts, like “scenic presence” and performance. These portmanteau words, which are used for ease of reference, if we were to look just a little more closely, reveal a richness that enable us to clarify and specify the practices related to movement.

Bernard Michel, De la création chorégraphique, Pantin, Centre national de la danse, coll. « Recherches », 2001.

Boissière Anne et Kintzler Catherine (eds.), Approche philosophique du geste dansé. De l’improvisation à la performance, Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses universitaires du Septentrion, coll. « Esthétique et sciences des arts », 2006.

Damasio Antonio R., L’Erreur de Descartes. La raison des émotions, Paris, Odile Jacob, coll. « Sciences », 1995.

Formis Barbara (ed.), Penser en corps. Soma-esthétique, art et philosophie, Paris, L’Harmattan, coll. « L’art en bref », 2009.

Laban Rudolph, La Maîtrise du mouvement, trad. J. Challet-Haas et M. Bastien, Arles, Actes Sud, 1994.  

Louppe Laurence, Poétique de la danse contemporaine, Bruxelles, Contredanse, 2000.

Monnier Mathilde et Nancy Jean-Luc, Dehors la danse, Lyon, Rroz, 2001.

Perrin Julie, Projet de la matière – Odile Duboc , Dijon, Les Presses du réel / Centre national de la danse, 2007.

Rabant Claude, (ed.), « Etats de corps », Revue internationale de psychanalyse n° 5, 1994.

Schulmann Nathalie, « Le danseur est une personne », < http://www.sens-public.org/spip.php?article170 > [consulté le 07.03.11].

Philippe Guisgand is professor of dance universities at the University of Lille. He is a researcher at CEAC and leads the program "Dialogues between art and research". He is a designer of a choreographic analysis path for which he has developed an original kinesic bias ("Reception of the choreographic spectacle: from a functional description to aesthetic analysis", STAPS Review n ° 74, autumn 2006, 117 -130). He also works to better understand the means by which spectators give an account of their sensitive reception as well as the political consequences of aesthetic debates ("The workshops of the spectator, factories of the sensitive", Quaderni n ° 83, winter 2013-2014, 59 -71). Specialist of the work of Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (The Sons of Endless Intertwining, Septentrion, 2007, Anne Teresa of Keersmaeker, L'Epos, 2009 and Intimate Chords, Dance and Music at De Keersmaeker, Septentrion 2017), Finally, he is interested in the dialogues of the arts ("Demands and addresses: dance and music by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker" in Stephanie Schroedter (ed.), Zwischen Hören und Sehen, Würzburg, Koenigshausen & Neumann, 2012, 425-437) and to certain aspects of performativity ("About the notion of body condition" in Josette Féral (ed.), Performative Practices, Body Remix, Montreal / Rennes, University of Quebec Press / Rennes University Press, 2012, 223-239).