This lecture will focus on the interaction between contemporary dance practices and public spaces.
In the 20th century the body became “our general medium for having a world” (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception), which invited new, body-centric forms of artistic communication. We have witnessed the emergence of new categories of thinking beyond interpretation and verbalization. As Jean-Luc Nancy wrote in Corpus, “There is nothing about a body to figure out—except this, that the figure of a body is that body itself, unfigured and unfurled.” The focus on the body, kinetic art, muscular bonding, and the wisdom of the body as a guide define new contemporary dance practices, which allow for new ways of communication between the bodies of the dancers and the audience.