YorkSpace has migrated to a new version of its software. Access our Help Resources to learn how to use the refreshed site. Contact diginit@yorku.ca if you have any questions about the migration.
 

Somatic Anacrusis: An Experiential Poetics of Deborah Hay's Choreography and Practice in the Solo At Once

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorBailey, Steven C.
dc.creatorAndrews, Pamela Megan
dc.date.accessioned2016-11-25T14:05:44Z
dc.date.available2016-11-25T14:05:44Z
dc.date.copyright2016-07-12
dc.date.issued2016-11-25
dc.date.updated2016-11-25T14:05:44Z
dc.degree.disciplineCommunication & Culture, Joint Program with Ryerson University
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThis project is a kind of doingmovingthinking: a close study of iconic American dancer/choreographer Deborah Hays choreography and practice through my particular dancing experience of her solo At Once. The resulting experiential poetics illuminates both the implicit critique of an instrumental/rational paradigm and also the ethical implications of the particular relationality enacted in Hays work. I characterize Hays work as a radical communication practice, one that moves language through the body in a dynamic torqueing process that both gathers toward and unravels from the edges of meaningfulness in a process of perception. I work at the interdisciplinary intersection of dance, performance, somatics and cultural studies, and my thinking draws substantially on Maurice Merleau-Pontys phenomenological philosophy and language. Aspiring to a balanced integration of moving and writing, of practice and theory, I follow a performance studies approach, attempting, as characterized by performance scholar Dwight Conquergood: to live betwixt and between theory and theatricality, paradigms and practices, critical reflection and creative accomplishment (318). Through personal daily practice and performance of Hays work allied with close description, I apply my devised method of emergent choreographic analysis to Hays choreography and practice. This analysis, conducted from inside the practice of the work, reveals how Hays complex and distinctly linguistic choreography operates as a constructed situation for the practice of perception and that, in performance, this practice moves language through the body in a dynamic torqueing process that engenders a unique lived experience of paradoxical simultaneity. I coin the term somatic anacrusis to articulate this underlying processual phenomenon. Reconsidering the dimension of relationality in Hays work, I re-frame somatic anacrusis as a pre-relational pre-disposing, a kind of suspended or unconsummated relationality. Feminist philosopher Luce Irigarays thinking helps illuminate the ethical implications of Hays work as a practice of perception that opens a new way toward the other. I conclude by appropriating Hays own rhetorical interrogative strategy what if? What if somatic anacrusis offers a possible answer to Irigarays call for a new way to approach the other that respects fundamental difference and yet allows encounter?
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/32710
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectPhilosophy
dc.subject.keywordsDeborah Hay
dc.subject.keywordsDance
dc.subject.keywordsContemporary dance
dc.subject.keywordsExperimental contemporary dance
dc.subject.keywordsChoreography
dc.subject.keywordsImprovisation
dc.subject.keywordsScores
dc.subject.keywordsPerformance
dc.subject.keywordsPhenomenology
dc.subject.keywordsFeminism
dc.subject.keywordsFeminist theory
dc.subject.keywordsLaban Movement Analysis
dc.subject.keywordsLMA
dc.subject.keywordsSomatics
dc.subject.keywordsSomatic studies
dc.subject.keywordsPractice-as-research
dc.subject.keywordsPractice-based-research
dc.subject.keywordsAuto-ethnography
dc.subject.keywordsAutoethnography
dc.subject.keywordsChoreographic analysis
dc.subject.keywordsEmergent choreographic analysis
dc.subject.keywordsJudson Dance Theater
dc.subject.keywordsArt
dc.subject.keywordsBody
dc.subject.keywordsMovement
dc.subject.keywordsPoetics
dc.subject.keywordsEthics
dc.subject.keywordsPraxis
dc.subject.keywordsPerception
dc.subject.keywordsEmbodiment
dc.subject.keywordsEmbodied research
dc.subject.keywordsExperiential research
dc.subject.keywordsDance studies
dc.subject.keywordsPerformance studies
dc.subject.keywordsCommunication and culture
dc.subject.keywordsWomen in performance
dc.subject.keywordsPerformance-generating system
dc.subject.keywordsSubjectivity
dc.subject.keywordsOtherness
dc.subject.keywordsOther
dc.subject.keywordsMaurice Merleau-Ponty
dc.subject.keywordsLuce Irigaray
dc.subject.keywordsRudolf Laban
dc.titleSomatic Anacrusis: An Experiential Poetics of Deborah Hay's Choreography and Practice in the Solo At Once
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Andrews_P_Megan_2016_PhD.pdf
Size:
9.23 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.83 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
YorkU_ETDlicense.txt
Size:
3.38 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download

Collections

Communication & Culture, Joint Program with Toronto Metropolitan University

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.