Sensing weight in movement

From a phenomenological perspective this article aims at exploring how the weight of the body can be perceived from within when moving. The exploration begins with a diversity of dancers' experiences by looking into thirteen professional dancers' individualized eclectic techniques, including, for example, ballet, different kinds of somatic practices and/or Butoh. The lived experiences of the dancers thereby present the empirical basis for a phenomenologically informed description of how the physical mass as weighted is present to the dancers' experiences. Across the different qualia and content of the dancers' subjective experiences two dimensions of self-consciousness could be recognized. In one dimension the physical mass of the body is objectified and relates to a scrutinization of sensations. The other dimension verifies a pre-reflective and performative dimension of experience and relates to an overall sensation of what the body feels like in movement. In both dimensions of self-consciousness the dancers' experiences exemplify different kinds of possible sensorial qualia and bring attention to the fact that sensing the weight of the body from within also form part of situated and shared experiences.