Dancing bodies, spaces/places and the senses: A cross-cultural investigation

This article demonstrates that ‘dancing bodies’, ‘space’, ‘place’ and the ‘senses’ cannot be accepted as universal concepts since they are embedded within typically western understandings, and argues that all corporealities and spatialities are socially and culturally mediated. Wanting to engage with dance as a complex holistic, polysemic, multi-sensory and socially/culturally rooted practice, dance scholars need to be aware of cultural variations in conceptualizations of dancing bodies in space. The article offers a cross-cultural perspective, presenting different corporealities, sensoria and spatial orientations of dancing bodies using a variety of examples, ranging from Balinese dance to Josephine Baker, from Namibian to Australian Aboriginal dance.