Trans-meaning – Dance as an embodied technology of perception

As an experiential practice of somatic perception, dance digs into the living matter of what is scientifically currently recognized as the source of self-consciousness and of the thinking process, producing what is commonly referred to as ‘embodied knowledge’ or ‘embodied thinking’. What is the expression of such a mode of knowledge? How can it be transmitted to other fields of knowledge? Departing from proposing the artistic practice of dance as a technology of proprioception, this article explores a particular view of this issue by relating the dancer’s phenomenological experience with some contemporary theories of cognitive science. It develops the notion of ‘embodied knowledge’ not merely as the innate know-how of the bodily system to act and survive, but as sensorial awareness of such know-how. This intensified awareness opens up an experiential understanding of reality as an embodied motion condition, generating a distinct reasoning based on a transformative paradoxical value ground.