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Volume 11, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 1757-1871
  • E-ISSN: 1757-188X

Abstract

Abstract

This article addresses the transformative potential of children's physical play and dance improvisation. Using the enactive approach as a theoretical framework, it is argued that play and dance improvisation trigger novel sense-making capabilities by a deep engagement with the environment. Both activities give rise to transformative forces, ways of becoming that create openings and passages through which one re-engages and re-connects with the environment. This article combines theoretical reflection with artistic practice. By intermingling the thinking with the doing, I hope to gain embodied insights in underlying mechanisms of both play and dance improvisation. First, I discuss the concept of transformation. Then I explore how the enactive approach can be helpful in understanding the emergence of new values and meanings in both play and dance improvisation through dynamic coupling. From here I move to my artistic practice. I present an auto-ethnographic research that consists of two events. The first event is a spontaneous play event of my 12-year-old daughter that serves as an entrance point to examine animal becomings as transformative forces. The second event is an improvised dance solo, in which I re-enact the animal becomings of my daughter. The aim is to grasp, in a corporeal sense, the transformative forces that are at work here.

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2019-12-01
2024-12-07
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/content/journals/10.1386/jdsp_00003_1
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Becoming animal: Children's physical play and dance improvisation as transformative activities that generate novel meanings
Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices 11, 157 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1386/jdsp_00003_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jdsp_00003_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jdsp_00003_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): animal becoming; children's play; dance improvisation; enactive account; participatory sense-making; transformation

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