The sensitive knowledge of dance

In this article I will discuss the dancer’s physical potential and the sensitive knowledge (‘la connaissance sensible’) that emerges from dance practice. For this, I take Lévi-Strauss’ (2010) theory of the ‘savage mind’ as a reference. This theory is important to understand how the discipline of dance does not need to be justified through modern science (Lévi-Strauss 2010). It is understood that dance operates from sensitive knowledge, while modern science is expressed through the intelligible. I will point out how the dancer operates the sensitive, or dancing, thought, stressing that this type of knowledge is created through interest in how to use it and not through interest in how it serves, or what it means. I will then explain how, through sensitive knowledge, dancers propose new challenges during their aesthetic training in order to develop new body technologies, thereby increasing their expressive potential. For this, dancers need to develop body acuity. In other words, I will discuss the processes that dancers use to transform the perception of the self and of the world through danced gestures. In this process, the dancer is always looking for new challenges; he/she constantly deals with new risks in order to discover new knowledge. I will also discuss the problem that dance faces in traditional academia, which disregards sensitive knowledge and values scientific knowledge.