This research project is interdisciplinary and intercultural. Broadly, it moves between the practices of phenomenology and dance in order to contribute in an original way to contemporary debates associated with a so-called 'somatic turn' in recent critical theory. Specifically, the project engages with the phenomenology/ontology of the late Merleau-Ponty, and with Butoh, a dance form that emerged in Japan in the late 1950s, having sources in Noh Theatre and Kabuki and western Expressionist Dance. What these practices bring to the broad contemporary debates concerning somatic/embodiment, in methodologically distinct ways, is a focus on intercorporeality; a phenomenon/experience/lived concept that, in Merleau-Ponty’s later work, increasingly replaces earlier notions of intersubjectivity, thus decentering the western, epistemological concept of the (humanist) “subject” and emphasising instead an anonymous, pre-personal basis of existence. The project as a whole draws largely on my own original research of an as yet largely un-researched constellation of source materials and practices. It also contributes to Merleau-Pontean scholarship by examining Merleau-Pontean ideas that have still not been fully exploited, and exploring possible relationships between this material and Eastern philosophical views of embodiment. A further important aspect of the originality of my work is its methodological approach as I also discuss issues of intercorporeality and the pre-personal experientially, through lived practice and interrogations of Butoh. Here, engagement with the intercorporeal/prepersonal is through processes of enactment and it is my own body that is the major instrument of data-collection. This methodological emphasis is important since a large part of Merleau-Ponty’s later project was also centred on methodology, namely his ongoing search for appropriate philosophical ‘instruments’ and for a philosophical language able, paradoxically, to open up the realm of pre-reflexive/pre-linguistic being and learn from it.

This thesis is the account of cross-disciplinary research that explores spatial audio experiences in multimodal contexts. The practice of arranging dynamical modifications of spatial attributes of sound to create impressions of movement through sound has been applied to dance choreography and theatre. Using wave field synthesis and ambisonics technologies for spatial audio sound playback, two projects have been created: Stranded (2013), a joint choreography for three dancers and sonic movement in collaboration with choreographer Jalianne Li, and I Hear You See Me (2014), an audiovisual installation featuring participatory theatre, sonic movement, and motion graphics, in collaboration with theatre artist Silvia Mercuriali and visual artist Simon Wilkinson. These works are the outcome of a complex collaborative exchange between the author and the mentioned artists and a comparison at multiple levels (aesthetic, technical, cultural) between the different disciplines involved, and propose alternative reflections about spatial audio composition. For example, the choreographic ideas of Li, the aesthetics and movement studies of Rudolf Laban, the works and writing of choreographers Mary Wigman, Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch have all been used to evaluate the kinetic power of sonic movement and its strengths measured against the clarity and immediacy of a dancing body. The participatory strategies of Mercuriali’s theatre, the composite works by Len Lye's, Oskar Fischinger's audiovisual experiments, and historical and contemporary examples from kinetic and installation art have all helped to bring forward a further reflection over a shift of function of sound, from essence of a composition to instrument for realising a kinetic idea. Highlighting the necessity of a multimodal context when using spatial audio, but limiting the idea of a Sonic Choreosophia to a simple suggestion, this thesis thus documents a novel approach of using sound to create movement per se, and its potential for further development.

Choreography is commonly understood as a technical term that describes what the choreographer does in a literal sense: writing the dancing bodies according to a master’s set narrative. However, recent events in contemporary choreography suggest a different possibility of articulating choreography as a technique of offering rather than a technique of domination over other bodies. Through an analysis of some groundbreaking choreographic experiments by Xavier Le Roy, Jérôme Bel, Boris Charmatz, Eszter Salamon, Christine De Smedt, Jan Ritsema, and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, which have gained visibility since the late 1990s in the global art scene beyond the Western institution of dance, this thesis aims to theorise this shift in what choreography is and can be. In an attempt to theorise choreography as a technique of offering, this thesis illuminates the relationship between some of the tactical operations in contemporary choreographic experiments and the post-structuralist rethinking of power, institution, the body, subjectivity and knowledge production. Turning to Michel Foucault’s rethinking of power and Jacques Rancière’s challenge of the position of mastery, it aims to articulate the tactical deconstructions of the choreographer-master in contemporary choreographic experiments. Borrowing Hannah Arendt’s notion of a ‘space of appearance’ and Jean-Luc Nancy’s rethinking of body, it attempts to articulate how choreography as a spatiotemporal technique offers spaces of appearances for other bodies. This thesis also highlights a different possibility of articulating choreography by positioning it in the critical field called the ‘curatorial’. Reflecting the contemporary disciplinary crisis in art, where the given methodologies and tools no longer do the job that they used to do, there are increasing demands from cultural producers for different modes of operations in order to open up new critical possibilities of interdisciplinary research. In thinking through Le Roy and De Keersmaeker’s ‘choreographed’ exhibitions, this thesis aims to rethink choreography in terms of the curatorial. This also means to rethink the curatorial in terms of choreography, where both theatre-making and exhibition-making can be rearticulated as a matter of body in relation to other bodies.

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This thesis theorises the practice of the performer and choreographer Akram Khan through Homi Bhabha's conceptual framework of the 'third space', and examines the relationship between his identity and his art. It argues that Khan‟s meteoric rise to stardom within the contemporary British cultural milieu is worthy of academic scrutiny, and situates his performance aesthetic at the interstices between the politics of diasporic identity and the syncretic genre of physical theatre. Consequently, the thesis challenges popular perceptions of Khan‟s language as 'Contemporary Kathak' by suggesting that instead, his aesthetic makes a significant contribution to the field of physical theatre, due to its concern with embodied subjectivities, interpersonal politics and socio-political legibility of movement. As a result it is not so much contemporising Kathak, as it is changing the landscape of physical theatre by injecting into it fundamental philosophies of Kathak, through a reconfiguration of the principles of abhinaya and rasa as laid out in the Natyashastra, the ancient Indian dramaturgical treatise. The Introduction outlines research questions addressed in the thesis and the methodological approaches undertaken, before providing a critique of the label 'Contemporary Kathak' and a genealogy of the physical theatre genre. Chapter 2 identifies interlinked biographical circumstances, creative choices and socio-political conditions that have fuelled Khan's rise to success. In Chapter 3 Khan's placement of his corporeality within the landscape of London's Docklands is analysed as an autoethnographic enquiry in his televised solo Loose in Flight (1999). Chapter 4 compares Khan to Peter Brook as an intercultural performance maker through an analysis of Gnosis (2010). In Chapter 5 Khan's multiple evocations of third space are explored in zero degrees (2005). Through Chapter 6 Khan's directorial debut in Bahok (2008) is examined as a commentary on relocated subjectivities as travelling homes. Finally, the Conclusion theorises Khan within the framework of cosmopolitanism. It then cements the ways in which Khan draws on his predecessors in the physical theatre genre, before identifying how he contributes to it by infusing into its remit the principles of abhinaya and rasa, thereby lending it a unique cultural syncretism.

The research contributes to the possibilities of challenging and expanding what a choreographer might be when he/she plays an interactive role in the performance event, investigating the artistic and social potentials of structured improvisation in relation to instant composition. It shifts the control between choreographer and dancers, addressing the traditional hierarchy within aspects of conditions of authority (Martin, 1985) and trust and power (Foucault, 1995). The choreographer is confronted with losing and gaining control, which can provoke vulnerability not usually visible in the performance context (Stuart, 2010). Dealing with participation, reflection and process challenges not only the identity of the role of the choreographer, but has consequences for the identity of the whole work. It raises questions of responsibility and ownership, questioning the choreographer’s single authorship for the work, offering opportunities to let the work grow by sharing authorship between all performers (Laermans, 2008, 2015). The unexpected energies of more people involved and the use of improvisation with its changeability allow choreography to be experienced as an open work (Margolis/1981, Rubidge/2000). Agreeing that dance is a social practice (Klien, 2008a), choreography can be seen as an illustration of the functioning (Lehmen, 2004) of the group of performers as a social system, with one element affecting the other, which makes the system constantly evolve (Luhmann, 1995). The interrelationships between all participants, including the audience that shape and form a system with significant features, become visible throughout the performance duration. Considering social interaction more broadly and with relevance beyond dance, choreography performs social norm and structures (Klein, 2013) and can illustrate changes within society to make them more apparent, proposing a springboard for debate. The research offers findings in terms of learning gained through working in groups; working with multi directional processes and the use of reflection provides a democratic, open and liberating space to all participants.

This thesis considers the relationship between dance and digital media, and considers a specific type of case regarding this relationship: live and mediated. My motivation has been to identify and investigate, through practice, some of the difficulties presented when live and mediated bodies are placed within the same performance environment. In order to challenge some of the difficulties of what I consider as the problematic medium of digital dance, this thesis offers an examination of the ways in which digital media can positively transform the processes of making movement, and explores how the assimilation of media, as an integral agent within movement generation, can counter the dominance of the digital. Such dominance has been considered using a Practice As Research (PaR) model, and thus the thesis exemplifies both the creation of, and a deep reflection on, three works: Shift (2010-11), Betwixt & Between (2012-13) and Modulation_one (2013-14). Through the development of these works, I have sought to formally analyze and illuminate how media technologies, and in particular projection, can enrich the processes for making movement. This has been done in the context of a proliferation of digital technologies being available within a studio setting. In particular, the works have been established from the perspective of the dancer, which represents a specific case study for challenging the dominance of the digital. What follows in the written thesis is an analysis of what is a continuing and emerging practice. The written thesis therefore serves as both a document of the process and presents an illustration of a methodological approach for generating synergistic relationships with movement and projection. This relationship is proposed as a concept for live-digital dancing, which represents the main contribution to knowledge. The term live-digital advances the idea that a dancer is neither bound or restricted by either a live or digital construct, rather she is inspired to move and respond, in the moment of performance, to an unfolding assemblage of live and digital materials. Significantly, this has been established through the experiential encounters of the dancer moving with simultaneous projections of self. Live-digital therefore offers a methodological approach for constructing digital dance performance environments, which place perception and experience at the fore.

This thesis presents a selection of my published works and an accompanying exposition to demonstrate my sustained, substantial, continuous and coherent research and how it has made an original contribution to the field of dance history. The nine selected published works—Volume 2—written over the course of three decades, consider modern dance between 1900 and 1945 and how its historical study illuminates this significant period. All these writings made contributions to dance history that were original in their time. My first publication helped to define the field of dance history. My most recent one has taken an innovative approach to modern dance, informed by my developed understanding of the idea of dance history. The exposition—volume 1— examines my ideas of dance history. It does so by placing my writings within the context of the development of dance history as a field, especially in the UK. It goes further by considering this development within the broader context of the development of history as a discipline, both philosophically and practically. This contextualisation is then used to reflect further on my writings and their original contributions to dance historiography. I conclude with a reconsideration of the idea of dance history.

Understanding the processes involved in effective talent development represents an aspiration for individuals involved in elite performance (Abbott and Collins, 2004). The available literature acknowledges a generally significant and extensive commitment required to effectively transition to an elite stage (Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Romer, 1993). The aim of this thesis was to explore the developmental trajectories of dancers in an elite dance company from the perspectives of staff and performers. The research deployed a series of qualitative methods (including observations, interviews, focus groups and audio diaries) to gain an insight into the conditions supporting and / or inhibiting individuals’ progression. The data were initially discussed in the context of two motivational theories (i.e., achievement goal theory, [Nicholls, 1984], and self-determination theory, [Deci and Ryan, 1985]). However, as the thesis evolved, the data increasingly challenged the utility of these respective theories. Subsequently, several sociologically oriented concepts developed by Pierre Bourdieu (1986) were introduced to better make sense of the findings. The introduction of the sociological perspectives was reflective of the evolving nature of the thesis; such an evolution was conceptual, methodological and personal in nature, and was documented in a series of reflexive ‘bridging commentaries’. The final picture that emerges is of an elite context characterised by social dynamism, historicity and complexity. In this regard, the thesis reflects the importance of taking an increasingly ‘social’ view of talent development; one that engages with the culture of an organisation, and how this culture both shapes and is shaped by the individuals who experience it.

This research has used methodologies of both comparative and transdisciplinary analysis to test the hypothesis that there was thematic confluence between selected works of the Ballets Russes and the Italian Futurists prior to the formal collaboration of the two artistic groups in 1917. The key point for this study is Sergei Diaghilev’s production of Le Sacre du Printemps (Le Sacre) performed in Paris and London in 1913. In the context of widespread scholarly acknowledgement of the significance of radical changes in the spheres of gender and sexuality at the moment of colonialism and imperialism in this period, this thesis identifies three sites of potential thematic confluence while contributing to the field a focus on the presence of ‘blackness’ as an unrecognised and under-analysed dimension of the politics and reception of Le Sacre and of Futurism. The first thematic confluence to be examined addresses the political and social tensions which were features of the European society at the awkward end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentiet-centuries. My study focuses, however, on issues of gender and sexuality articulated in the explorations of masculinity, homosexuality, women’s emancipation and reproduction. With an emphasis on the narratives of Futurist and Ballets Russes works, and drawing upon the interplay between currents in literary and religious philosophy, the thesis explores how these themes were represented in works of art and considers the role of the sacrificed virgin or Chosen One in Le Sacre with respect to anti-procreative practices and other forms of resistance. The thesis then explores the theme of ‘stylistic repulsion’ that refers to the complex and hierarchical relationship which European societies had with the subjects European countries were colonising in overseas territories. The works of the Futurist leader Fillipo Marinetti are for example, examined for their conflicted relationship between Europe and specifically Africa. In reviewing attitudes to people from outside Europe in relation to the narrative of Le Sacre, I explore the potential impact on the making and reception of Le Sacre — and in particular to its score composed by Igor Stravinsky — in relation to the presence in World Fairs and exhibitions of non-Occidental people who were made to perform their difference and culture in the period 1880-1920. This gives rise to an analysis of an interpretation of works of art which I argue were mediated by the presence of the colonised within European society and according to ever evolving constructs of race and power. The thesis then addresses the theme of ‘dehumanisation’, a term associated with the machinic in Futurism and Nijinsky’s choreographic aesthetic in Le Sacre. The Futurist Variety Theatre Manifesto (1913) proposed a dynamic of unifying connection between audience and performer but also exhibited forms of political dehumanisation in their manifestoes and theatre practice. These are reviewed with respect to the aesthetic and aural strategies which promoted sensorial interplay between audience and performer in Le Sacre. They are also aligned with the ambiguities in interpretations of the sketched record of Le Sacre made by French artist Valentine Gross and Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography of the work, together with his declaration of the absence of human beings in Le Sacre. The thesis aims to demonstrate the value of an enriched social history of art in transdisciplinary engagement with postcolonial theory, musical and dance history and the relations between performance and reception.