This thesis studies materiality in the context of contemporary outdoor dance practices in the natural environment. The more particular territory of this research is comprised of receptivity-, materiality- and/or exposure-based practices, influenced predominantly by the international lineages of Amerta Movement and postmodern dance. This territory is understood to be a relevant niche domain that is relatively uncharted and particularly informative regarding questions of materiality. The practitioners that this study turns to are mostly located in the UK, but also in Germany. The key influence of Amerta is rooted in Central Java, Indonesia. The main empirical data was collected between 2010-2012 in the UK. This work is a practice-as-research project and consists of a written thesis and a performative afternoon. All questions and arguments have been generated and developed through movement – as well as text-based research practices. The methodology draws on qualitative, ethnographic research methods such as participant observation, fieldnote writing and interviews. It further employs creative research methods such as movement-based writing, research installations and the documented immersion into dance practice and performance making. The main theoretical resonances were found in the field of new materialism and speculative realism. The key arguments of the research were thus developed through creative practice and diffractive reading (Barad), particularly of the work of Jane Bennett, Karen Barad and Graham Harman. The findings of this research suggest that attending to materiality supports dancers in refining a sense of embodied emplacement that furthers movement practice, especially in outdoor contexts. Sensing ones own material body is paramount here. In resonance with new materialist and speculative realist scholarship this research argues that dance making takes place in intermaterial confederations that cross the familiar human- non-human divide. Such confederations allow for a decentralisation of the human positionality that is relevant beyond dance and affects ontological conceptualisations and practices of life at large. The findings of this thesis further suggest a partial integration of concepts that on philosophical grounds preclude each other. For the context of dance practice this research puts forward that Barad’s proposal of entanglement can co-function with and is co-relevant to the autonomy of objects and materials proposed by Harman. The thesis thus argues that materials of all different orders occur in inter-independence (Suryodarmo) rather than only entangled with or withdrawn from each other. Both discrete and independent entities and mutual affordances impact the practice of outdoor dance; reality both exceeds the dance and resonates materially within the human body.

My primary concern in this thesis is to develop a framework in which classical and modern dance can be analyzed and assessed in philosophical terms. This should not be understood as an endeavour to create a system of values according to which dance should be criticized. What is being attempted is to describe and characterize dance with the tools provided by different aesthetic theories. Moreover dance, and especially ballet (due to its more solid and concrete structure and form), is used as a test - βάσανος (vasanos) in Greek - to help discern the limitations of existing aesthetic theories. At the same time the different criteria that each theory puts forward to identify a work of art are related to the notion of movement, which is central to dance. This process not only enables us to distinguish the elements of this complex form of human action, but also becomes the starting point for the elaboration of a reconfiguration of aesthetic concepts that will enable a sophisticated analysis of the phenomenon of dance. The underlying question throughout is "What makes a particular movement sequence a piece of dance rather than, for example, a piece of gymnastics?" complemented by the question "What makes an everyday life movement a dance movement?" These issues are addressed by considering how the various aesthetic theories can help us make the above distinctions. The different forms of dance are correlated with the aesthetic theories presented. The first notion I consider in this context is mimesis with special reference to Jean-Georges Noverre's account of dance, which has its roots in Aristotle's Poetics. Secondly I consider the notion of beauty - its independence from such notions as 'purposiveness', its lack of 'interest' - as analysed in Kant's Critique of Judgment. The expressive element of dance is explored in the context of R.G. Collingwood's expressivism and John Maftin's inflection of it in relation to dance. Attention to movement leads directly to the notion of form, which is explored in dialogue with André Levinson and Margaret H'Doubler. The thesis concludes by sketching an outline of a new way of approaching, understanding and hence potentially even experiencing dance (as a viewer). Dance is a carrier of a multiplicity of meanings with various contents. In the majority of cases a dance performance seeks to communicate a message to an audience. It is being suggested that dance constitutes a type of language, a communicational system, which has mimetic, expressive and formal elements. The notion of language is understood in later Wittgenstein terms. It is argued that dance comprises a 'form of life.' The elements of this system are facial expressions, movements of hands and arms, shifting of the body; all these reveal to us the quality of experience and feelings of the moving persona. Dance should be understood and appreciated in this particular context.

This dissertation explores how a recent set of practices III contemporary choreography in Europe (1998-2007) give rise to distinctive concepts of its own, concepts that account for processes of making, performing, and attending choreographic perfonnances. The concepts express problems that distinguish the creation of seven works examined here (Self unfinished and Untitled by Xavier Le Roy, Weak Dance Strong Questions by Jonathan Burrows and Jan Ritsema, heatre-elevision by Boris Charmatz, Nvsbl by Eszter Salamon, 50/50 by Mette Ingvartsen, and It's In The Air by Ingvartsen and Jefta van Dinther). The problems posed by these choreographers critically address the prevailing regime of representation in theatrical dance, a regime characterized by an emphasis on bodily movement, identification of the human body, and the theater's act of communication in the reception of the audience. In the works considered here, the synthesis between the body and movement-as the relation of movement to the body as its subject or of movement to the object of dance-upon which modem dance is founded is broken. Choreographing problems, in the sense explored in this dissertation, involves composing these ruptures between movement, the body and duration in perfonnance such that they engender a shock upon sensibility, one that inhibits recognition. Thus problems "force" thinking as an exercise of the limits of sensibility that can be accounted for not by representation, but by the principle of expression that Gilles Deleuze develops from Spinoza's philosophy. "Part-bodies," "part-machines," "movement-sensations," "headbox," "wired assemblings," "stutterances," "powermotion," "crisis-motion," "cut-ending," and "resonance" are proposed here as expressive concepts that account for the construction of problems and compositions that desubjectivize or disobjectivize relations between movement, body, and duration, between performing and attending (to) performance. Developed through a careful analysis of how problems structure these performances, this thesis on expressive concepts further contributes to a redefinition of performance in general by making two additional claims. The first concerns the disjunction between making, performing and attending as three distinct modes of performance that involve divergent temporalities and processes. The second regards the shift from performance as the act in the passing present towards the temporalization of perfonllance qua process, where movement and duration are equated with ongoing transformation, a process that makes the past persist in the present.

I explore the sensuous, kinaesthetic experience and analysis of screen dance and the interconnectivity between our bodies, film, and heightened embodied sensibility. This physicality creates a dialogue between the rich diversity of screen dance genres under consideration, thereby avoiding hierarchical classifications. It also focuses attention on more abstract cinematic qualities, investigating how cinematic technique (as well as thematic content) generates emotional impact; allowing for the enjoyment of film as a material and sensual medium. However, since our senses have been trained according to the regulatory controls within our socio-historical/cultural contexts, equal attention is given to the ideology of representation, and to the links between embodiment, identities, meanings, and broader relations of inequality. I am particularly interested in how dance and film can function politically, both expressing and disrupting norms and ideologies. But I am also interested in how the presence of dance (and/or choreographed movement) can enhance a film's agency and its ability to cross time and space, “touching” the viewer and thereby working to transform historical objectification into embodied interaction. I combine a phenomenological lived-body experience of viewing with the epistemological functions that characterise it, using my own somatically felt body as a methodological starting point and a creative practice, and theoretical text-based and socio-historical contextual analyses. This balance between lived-experience and critical discussion is used to explore chapters on the deconstruction of national, cultural, and gendered identity through Flamenco dance and film; dance and physical disability; and avant-garde feminist screendance. A final chapter brings these key themes together by investigating how (psychiatric) disability, feminism, and national identity are treated in a contemporary Hollywood dance film. Whilst embodied perception is never “innocent” and always shaped, I show how the movement of affect and emotion between the film and viewer's body can constitute an ethical experience, encouraging progressive and self-reflexive political and ideological engagement.

Communication in all its various forms has one common goal: expressing and deciphering ideas. Education in recent years has taken a move towards more global approaches to learning/teaching. Within this context, more innovative and inclusive methods of communication need to be created. This study investigated the meaning-form connections in a modern dance experiment. Based on a poem, a dance was created and then performed for various audiences. Responses were recorded through survey and focus group interviews; and analyzed based on grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin, 1998; Charmaz, 2006). GT analysis coupled with hermeneutic constructivism offered an instructive and inclusive means of looking at the data. The results of the analysis along with inductive reasoning led to the result of six categories through which modern dance produces meaning and audiences decipher meaning from modern dance: Conflict Resolution, Personal Experience/Trait, Linguistic Structures, Abstract Concepts, Compatibility, and Technical Ability. The last stage of the study looked at a constructivist communication model “ecology of meanings model”, utilized its basic concept to build a communication for modern dance, and configured the newly found categories within it. My aim in this thesis project is to shed light on the manner in which a non-verbal means of communication, namely dance, is used to convey a message. The end result is a prototype of a possible communication model for modern dance which could afford choreographers/dancers/dance educators/dance spectators the ability to understand not only what modern dance means but also how. By illuminating this process, I hope that dance and communication experts will be able to enhance their educational procedures.

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This thesis provides a re-reading of the development of twentieth-century dance, focusing on the choreographic work and creative processes of Mary Wigman, Martha Graham, and Pina Bausch. Using these individuals as markers of three distinct temporal stages of contemporary dance, I argue that avant-garde dance practice throughout the twentieth-century was irrevocably associated with, and influenced by, the aesthetics and ritual practices of non-Western cultures. Instead of charting a chronological structure, I have used a thematic framework based on the concept of ritual performance, beginning with fertility rites (as espoused by different choreographies of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring), before moving on to explore masking devices, conceptions of national and cultural identity, and mourning and commemoration. Through a series of individual case study analyses, this thesis maps the impact of inter-cultural exchange on the development of non-classical dance. I posit that, as modern dance emerged and evolved throughout the twentieth-century, practitioners consistently drew strong influence from cross-cultural aesthetics; I focus specifically on links between Western (represented by Germany and the United States) and non-Western (including Japanese and Native American) performance. Using evidence drawn from primary source material, including original film footage, photography and personal effects, I construct separate analyses of commonalities in the work of Wigman, Graham, and Bausch, arguing that the ritualistic themes of their work can be viewed as a pattern for the development of contemporary dance more broadly. My research identifies previously unexplored sources of influence upon these artists. This thesis presents a re-evaluation of established discourse by focusing on a foreign influence that has not been identified in current research as a common thread linking these three artists; while connections have been established between German and American early modern dance, the reciprocal influence of Western practice on Far Eastern performance is comparatively uncharted territory. In the second half of this thesis, I outline the response to this cross-cultural dialogue, focusing on the postmodern artistic practice of groups in Japan, Austria and Germany. Accordingly, this thesis deconstructs the notion of cultural isolation, arguing instead that, as a logical outcome of this inter-cultural exchange, dance in the postmodern era is informed by a legacy of universalised, ritualistic practice.

The relationship between dancers and choreographers has often been described as problematic, with the dancer as the silent victim of the powerful choreographer. On the other hand, contemporary choreography has been presented as an inherently collaborative process in which the dancer participates in the creation of movement material, even if she is not credited as a co-author. My thesis explores what we can learn about the social organisation of contemporary choreographic practices by shifting our methodological focus from dance studies to the study of organisational behaviour and interaction. This interdisciplinary approach is based on an understanding of professional dance companies as work organisations with goals to achieve and resources to manage. Professional dance-making is a work activity, and therefore dance companies must be to some extent comparable with other organisations functioning in the same cultural and societal framework. I suggest that by using theories of organisational behaviour to contextualise dancers’ and choreographers’ work relationships we can better understand how their professional identities are implicated in choreographic practices. The data for this research come from two ethnographic case studies of professional contemporary dance companies in the process of making new work. Thematic analysis has been combined with close readings of communicative events to shed light on how choreographic processes are socially constructed and organised through multimodal embodied interaction between the participants. The study shows that in order to understand the dancer’s agency and sensemaking in a choreographic process it is crucial to understand that communication encompasses all aspects of behaviour, not just verbal activity, and that the choreographer’s leadership is dependent on the dancers’ cooperative followership. Organisational concepts such as sensemaking and communities of practice, and theories of leadership, followership and communication, were found to be in many ways applicable to contemporary choreographic processes, suggesting that this perspective could be useful for dance practitioners and scholars alike.

This interdisciplinary thesis examines the role of dance/movement in training programmes, which address peace, violence, conflict and trauma. Despite the growing literature and scholarly interest in embodied practices, few training programmes address dance/movement peace explicitly, identify shared beliefs or make connections between movement behaviour and decision-making. The research questions explore how dance/movement trainers experience, implement and conceptualise embodied processes that enable the transformation of conflict, particularly concerning interpersonal and/or intergroup violence. In order to investigate this question, an 'internal' analysis of relations and practices amongst its practitioners progresses to an 'external' analysis of contributions to arts-based peace practices and peacebuilding. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with experienced trainers working internationally who use artistic, therapeutic and educational approaches to peace practices. The practitioners' curricula and training materials were examined using thematic analysis and qualitative analysis software (NVivo). The data analysis results in a map of shared beliefs, positionality and boundary shifts amongst the respondents, and proposes an exploration of practices applicable to multiple settings and client groups. This thesis presents new research in Communities of Practice (CoP) theory with artistic communities. It also deepens previous research on dance/movement peace practices and movement analysis, which sustains peaceable and violent actions can be understood through conscious and/or unconscious movement decision-making processes. The thesis concludes that embodied processes involve reflexive and enactive interventions, and proposes analyses of spatial relations, symbolic enactment and relational nonverbal interactions as key contributions of dance/movement. These embodied processes challenge 'conventional' forms of knowledge transmission and the arts' constant pressure for legitimisation. The thematic exploration of shared practices and beliefs therefore integrates movement analysis and social theory to present an interdisciplinary contribution to embodied analyses of violence.