This thesis addresses the social process of bodily learning and the cultural shaping of sensory experience. It draws on literature from the anthropology ofdance, the anthropology ofthe body, and the anthropology of the senses in order to explore the socially constituted practices by which dancing bodies are created in present-day London. Based on heavily participatory fieldwork undertaken at a nationally recognized school for professional contemporary dance, it explores issues of social access, identity, bodily transfonnation, and institutionalized bodily control as they relate to the process of becoming a professional dancing body within the British context. A central theoretical premise underpinning this investigation is that the heretofore unresolved division between concepts of 'mind' and 'body' (and its related dyad of 'subject' and 'object') is not merely a philosophical construct but has its roots in actual bodily experience. As such ethnographic material is presented within a dualstrand framework that highlights varying experiences of body-as-object and body-assubject among British contemporary dance students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:487239 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Potter, Caroline M. Parler |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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