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Title
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Bodily knowledge in dance transferred to the creation of sculpture.
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Creator
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Feliciano, Nazare, McConnell, Brian E., Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Visual Arts and Art History
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Abstract/Description
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The main focus of this dissertation is a discussion of how an artist uses her dance bodily knowledge to develop in a static art form a more bodily sense of movement. For this purpose this dissertation examines four clay sculptures by contemporary artist Mary Frank. The analysis suggests that the uncharacteristic sense of movement displayed in these works derives from her experiential knowledge of dance. This sense of movement is achieved through the considered assemblage and inextricable...
Show moreThe main focus of this dissertation is a discussion of how an artist uses her dance bodily knowledge to develop in a static art form a more bodily sense of movement. For this purpose this dissertation examines four clay sculptures by contemporary artist Mary Frank. The analysis suggests that the uncharacteristic sense of movement displayed in these works derives from her experiential knowledge of dance. This sense of movement is achieved through the considered assemblage and inextricable relationship between Frank’s dance bodily knowledge (body knowledge a dancer acquires through years of dance practice) and the manipulation of clay, the plastic medium she uses to create these forms. The study reveals that Frank’s ceramic assemblages of organic shapes resembling a figure could be related to somatic awareness of arms, legs, torso, hips, and head that dancers experience while dancing. Similarly, the fluid quality of her ceramic assemblages and their seamless coexistence with the environment can be correlated to the proprioceptic sensibilities (the reception of stimuli produced within the organism by movement or tension) that a dancer’s body senses as it navigates through the air and across the ground managing the pull of gravity. These findings are developed through a discussion of the philosophic theories on bodily knowledge (knowing in and through the body) by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michael Polanyi, Edward Casey, Pierre Bourdieu, and Richard Shusterman, as well as the philosophic theories on dance bodily knowledge (my own term) developed by Barbara Mettler, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, and Jaana Parviainen. In addition, Mary’s sculptures are compared to traditionally built sculptures to illustrate the bodily sensory quality of the sense of movement of her structures. Although the scope of this study is limited to the application of dance bodily knowledge onto sculpture, perceived through the clay sculptures of Mary Frank, this research adds to the debate on the interrelationships between dance education and the arts, the body and institutions of learning, and the body and society. It suggests that dance practice and introspection of one’s body movement affects how one perceives the world around us and therefore how one reacts and expresses oneself on to the world.
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Date Issued
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2014
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PURL
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http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004106, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004106
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Subject Headings
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Aesthetics -- Psychological aspects, Dance -- Philosophy, Human body (Philosophy), Phenomenology, Sculpture -- Philosophy
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Format
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Document (PDF)
