ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the affordances and delimitations of darkness at both personal and social levels in the context of a “dance in the dark” event. In so doing, it contributes to contemporary debates on the concomitant affects of darkness and lightness; how different configurations of objects, technologies, and bodies come together to form different mobile experiences of “being with” in place; and the important role that anticipation plays in generating individual affective and emotional disposition and its contribution to a sense of place. The chapter discusses the extent to which the author’s previous experiences of dancing influenced her expectations, comprehension, and lack emotional affinity with the event. In particular, it highlights the way in which the darkness, in closing down opportunities for visually attentive relations and kinaesthetic empathy between the dancers, prevented the author’s dancing body from entering into a circuit of affect with her companions. Combined, these affects impacted negatively on the author’s embodied experience, and ultimately her enjoyment, of the dance event.
