ABSTRACT
Kinesemiotics studies the human body as a resource for making meaning, as a socio-semiotic entity that embodies individuality in a continuous, osmotic relationship with the social, cultural and also natural context that surrounds it. Kinesemiotics focuses on the human body enacting communication in socio-semiotic space and dance is its research ground. Two elements are essential for dance to happen: the human body as maker of meaning and a space with which the human body interacts through movement. Dance makes meaning through the interaction between the human body and the space in which the body moves, a space that is shared by the dancer and their audience and that therefore becomes the context of dance discourse. Kinesemiotics looks at the body as maker of meaning through movement: it approaches dance as both a form of physical performance and as a semiotic system that functions in social contexts. This chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
