ABSTRACT
Attention can adjust its scope, focusing in to hear the sighs of an upper arm strand of energy or widening out to listen to the chorus of tensional relationships spanning the body. In each period of ballet, the choreographic demands along with differences in costumes have tweaked ballet’s aesthetics and changed the ways in which the ballet body has needed to mindfully listen to itself during movement. Moving the arms only after moving the legs shifts the inner landscape of sensations such that relationships between one’s upper limbs remain longer before morphing, and that means the dancer listens for a proprioceptive echo from the upper limbs. Agency must be the second part of listening because for the dancer, listening is an activity that begins with a passive observance but then must also include an active response. The dancer listens to the process, always moving towards the movement goal.
