ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up phenomenology through developing the concept of movement subjectivity. Movement subjectivity is introduced as a means of tracing the contingent agency of the dancer, while recognizing the multiplicity of dance practices and their allied modes of subjectivity. It refers to the specific dispositions and embodied tendencies of the dancer. It is perspectival, pertaining to what the dancer feels and thinks as she dances. It is also enactive, an action-based conception that incorporates the skills and habits that coalesce in the body. In short, movement subjectivity is a practice-based account of subject-formation. The enunciation of movement subjectivity – its expression in movement – involves a dynamic interplay between conscious perceptions of the body (intentional body images) and embedded competencies (body schemata). The discussion that follows draws on theories of embodied cognition and subject-production to flesh out the degree to which movement subjectivity can be framed as a response to its environment.
