Susan Leigh Foster - Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance

Choreographing Empathy

This is an urgently needed book as the question of choreographing behavior enters into realms outside of the aesthetic domains of theatrical dance, Susan Foster writes a thoroughly compelling argument. Andr Lepecki, New York University, USA

May well prove to be one of Susan Fosters most important works. Ramsay Burt, De Montford University, UK

What do we feel when we watch dancing? Do we dance along inwardly? Do we sense what the dancers body is feeling? Do we imagine what it might feel like to perform those same moves? If we do, how do these responses influence how we experience dancing and how we derive significance from it?

Choreographing Empathy challenges the idea of a direct psychophysical connection between the body of a dancer and that of their observer. In this groundbreaking investigation, Susan Foster argues that the connection is in fact highly mediated and influenced by ever-changing sociocultural mores. Foster examines the relationships among three central components in the experience of watching a dance the choreography, the kinesthetic sensations it puts forward, and the empathetic connection that it proposes to viewers. Tracing the changing definitions of choreography, kinesthesia, and empathy from the 1700s to the present day, she shows how the observation, study, and discussion of dance have changed over time. Understanding this development is key to understanding corporeality and its involvement in the body politic.

Susan Leigh Foster, choreographer and scholar, is Distinguished Professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, USA. She is the author of Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in contemporary American Dance; Choreography and Narrative: Ballets Staging of Story and Desire; and Dances that Describe Themselves: The Improvised Choreography of Richard Bull, and editor of Choreographing History; Corporealities; and Worlding Dance.

Choreographing Empathy

Kinesthesia in Performance

Susan Leigh Foster

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2011 by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
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This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011.

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Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance

2011 Susan Leigh Foster

The right of Susan Leigh Foster to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Foster, Susan Leigh.
Choreographing empathy : kinesthesia in performance / Susan Leigh
Foster.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Choreography. 2. Movement, Aesthetics of. I. Title.
GV1782.5.F67 2010
792.8 2--dc22
2010016753

ISBN 0-203-84070-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN13: 978-0-415-59655-8 hbk

ISBN13: 978-0-415-59656-5 pbk

ISBN13: 978-0-203-84070-2 ebk