Dancing before you know it…eh?

Dancing before you know it, or before being conscious of the dance is the subject of Chapter Seven of Art, Artists and Pedagogy. Nico de Vos, ascribes Merleau Ponty (1908-1961) as the first philosopher to see the body in relation to a pre-reflective level of consciousness in dance.

From this state of pre-reflection, where the subject still remains centred, de Vos explores Jean Luc Nancy (1940- ), who finds the materiality of the dance within a gathering of more than one, the body becomes singular and plural - touch emphasising the dance as material. This progress of ideas is followed by a reference to affect explored as the observation of the artwork, occurring before thought or a physiological effect occurring on the reader of the work.

The final point from de Vos is to assert the value of the relationship in dance, a contrast to the ‘I’ and ‘we’ of Cartesian thought, and that to advance that for students, is vital to learn the value of the inter in relations, the ‘between’ that physical movement in dance can achieve. See work by Nico de Vos at: Act Your Age

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