Embodying Recognition: Dance Improvisation for Scientists
(2023)
author(s): Susanne Martin
published in: Research Catalogue
In this exposition (text, videos, photos) I discuss a series of participatory lecture performances as one major outcome of my artistic research on dance improvisation in and for science and technology oriented higher education. These lecture performances aim to give different stakeholders in the science field an initial insight into dance improvisation and to facilitate discussion of its potential for the scientific learning, teaching and research culture. From the perspective of a dance artist and artistic researcher, I trace the details of how and why I created events for scientists to encounter dance improvisation through shared exploration and shared reflection. Interlacing descriptive and reflective writing, I unfold the argument that by engaging in improvisation as an embodied recognition practice, reflective processes can be set into motion, which critically question habituated forms of bodily, social and epistemological exclusions within academia. In other words, by conceptualising dance improvisation as recognition practice, I hope to shed light on its critical potential which exceeds questions of spontaneity and creativity.