"...As You Will": Sensing Perception Through Concert Dance

Lloyd, Caroline

Publication

"...As You Will": Sensing Perception Through Concert Dance

Lloyd, Caroline

Date

2015

Additional date(s)

2015-05-01

Abstract

Dancers typically experience movement in their own body through proprioception while audience members typically experience dance performances through personal perception of the work. Through these means of experiencing dance, there is a dynamic relationship between dancers' sensory responses to their proprioceptive experiences while performing on stage and audience members' perception of those responses as they view the work and experience in the moment. Through research to complete this Senior Honors Thesis, I have worked to craft an experiential viewing for audience members through stimulation and awareness of the senses, via the dancers' actions and responses as well as some key environmental factors. Charles W. Rusch states in his article "On Understanding Awareness," what one experiences in the present can be altered by what has already been similarly experienced in the past. Rusch also states that past experiences are constantly being reconfigured in our memories by present experiences. Applying this theory to dance performances, breaking the norm for concert dance experiences can change the overall perception of the work, creating a dynamic response in audience members. In this research, breaking these norms involved specifically crafting choreography such that dancers' engage in a heightened awareness of proprioception in order to better create the link between their own proprioceptive responses and the audience members' perception. Through academic and studio research, I explored specific ways of enlivening the senses of audience members during performance and building an environment that takes viewing the work outside of traditional performance parameters. I crafted a dance based on my research of published literature in topics including the senses as systems of perception, kinesthetic empathy, mirror neuron research, and proprioception. The result was a creative honors project characterized by breaking dance performance norms, a deepened performer/audience relationship, and a specific aesthetic stemming from movement derived from studio and academic research.