Symposium ‘Choreography and Imagination’, 4 et 5 juillet 2014, Université de Cologne.

Appel à communication

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Research on imagination holds a central place in the humanities. However, movement, dance, and choreography are rarely discussed in these investigations, even though dance practices can be exemplarily analyzed as a reservoir of processes of imagination. Imagination is central to the performance, transmission and choreographic structuring of movement and has a visible and immediate effect on their execution. More so, individual dance techniques and choreographic practices can be differentiated on the base of how they use and understand imagination. Thus, the investigation of dance and choreography cannot only illuminate processes of habitualization in relation to imagination – as it is central to how social, historical and aesthetic ideals are incorporated or produced – but it can also function to ponder the relationship between imagination and forms of knowing. Research on dance and imagination fosters questions about the hierarchies of the senses as it is mostly conceptualized a visual concept: but are we able to imagine – especially movement – without a physical sensation, meaning a kinesthetic perception or through proprioception? Thus, concepts of knowledge and esthetics structure the practice of imagination as much as the research on it. Thus we would like to ask by focusing on movement, dance and choreography: What hierarchies are established through a focus on certain forms of imagination?