The Medium of Dance according to Arnold Berleant

peer-reviewed article

Lilianna Bieszczad

lilianna.bieszczad@uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5451-163X

Abstract

This article discusses the vision of dance in Arnold Berleant’s environmental aesthetics. The author recalls historical aesthetic concepts emphasizing the importance of the medium for the identity of the particular arts (Gotthold E. Lessing and Clement Greenberg) and identifies issues that arise when the human body is considered as the specific medium of dance. Against this background, she presents Berleant’s approach to dance as performance and argues that the notion of medium, as sometimes used by Berleant, has no ontological basis. This is because Berleant does not describe the world in terms of substance or matter, but in terms of processes and interactions; rather than isolating the arts or separating art from life, he emphasizes the continuity and holistic nature of experience. In his approach, dance is an integral experience in which movement creates the area of performance, unites the dancer and the spectator, body and consciousness, perception and thought. An important context for this theory, which does not separate aesthetic experience from environmental experience, is ecology.


Keywords:

dance, medium, dance as performance, environmental aesthetic, Arnold Berleant

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Published
2023-12-16

Cited by

Bieszczad, L. (2023) “The Medium of Dance according to Arnold Berleant”, Pamiętnik Teatralny, 72(4), pp. 121–137. doi: 10.36744/pt.1495.

Authors

Lilianna Bieszczad 
lilianna.bieszczad@uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5451-163X

Lilianna Bieszczad - Doctor of Philosophy, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy of the Jagiellonian University. Author of the book ryzys pojęcia sztuki: Filozoficzno-estetyczne koncepcje Th.W. Adorna, H.G. Gadamera oraz A.C. Danto (The Crisis of the Concept of Art. Philosophical-Aesthetic Concepts of Th.W. Adorno, H.G. Gadamer and A.C. Danto, 2003), editor of the volumes: iek awangardy (The Age of the Avant-Garde, 2006), Zwrot performatywny w estetyce (The Performative Turn in Aesthetics, 2013), and Practising Aesthetics (2015). Her research interests include: hermeneutic, environmental, pragmatic and performative aesthetics, as well as avant-garde theory and philosophy of dance. She is editor-in-chief of the online journal Estetyka. Biuletyn and organiser of the Somaesthetics Section at the John Dewey Research Center in Kraków.



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