Opaque Motion: Dance Movement and Optical Unconscious

Abstract

Nowadays improvisation in dance occupies a significant place in different performances, trainings of dancers and generally in many areas of life. Asking questions about the origin of a movement, the role of the unconscious in all its manifestations, as well as the importance of the body as an opaque physical shell for the movement, dance improvisation is investigated in this work. The purpose of the current research paper is to analyze the phenomenon of a movement in the context of its birth in dance and improvisation, based also on the concepts of the black box and the unconscious, to study the reverse phenomenon of lack of movement on the example of the state of standing on a threshold in dreaming and of the Japanese Butoh dance, as well as to observe every movement of the body in dance improvisation in practice. In addition, the main statement of the research was put forward, that due to the specific peculiarities of the phenomenon of improvisation and the constantly developing concept of the optical unconscious in contemporary culture, which takes various forms due to the technical evolution of apparatus and forms of social self-representation, the movement appears to be opaque. To achieve the stated goals, I studied the main theoretical works on the topic, with the help of which I characterized the dancing unconscious with the help of the example of improvisation, investigated historical facts about the study of movement, dance and perception of the human body in art. Thus, the object of the theoretical work is dance improvisation, and the subject of it became the movement coming from the depths of the unconscious. To answer the stated research questions, the current paper is based on several methods of general scientific research, such as generalization, deduction as a principle from general to particular, induction as a principle from particular to general, abstraction, as well as analysis. In the practical part of the current work, methods of observation, comparison, and experiment are used, which consist mostly in the observation and artistic interpretation of phenomena mentioned in the research paper.