A phenomenological approach to performers’ self-awareness in dance

by

Inês Zinho Pinheiro

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MA

Department of Dance University of Roehampton
2019

1
Abstract

This dissertation explores performers’ self-awareness in dance. The study focuses on my own
experience as a dancer, as well as on participants’ responses collected from workshops and
interviews. Working between these experiences and reports, and from a phenomenological
lens, I question how dancers’ self-awareness might change throughout the transition between
rehearsal and performance contexts.

The dissertation has a narrative-like quality where I use various episodes reported by dancers
or from my own experience. Therefore, dancers in this thesis are considered as active
collaborators, not passive subjects. In order to access their internal and external processes in
relation to their self-awareness I organised workshops, group conversations and individual
interviews. One of this study’s main findings suggests that dancers’ self-awareness in
performance is affected by the type of rehearsal that precedes the performance. Furthermore,
this research delves into dancers’ video usage and its influence on their capacity of bridging
how they feel with how they see on video. Also, the thesis considers dancers’ ‘inner
conversations’ while dancing and what that process is and means.

The study not only aims to understand the shifts that occur in dancers’ self-awareness in
function of their surroundings, but it also considers ways in which dancers may heighten their
self-awareness. This includes a research about the role of video in rehearsals and performances;
performance preparation (i.e.: what dancers do before a show in order to feel ready to perform);
and the transition from rehearsal to performance. Another main finding concerns the
participants’ ambivalent conceptions about the use of video. These were perceived both as
promoting and as hindering the dancers’ proficiency.

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Table of Contents
Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 2
Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 3
Acknowledgments...................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5
Chapter 1: Exploring the self-awareness in rehearsal – a literature review ............................... 9
1.1. Perception, self-awareness and phenomenological issues .............................................. 9
1.2. Self-awareness and dance on video .............................................................................. 18
Chapter 2: Methodology .......................................................................................................... 20
2.1. Phase 1: Selecting participants...................................................................................... 22
2.2. Phase 2: Workshops and interviews as the information gathering environment .......... 23
2.3. Phase 3: Group conversations and interviews .............................................................. 24
2.4. Phase 4: Content analysis of participants’ transcribed speech (group conversations and
individual interviews) .......................................................................................................... 26
Chapter 3: Dancers’ focus on their own process (internal/external function of rehearsals) .... 28
3.1. My own experience as a performer ............................................................................... 28
3.2. My ‘I’ as a viewer ......................................................................................................... 31
3.3. Others’ accounts in group conversations and interviews .............................................. 31
3.3.1. Performance preparation and its relation to a heightened self-awareness ............. 32
3.3.2. From rehearsal to performance .............................................................................. 34
3.3.3. Feeling while dancing and seeing on video – ways in which the participants
conceive the use of video ................................................................................................. 36
Chapter 4: Research’s vicissitudes and oddities ...................................................................... 45
4.1. Discussion about participants’ responses analysis ........................................................ 48
4.2. Self-awareness and its nuanced layers .......................................................................... 49
4.2.1. Dancers’ inner conversations ................................................................................. 50
4.2.2. Dancers’ awareness of being seen ......................................................................... 53
4.2.3. The role of video and its connection to dancers’ self-awareness........................... 54
Conclusions .............................................................................................................................. 57
Appendix 1 ............................................................................................................................... 62
Appendix 2 ............................................................................................................................... 63
Appendix 3 ............................................................................................................................... 64
Appendix 4 ............................................................................................................................... 65
Appendix 5 ............................................................................................................................... 72
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 79

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Acknowledgments

Until I began writing this dissertation, I did not note how writing on my laptop and dancing in
a studio have deeper connections than I could have ever imagined. Thus, I would like to thank
all who have also unearthed these connections and enabled brilliant conversations about this
meeting of practices. This is especially declared to all the participants who have agreed to being
part of this research.

Further, I am infinitely grateful to my family and friends who always support me in every life
decision I make. My gratitude goes to all the forms of support they have given me throughout
this process.

Finally, and in particular, I would like to show my immense gratitude to my tutor Tamara
Tomic-Vajagic, whose competent advice, enthusiasm and intellectual creativity have enabled
me to not only conclude this thesis, but to learn and enjoy the process of researching and writing
this text. More broadly, I recognize and thank the Department of Dance at the University of
Roehampton, where I have learnt so much.

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Introduction

Last Summer, I was involved in the creative process of a piece titled, Lots of Varied
Expectations1. Gradually and through rehearsals, even more than through performances, I
started thinking about my ways of behaving within a rehearsal context and compared it to how
I act habitually in a performance context. With this shift in awareness, which implied the rise
of a folded consciousness (my term for a conscience with access to itself, as I will explain
later), various aspects changed in my experience as a performer. For the first time, consciously
I began to imagine how something may feel in a performance while rehearsing. Moreover, once
I started exploring these concepts, I noticed how the perception of time changed during
performance in comparison with the rehearsal time. That realization about concurrent notions
of time, as I observed them in these two different dancing contexts—rehearsal and
performance— made me wonder how one could manage to find internal space to think and to
be mindful about the process during performances, instead of feeling that it was all an
uncontrollable blur. This in turn led me to think about the differences between how one feels,
how others feel and one’s own image within the context of performance and rehearsal, more
specifically: how can performers increase their sense of awareness? I consider this a core
question since the awareness of the dancer in the process of performance potentially might
impact how the performance looks to the viewer. By way of illustration, Suzanne Farrell
(ballerina) thought about her performance and its process in this way. Farrell noticed a
conscious shift in her performing due to her movement accentuation to a different musical
instrument. She observed how this shift made her perform differently by saying: “It changed
the way I felt, and I assume the way I looked” (Farrell, in Tracy, 1983, p.156).

These experiences and thoughts led me to add another visual layer: I was equally intrigued by
the introspective and reflective role of video, since I had used this medium in rehearsals and
performances and its effect in relation to performers’ self-awareness. After thinking about the
connection between video documents and self-awareness of the performer, I formulated the
following main question: how do dancers construct their self-awareness in rehearsal and
performance contexts and how the use of video documentation might affect these? This

1
This piece was choreographed by Arielle Smith, with whom I have worked with since we both studied at Rambert
School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance. Initially, this piece was created to be presented at the Resolution
Festival 2018 at The Place. Afterwards, Smith decided to create a full-length version of the same piece, which
was performed at the Rosemary Branch Theatre in July 2018. The rehearsal period lasted one month and then the
piece was performed once per day throughout one week.

5
question awakened my curiosity because of the mysterious feeling that seems to surround the
acts of performing as well as looking at performances in general, and in particular, the
relationship of this looking with what is seen within a contemporary theatre and studio dance
context. This research is developed as a further exploration of my past experiences as a dancer
and the questions that arose at the time. This starting point led to the organization of workshops
with dancers where I enabled improvisation-based tasks, conversations, filming and viewings.
As I will explore in the text below, these aspects constituted a ground through which I
investigate questions of performers’ self-awareness in this dissertation.

When referring to my past performing experiences, in this dissertation I aim to distinguish

layers of my positionality: I am interested in how these personal insights acquired a dual
position of the performer who assumes the role of spectator. As I will explain in the
methodology (section 2.3.), these experiences subsequently extended to my other roles as a
researcher, and sometimes an interviewer of other dancers. In order to understand inside
experiences of other dancers, I decided to organise collaborative workshops and subsequently
have individual interviews with some of the workshop participants through which I extended
my exploration of the core research questions, mainly the ones referring to their experiences
around the process of going from rehearsal to performance. Simultaneously, these central
queries and investigations were fused with literature that may enable the articulation of the
findings from participants’ comments with theoretical issues. As it will be elaborated on later,
those involved: issues about live performance experience and archival aspects; the idea of a
‘second consciousness’2 that may arise from the relationship between what is seen versus felt;
and the conception of visual experience as something that is culturally constructed.

After the interviews and workshops were completed, it was evident that several subsidiary
questions emerged in the process, both for me and the participants. Consequently, I expanded
the main research question above, integrating a few supplementary considerations that relate
to the dancers’ self-awareness during their experiences of dancing/rehearsing/performing in
the context of my study:

2
In the sense Maaike Bleeker (2008) ascribed to this conceptual expression, as it will be explained later on.

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– If dancers’ self-awareness from rehearsal to performance indeed changes, what are the
modalities of those changes? Is there more than one type of change? Are those changes
individual for each performer, or are there patterns that can be noticed?
– How do dancers become aware of their movements and of the visible aspects of these
movements?
– To what extent dancers prepare themselves physically and psychologically in order to find
internal space to think and to be mindful during performances? What procedures do dancers
eventually use for this purpose?
– How does video, as a self-observation and self-assessment tool, affect dancers’ performances
and self-awareness?

Chapter 1 presents as a review of literature, where the overarching conceptual expression of

self-awareness, as well as other core notions which constitute the intricate conceptual network
of the study will be elucidated and developed. The main sources and authors that are present
throughout the text will be introduced here, while anchoring their main points. Subsequently,
Chapter 2 concerns the methodology, which is subdivided into four sub-chapters. Firstly, I
explain the participants’ selection. Secondly, I clarify what I did in the workshops and
interviews while elucidating the information gathering environment. Thirdly, I describe how I
have conducted the group conversations and interviews. Fourthly, I depict the content analysis
procedures I have used to question the information from the interviews which have been
qualitatively examined through a set of analysis procedures proposed by Laurence Bardin
(2006), i.e.: a descriptive device and systematic interrogation of collected information, aiming
to access the messages’ meanings, grouped in indicators that allow the emergence of
knowledge relevant to the theme in study. Chapter 3 encompasses the interpretative work
grounded on content analysis of mine and the participants’ assertions produced during the
group and individual interviews/conversations. Furthermore, this analysis continually
interlaces the participants’ experiences with my own. Following, Chapter 4 entails this
research’s vicissitudes and oddities, where I discuss the participants’ responses analysis. This
examination leads to the lay-out of three nuanced layers found in this study.

Ultimately, by exploring dancers’ self-awareness, this study concludes with both, what I found
through this research, and a proposal for the finding of ways in which dancers may find and
refine their sense of self-awareness in rehearsal and performance. One of the key points
explained throughout the thesis comprises how dancers’ self-awareness in performance is

7
affected by the way they rehearse towards a performance. These implications are elaborated
along the examination of the dependence between dancers’ preparation and the type of
performance. Within this elucidation, I explore the procedures dancers undertake with the aim
of making something unhabitual into habitual on stage. Moreover, this dissertation discusses
dancers’ video usage and its repercussions for their awareness about how they feel and how
they are seen or see themselves. Additionally, I unfold video’s role and impact, as well as this
medium’s presence on social media. Further, I expose the importance of dancers’ ‘inner
conversations’ when studying dancers’ self-awareness. Accordingly, I expand on what it means
to ‘inner conversate’ while dancing.

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Chapter 1: Exploring the self-awareness in rehearsal – a literature review

As a way of preparing myself for a performance (not only physically) during rehearsals, I
imagine how a moment in rehearsal might feel in a performance context. Once I do this mental
exercise, I notice a shift in my self-awareness. I start being aware of what is customarily
allowed in rehearsal and what I think should be avoided in performance. For instance,
sometimes if I am standing on the side while someone else is dancing, I allow myself to move
(e.g.: scratch my head), but when in a performance situation I stop myself from doing so. This
realisation led me to recognise that I should apply that kind of strictness early on in the rehearsal
process, so it will not feel strange to apply it while performing. This is one example of how
this shift in self-awareness may change the way one might approach the transition from
rehearsal to performance. This alteration in self-awareness implied the increase of a folded
consciousness (my term for a conscience with access to itself), as mentioned in the
introduction. Here, I add the term folded along the concept consciousness to intensify the
notion that consciousness already relates to “[…] the fact that the subject knows about, is
informed about, or in other words is aware of, the phenomenon” (Varela & Shear, 1999).

1.1. Perception, self-awareness and phenomenological issues

After these experiences, I had time to reflect back on what happened to me during those
episodes. Initially, I thought that my main interest was related solely to perception, more
specifically, perception of oneself. Therefore, I started to write and think about it as ‘self-
perception’. However, as I acknowledged Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s (2005) perspectives, I
noted that the term ‘self-perception’ was not mentioned; rather, Merleau-Ponty writes about
the phenomenon of ‘perception’ and about ‘self-awareness'. This search led me to consider
self-awareness as a concept, establishing it as a central feature. This concept became important
since it related to what I recognised in my experience as a dancer, mentioned in the paragraph
above, referring to the transition from rehearsal to performance. The concept of ‘self-
awareness’ allowed an understanding of why I felt different when doing the same movement
in diverse contexts (rehearsal or performance). This insight led me to question how I could
control those shifts in awareness, mainly throughout the rehearsal process, or during any other
kind of performance preparation.

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As Merleau-Ponty discussed perception and self-awareness in a wider context, and not related
to arts or dance, the full discussion of his concepts exceeds the scope of this study. However,
it seems inevitable to weave in some considerations which may help to clarify the meaning of
the core conceptual expressions of this research.

Perception is a broader concept than self-awareness, therefore I will start by stating what the
first means to Merleau-Ponty. For him, “perception is not a science of the world, it is not even
an act, a deliberate taking up of a position; it is the background from which all acts stand out,
and is presupposed by them” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005, p.xi). Moreover, he explains how
perception does not belong to “[…] the same category as the syntheses represented by
judgements, acts or predications” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005, p.xi). In fact, the phenomenon of
perception happens from what one perceives, meaning that both perception and what is
perceived ends up not being understood (Merleau-Ponty, 2005). Hence, Merleau-Ponty
describes perception as “[…] an ‘interpretation’ of the signs that our senses provide in
accordance with the bodily stimuli […] (2005, p.39).

When I use the concept of self-awareness, I am referring to one of the ways the French
expression prise de conscience has been translated to English. In this sense, the meaning of
these two expressions (self-awareness and perception) is clearly different in Merleau-Ponty’s
original work, but it becomes somewhat blurred in the English translation3. Therefore, in this
study’s context, I will maintain the meaning of prise de conscience simply as self-awareness
that is clearly expressed in the following quote concerning Merleau-Ponty’s conception of body
image: “We are therefore feeling our way towards a […] definition of the body image: it is no
longer seen as the straightforward result of associations established during experience, but a
total awareness of my posture in the intersensory world, a ‘form’ in the sense used by Gestalt
psychology” (2005, p. 114)4. I would like to underline that in this sentence, the concept of prise
de conscience is translated as awareness, but I will refer to this term as self-awareness.

3
In fact, in the English version, sometimes ‘prise de conscience’ is translated as self-awareness, while other times,
this French expression is translated as ‘awareness’, ‘self-discovery’, ‘grasp of conscience’, or it is not translated
at all, probably due to the difficult task of discerning an appropriate English term.
4
The sentence in french : “On s'achemine donc vers une […] définition du schéma corporel: il ne sera plus le
simple résultat des associations établies au cours de l'expérience, mais une prise de conscience globale de ma
posture dans le monde intersensoriel, une ‘forme’ au sens de la Gestaltpsychologie” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945, p.
115).

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Within a phenomenological sense, self-awareness refers to a bodily self-awareness, since every
person’s body is their “anchorage in a world” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005, p. 167). This emphasis
on the connection between self-awareness and the body makes this particular concept suitable
and relevant for my dissertation’s topic. Inevitably, this poses several problems concerning
human existence’s ambiguity of being-in-the-world, given that “what enables us to centre our
existence is also what prevents us from centring it completely […]” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005,
p.98). Concurrently, the anonymity of one’s body is “[…] inseparably both freedom and
servitude” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005, p.98). Such an “ambiguity of being-in-the-world is translated
by that [ambiguity] of the body, and this is understood through that of time” (Merleau-Ponty,
2005, p.98.). Also, Merleau-Ponty adds, “the body is the vehicle of being in the world, and
having a body is, for a living creature, to be intervolved in a definite environment, to identify
oneself with certain projects and be continually committed to them” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005, p.
94).

The general phenomenological framework focuses explicitly on lived bodily experience, and
originally, as Francisco Varela and Jonathan Shear (1999) point out, it had been created by
Edmund Husserl, subsequently applied by other philosophers, and then introduced to Western
contemporary dance (e.g., Horton Fraleigh, 1987; Sheets-Johnstone, 1966). In this dissertation,
Merleau-Ponty’s contribution on phenomenology has been the main guideline for the study of
dancers’ self-awareness as part of a human experience. Varela and Shear (1999) question the
inside-outside division, suggesting a flowing relationship between the first and second-person
accounts. They note that human experience, i.e.: phenomenological experience may be referred
to as “phenomenal consciousness” but it is commonly referred to as “conscious experience” or
solely “experience” (Varela & Shear, 1999). An investigation on bodily experience belongs to
the study of tacit knowledge, which is a kind of knowledge that is “[…] implicit, hidden from
self-consciousness” (Moser, 1995, p.273)5, therefore inherent in dance, requiring distinctive
methodological questions. In fact, “much of our knowledge is tacit: it is genuine but we are
unaware of the relevant states of knowledge, even if we can achieve awareness upon suitable
reflection” (Moser, 1995, p.273).

5
Entry in: Epistemology – Kinds of knowledge. In R. Audi (General Editor). The Cambridge Dictionary of
Philosophy. See more in bibliography.

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Throughout the study of tacit knowledge, I have searched to enable this kind of reflection that
may assist dancers to think and speak about their experience of self-awareness while dancing.
This state of awareness might not always be consciously noted but perhaps sensed/perceived
(Moser, 1995) and may be clarified through the use of methods of examination that might
facilitate pre-reflection of phenomena (Varela & Shear, 1999). Here, it is fundamental to
differentiate conscious from non-conscious phenomena, as well as conscious or sub-personal
subjectivity (Varela & Shear, 1999), while being aware of “[…] numerous instances where we
perceive phenomena pre-reflectively without being consciously aware of them” (Varela &
Shear, 1999, p.4).

There are many perspectives on the body phenomenology from different cultures and
philosophical traditions from around the world. For instance, Buddhist practices and traditions
have refined ways of connecting mind and body through reflection and introspection (Varela
& Shear, 1999). Given that my dance practice belongs to the European practice of
contemporary dance, I am mainly interested in Western philosophy’s view on phenomenology
of the body. Nonetheless, these Eastern traditions are not disconnected from my
phenomenology and “it would be a great mistake of western chauvinism to deny such
observations as data and their potential validity” (Varela & Shear, 1999, p.6). Within this
context, I will describe the apparently incompatible Western academic and theoretical
traditions (so-called Continental versus Anglo-Saxon) concerning first and second-person
views, critically analysing the implications regarding self-awareness, despite their dissident
nature. I will also draw on some authors who suggest a collaboration between recent analytical
philosophy and phenomenology, for instance, Anna Pakes (2006 & 2011) and Dan Zahavi
(2002).

In his influential study, Zahavi suggests “the existence of a striking overlap between some of
the claims” (2002, p. 22) of these two philosophical traditions. The author maps out how recent
studies developed when analytical philosophers of mind became

aware of the interplay between subjectivity, embodiment, and environment,

[…] [reached] conclusions on issues such as the existence of pre-linguistic
forms of self-awareness, the bodily roots of self-experience, and the
connection between exteroception and proprioception, that all bear a striking
resemblance to views already found in phenomenology (2002, pp. 22 & 23).

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Furthermore, Zahavi considers that such a convergence of analytical philosophy of mind and
phenomenology can be fruitful to the latter one, “not only from the analytical discussions of,
for instance, indexicality, the first-person perspective, internalism vs. externalism, and the
possibility of pre-linguistic experience, but also from the conceptual clarity and problem
oriented approach found in analytical philosophy” (2002, p. 23).

Another example of this crossing of divergent Western philosophical traditions is found in José
Bermúdez’s work (2001), which “illustrates how the highly conceptual forms of self-
consciousness emerge from a rich foundation of nonconceptual forms of self-awareness”
(p.129). In his study, Zahavi mentioned Bermúdez’s developmental psychological research
which challenges “the view […] that infants lack self-awareness” (Zahavi, 2002, p.9).
Furthermore, Zahavi refers to a more recent work by Lynne Baker who views self-awareness
as “something that emerges in the course of a developmental process” (2002, p.9). According
to Zahavi, Baker’s study criticises “the deflationary language-philosophical account of self-
awareness”. In line with this conception, “self-awareness is to be learned through a study of
the mechanisms of linguistic self-reference” (Zahavi, 2002, p. 10). Nevertheless, Zahavi claims
the need of a more satisfactory comprehension of what self-awareness is, and he points out that
it is precisely what Bermúdez undertook. Bermúdez sets out the need “to acknowledge the
existence of non-conceptual and pre-linguistic forms of self-awareness that are logically and
ontogenetically more primitive than the higher forms of self-consciousness that are usually the
focus of philosophical debate” (Bermúdez, 1998, p.274, quoted by Zahavi, 2002, p.9). While
Zahavi’s focus on linguistic aspects is useful for the study of dance self-awareness, I will more
closely follow Bermudez’s notion of pre-linguistic forms. Both Zahavi’s focus on pre-linguistic
forms of self-awareness, and Bermúdez’s notion of primitive forms of self-consciousness are
useful for the study of dance self-awareness. Indeed, Bermúdez stressed that “the primitive
forms of non-conceptual self-consciousness manifested in visual perception, somatic
proprioception, spatial reasoning and interpersonal psychological interactions” (Bermúdez,
2001, p.129).

In dance phenomenology, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (1966), also inspired by Merleau-Ponty,

reiterates that “[…] the experience must be had in order to be described […]” (p.11). She
reiterates phenomenology’s interest in descriptions of phenomenal experience and not in
theories about phenomena. Therefore, “[…] if dance is the phenomenon, the phenomenologist

13
describes the immediate encounter with dance, the lived experience of dance” (Sheets-
Johnstone, 1966, p.12). She insists on the acknowledgement of dance as a live experience.
Insofar as this has not been accomplished, there will be no access to an effective and eloquent
elucidation of dance. Sheets-Johnstone seems to refer to self-awareness as awareness of the
self, which may be implicit or explicit. She specifies how in everyday-life, people are implicitly
aware of their “[….] past-present-future, in the mode of not being any one of these at any given
moment” (Sheets-Johnstone, 1966, p.18). Her discussion includes a relation between
temporality and human consciousness, and “[…] how temporality is an inherent structure of
human consciousness” (Sheets-Johnstone, 1966, p.21). When referring to one’s spatial
awareness, Sheets-Johnstone affirms that “consciousness-body moves out toward the world in
which it is already implicitly aware of being spatially present” (Sheets-Johnstone, 1966, p.23).
She links these temporal and spatial elements with how those work within dance.

Sondra Horton Fraleigh’s (1987) work belongs equally to the tradition of dance
phenomenology which draws upon Merleau-Ponty’s perspectives. Fraleigh, perhaps more
closely than Sheets-Johnstone, weaved phenomenological ideas with a dance somatic
perspective. More specifically, she explored the phenomenological concept of the lived body
within dance. Fraleigh described dance as an art form through her own physical experience of
the “lived body”, and when mentioning what this is, she states: “Not only is my body mine –
but I belong to it” (1987, p.17)6. Fraleigh compared dance with life, since both develop from
within the “lived body” and acknowledges the importance of looking at dance through these
phenomenological and existential lenses considering that dance cannot happen outside of the
body. Her perspective is relevant for my research since she looks at dance experience from her
own ‘lived body’, similarly to how I examine the experience of self-awareness from not only
the participants’, but also my own experience.

Throughout this dissertation, and without detriment to the utility of the concepts and positions
mentioned above, I will connect the concepts of “self-awareness” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005),
“phenomenal consciousness” (Varela & Shear, 1999), “self-consciousness” (Bermúdez, 2001),
and the connection between internalism and externalism (Zahavi, 2002) with the ‘experience’
at an individual level, as in dance phenomenology (e.g.: Sheets-Johnstone, 1966 and Fraleigh,

6
This way of thinking is an extension of Merleau-Ponty’s famous statement: “I am my body, at least wholly to the extent that
I possess experience, and yet at the same time my body is as it were a ‘natural’ subject, a provisional sketch of my total being”
(2005,p. 231).

14
1987). With this in mind, Erin Manning’s (2009) concept of “body-worlding” has been helpful
to bring my phenomenological discussion into the dance realm. Manning, who works with
movement including dance, manages to weave phenomenological views with ways of moving.
In her work Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy (2009) Manning elucidates the idea
that we move to create our world and “[…] not to populate space, not to extend it or to embody
it” (2009, p.13). This concept of “body-worlding” can be read in tandem with Marta
Savigliano’s (2009) discussion about World Dance. While Manning positions movement as
that which creates one’s world, Savigliano proposes the “re-worlding” of dance which is
achieved by positioning it in the world (Savigliano, 2009). These two studies helped me to
position myself as a dancer in the world, who constructs worlds and aims to re-world through
movement. This was an important aspect when developing my methodology, whilst
considering where my research might belong, and what its relationship might be within the
field of dance studies.

Even though Pakes is not a dance phenomenologist (like Fraleigh, or Sheets-Johnstone), she is
interested in issues of phenomenology and examines those from an analytical dance philosophy
perspective. Pakes (2006 & 2011) acknowledges the tendency, in dance environments, to
consider the mind-body connection as a ‘problem’ puzzling in itself, clarifying that it is of
interest to understand Cartesian suggestions on this matter in depth, as these represent
traditional endeavours to answer questions about the connection between consciousness and
the physical world. Pakes raises questions such as: “How and why do I have conscious
awareness of the gesture 'from the inside', when this hardly seems necessary for the physical
movement as such to be effected?” (Pakes, 2006, p.88). Simultaneously, Pakes indicates that
dance experience arises those enquiries but does not necessarily resolve them.

Pakes notes the importance of mental causation and phenomenal consciousness in dance and
the necessity of debating these in order to enlighten certain aspects present in dance. She
clarifies how, differently from René Descartes who separated consciousness from matter,
contemporary analytical philosophers explain “[…] how consciousness reduces to, or depends
upon, its material base” (Pakes, 2006, p.88). This argument places physicalism as “[…] the
new orthodoxy in the philosophy of the mind-body problem” (Pakes, 2006, p.88). Even though
emphasizing the physical might seem adequate to examine dance’s experience, the term
‘physical’ has different meanings within analytical philosophy and dance contexts (Pakes,
2006). Consequently, Pakes says how physicalism finds challenges when explicating mental

15
causation and phenomenal consciousness in dance. Due to its concentration on the conditions
of experience, physicalism does not explain the lived experience (e.g.: to dance, to choreograph
or to view), which is fundamental to dance appreciation, from both the performer’s and the
viewer’s perspectives (Pakes, 2006). Pakes’s discussion draws attention to the importance of
the mind-body problematic for the understanding of dance experience, allowing a tangible
comprehension of abstract philosophical concepts.

Additionally, in a later article, Pakes reflects on the range of experiences that performance
encompasses: “[…] the things that give the dance and its experience their distinctiveness are
brought to reflective awareness” (2011, p.34). She adds that the process of actively engaging
with dance generates “the experienced phenomenon” (Pakes, 2011, p.34), although she also
notes that, generally, people are not reflectively aware of how certain performance elements
appear to them. Pakes’s (2011) discussion on audience and performers’ perspectives while
watching a performance, including their variations, has been specifically useful for this
dissertation to understand the participants’ relationship with the spectators’. This
comprehension enlightened how and why this relationship may be a factor that differentiate
their self-awareness from rehearsal to performance. Also, Pakes considers the body as a “lived
body” and acknowledges embodied thinking and subjective sensations that arise from this pre-
reflective body as experiences that belong to consciousness (Pakes, 2011). In relation to my
research question about performers’ self-awareness, Pakes’s considerations enabled an
understanding of how the role of the body has an input and is part of the construction of the
spatial world.

As my study is interested in the relationship between self-awareness and the process of looking
at documentation, phenomenological insights about perception as broader than visual
experience in Alva Noë’s (2008) article7 helped me understand how dancing with eyes
closed/opened might affect movement as well as awareness, for instance when observing and
listening to the participants in my workshops. I noted the connection between eyes, head and
body movements with an individual inner bodily notion and a proprioceptive awareness of
one’s surroundings. Noë’s text also elucidated how understanding and knowledge are features
that condition perceptions, which clarified the disparity between some workshop observations.

7
Titled: Précis of Action In Perception: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.

16
Similarly to Noë’s ideas, Amelia Jones’s books (2006 & 2012) on identity in relation to visual
arts discourses and practices in Euro-American culture were useful for my research,
specifically when I was confronted with divergencies between participants’ responses. Equally,
the perspective of how visual experience is culturally grounded (Jones, 2006 & 2012) was
suitable to my inquiry since it elucidated how one’s self-awareness and how one sees others
are conditioned by visual cues. Indeed, looking is culturally grounded/conditioned and identity
differences/inflictions shape how we “[…] relate to the world of bodies, images, and objects
we encounter from moment to moment” (Jones, 2012, p.177). For instance, as a European,
hybrid, cis-gender, abled-bodied woman, I am “limited by my world picture” (Jones, 2012,
p.174). Due to this, I have preconceived ways of looking, such as an internalised male gaze
and its “[…] monolithically defined ‘ideal’ [of] femininity […]” (Jones, 2012, p.88).
Simultaneously, through a phenomenological lens, “[…] the subject sees the world unfolding
in relation to his emplacement, both in physical and ideological terms” (Jones, 2012, p.83).

The ideas about the oppositional relationship between a body that is seen and one that is felt
present in Maaike Bleeker’s (2008) work have been suitable to my interpretation of various
workshops’ reports. Bleeker’s analysis of performance and theatre as subjects that allow a
consideration of the historical, cultural and embodied quality of visuality helped me understand
certain paradoxical responses from participants. One may indeed construct a second
consciousness from identifying with an image of a body without experiencing any connection
with how the body feels from within (Bleeker, 2008, p.143). This point has been extremely
relevant when noting how dancers relate to the body they see on a screen and its relatedness
with a phenomenological view on self-awareness. Bleeker’s main point is about the theatre as
a scopic regime of modernity, i.e.: a type of expository model of visual acts imposing itself on
the viewer. According to Christian Metz “in the theatre, as in domestic voyeurism, the passive
actor (the one seen), simply because he is bodily present, because he does not go away, is
presumed to consent, to cooperate deliberately” (1975, p. 62). Moreover, Bleeker’s text
elucidates how seeing is always culturally grounded (2008), clarifying how the participants’
reactions to seeing themselves depend on how they understand themselves within a
surrounding cultural context. In this research’s case, the cultural context is everything that
belongs within U.K. contemporary dance studios and the transition from the studio to the
performance space, usually a stage in a theatre. Bleeker’s ideas also brought to light the ways
in which I have and continue to conceptualise my self-awareness in relation to the gaze of
others, as well as the self-awareness of other dancers involved in my study.

17
Similarly, Michael Baxandall’s concept of the “period eye” (1972) was constructive to my
awareness of how visual interpretation happens by the eye of the beholder, who interprets
visual experience with culturally specific aptitudes. Baxandall explained how one experiences
this interpretation process differently, meaning that each person has different knowledge and
interpretation abilities (1972). According to Baxandall, “everyone, in fact, processes the data
from the eye with different equipment” (1972, p.29). He also specified that those are slight
variations, however “[…] in some circumstances the otherwise marginal differences between
one man and another can take on a curious prominence” (Baxandall, 1972, p.29). In my study’s
context, this concept allowed me to specify visual experience with video viewings, providing
a recognition of how video is a depiction that is interpreted by the participants, who look at
those videos through their “period eye” (Baxandall, 1972).

1.2. Self-awareness and dance on video

Throughout this research, I have introduced the use of video and discussions as a way of
accessing participants’ responses in relation to how they connect what they see with what they
feel. Dancers use video for various reasons and with different goals; such as: promoting
themselves or their work (e.g.: showreels/trailers); choreography learning; video projections
within choreographic work; and archival purposes. However, this study focusses on a particular
role of video: its function within contemporary dance rehearsals. In these circumstances, often,
video is used as a pedagogic tool, a memory aid, and/or self-surveillance tool. Dancers may be
filmed or film themselves so they can learn previously performed choreographies through
video; and/or they might use video to check if what they are aiming to visually achieve is
actually happening.

In regard to dance recordings on video, Matthew Reason’s (2006) study about the
transformative impact of documenting live performance and its repercussions when
experiencing performance through its documentation is useful to my research concerning
participants’ feedback. This text facilitated my understanding of various reactions expressed
by participants when viewing their live and ephemeral improvisation ‘stuck’ in a rigid screen.
This book also reaffirmed the way the video’s purpose conditions how it is viewed, also
suggesting that we need to develop a stronger awareness of the relationship between that which
is ‘captured’ (or edited, so captured in an altered state) and that which we think that we see (on

18
screen) as representations of dance/movement. Considering this relationship, Jones’s study of
self-imaging brought an awareness about the role of the screen as an object where the viewing
of one’s self-image happens, “[…] allowing for a viewing body that is also engaged in the
activities around the screen” (2006, p.151).

19
Chapter 2: Methodology

Self-awareness, within this phenomenological lens, refers to the awareness of one’s body and
its relationship with the world (Zahavi, 2002), therefore it seems reasonable to approach this
concept in a bodily involved manner. Phenomenologists consider self-awareness as pre-
reflective, tacit and non-conceptual and that the body and its mobility not only adapt one to the
surrounding world but also become one’s active perception exploration (Zahavi, 2002). As a
main concept, this conceptualisation of self-awareness was tackled during the workshops
through the use of video as a self-surveillance tool, and as a way of accessing dancers’
considerations about their self-awareness. Here, performers were asked to dance while being
filmed. This approach seemingly already brought a certain weight of self-awareness in the
process of rehearsing (whilst knowing the event was being filmed). The self-awareness
increased once the dancers had a chance to watch the video recordings. I also led conversations
(before and after viewing) with questions that would further deconstruct the participants’ self-
awareness while moving and how it was affected by the presence of a camera and whether that
changed after watching themselves. I will explain how I have conceived the workshops, the
participants and on which principles I have developed the interviews.

During these conversations, various other themes and sub-themes were introduced by some of
the participants’ observations which I later merged with ideas brought into my research by
predominantly Jones (2006&2012), Bleeker (2008), Noë (2008) and Reason (2006) discussed
in Chapter 1. During this process, the phenomenological study of self-awareness took the
participants’ first-person perspective, as well as my own that enlightened how an investigation
of this type requires “[…] a disciplined approach, i.e., a reliable methodology […]” (Zahavi,
2002, p.8) and the understanding of prevailing resources that must be brought into the methods
applied in the study. These aspects will be discussed throughout this chapter.

As I appropriated and explored the various conceptual elements of research, I progressively

constructed the following web which allowed me to refine the problem in study: workshops,
group interviews, filming, and interviewing. These aspects were conjoined in order to discern
the relationships binding those elements, i.e., the purpose of this section is to make explicit the
connections among the concepts employed in the study, more than revealing their nature.

20
Throughout this research, I applied a hermeneutic approach. This procedure seemed
appropriate for this study since hermeneutics is “[…] the art or theory of interpretation, as well
as a type of philosophy that starts with questions of interpretation” (Bohman, 1995, p.3778).
By these means, my own experience is crossed with the participants’, in a circular way, where
every interpretation is based and conducts to other interpretations, i.e., the dynamics of the
‘hermeneutic circle’ (Bohman, 1995).

A requirement to achieve such an interpretative endeavour consists in the fusion of the

participants’ and my narratives concerning our experiences with the main concepts discussed
in Chapter 1, i.e.: “self-awareness” (Merleau-Ponty, 2005), “phenomenal consciousness”
(Varela & Shear, 1999), and “self-consciousness” (Bermúdez, 2001). Moreover, I will stress
both the importance of the mind-body issue for the understanding of dance experience (Pakes,
2011), and the collaboration between recent analytical philosophy and phenomenology
(Zahavi, 2002). I will also draw on the notions of “body-worlding” (Manning, 2009) and
“World Dance” (Savigliano, 2009), as well as on ideas concerning understanding and
knowledge as elements that condition perceptions (Noë, 2008). Furthermore, I will incorporate
the problematic nature of culturally grounded conditioning and identity differences (Jones,
2006 & 2012), together with ideas about the oppositional relationship between a body that is
seen and one that is felt. (Bleeker, 2008) Finally, I will discuss the ways this body is
documented in live performance (Reason, 2006), and the connections those ideas maintain with
the concept of the “period eye.” (Baxandall, 1972).

When referring to my own experience, I will explore ideas that arose during and post rehearsals,
as well as throughout performances. I will explain the ways I have developed a preparation for
performance (physically and psychologically) during rehearsals, by imagining, for instance,
how a certain moment in rehearsal might feel and look like in a performance context. These
kinds of reflections have allowed me to note changes, namely shifts in self-awareness.

This chapter is subdivided according to the phases of investigation. Phase 1 entails the
participants’ selection, where I present their background, identities and positionalities. Phase 2
elaborates on the workshops and interviews I have led and explains those as the information

8
Entry in: Hermeneutics. In R. Audi (General Editor). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. See more in
bibliography.

21
gathering environment of this research. Phase 3 expands on how the group conversations and
interviews have been conceptualized and guided. Finally, Phase 4 includes an analysis of the
methodology applied in this study.

2.1. Phase 1: Selecting participants

The people I invited to these workshops are all my friends/colleagues (i.e.: professional
contemporary dancers). There were two participants (Camilla Isola and Umut Özdaloğlu) at
the Playground session and ten (Fraser Buchanan; Laura Calcagno; Sakeema Crook; Viva
Foster, Sophie Holland; Becky Horne; Blanche Jandin; Christopher Spraggs; Mike Turner-
Lee; and Maude Zimmerli) at the Laban session. All participants, including myself, have
studied at the Rambert School or Laban, except Sakeema Crook, who has studied at LCDS and
Mike Turner-Lee, who has studied at the University of Roehampton. I invited these people
because I wanted to research professional dancers’ self-awareness within a contemporary
dance context and because I knew that these people would be interested in participating in this
study.

Not all participants identify as the same race, sex, not all are cis-gendered, and have various
nationalities (French, Italian, British, Cypriot, New Zealander, Portuguese9), they are all able-
bodied performers in their twenties, and they all share a similar training (i.e.:
Western/European contemporary dance technique). Although the study is conducted with an
awareness of their different positionalities, the research focuses on their common
Western/European background. Thus, the full discussion of the participants’ positionality is
beyond the scope of this dissertation but might be of interest for further and future studies.

Furthermore, the participants’ diverse backgrounds, nationalities, identities and positionalities

lead to other kinds of variations, such as, diverse ways of entering a room, since “our sense of
our own bodies, as much as our beliefs about others’ bodies, is over-determined by ideas about
difference and identity pivoting often around visual cues” (Jones, 2012, p.176). Here, what I
mean by shared experiences is mainly our similar dance training, we share a skilled-base way
of accessing what we visually experience, since visual experience is always restricted to
whatever reality one has been exposed to (Noë, 2008). Jones’s and Noë’s work have helped to
explain why and how I have searched for a common ground that has enabled me to speak with

9
Myself as a researcher and a participant, i.e.: as a subject and object of study.

22
others in order to obtain information through dialogic processes. With this in mind, video is
always a representation of something which is interpreted by the eye of the beholder, who will
interpret this ‘something’ with culturally relative skills, i.e.: “period eye” (Baxandall, 1972).

2.2. Phase 2: Workshops and interviews as the information gathering

environment
I conducted two sessions of contemporary dance workshops and group conversations. The first
one was led at The Playground10 in a small studio without mirrors and with live guitar music
by Albert E. Dean, and the second at Laban11 in a bigger studio with mirrors and with live
electronic music by Camilla Isola. These variant aspects will be further explored in Chapter 4.

These two workshops happened between the 5th of March and the 12th of April 2019. Each
workshop was around one hour, including two participants on the first one and ten on the
second one. Both workshops consisted of filming the dancers improvising based on a guided
task I conducted (this task is further described in the introduction of Chapter 4); a brief group
discussion; watching the video; another group discussion. Additionally, after the second
workshop, I conducted six individual interviews. During these workshops the participants were
asked to focus on their internal experiences and to assume a spectatorial/third-person
perspective when referring to their own experience. I asked them questions about
rehearsal/performance videos they viewed previously, in order to find out how they experience
viewing these videos, or if they experienced a difference between the two.

This guided way of approaching their past experiences, as well as looking at themselves on
video, positioned the participants in a removed and almost outer body stance/third-person
perspective in relation to their past selves as seen on the screen, or their ‘screen selves’. I asked
the participants to position themselves in a spectatorial perspective as an attempt of offering
them the opportunity to not only express their experiences through a first-person perspective
but also through a third-person standpoint. As mentioned earlier in Chapter 1, this fusing of
perspectives aimed to prevent a phenomenological problem of isolating the first-person
account (Varela & Shear, 1999). Within this second phase of investigation, I also asked the

10
An event organised by current and former Rambert company members where professional artists have the
opportunity of collaborating together. I participated on this event on the 15th of March 2019 and I led the workshop
with two participants.
11
The workshop was part of the ‘Movement Gardeners Collective’ residency. I participated on this residency on
the 12th of April 2019 and it was attended by ten participants.

23
dancers about the ways in which they prepare themselves for a performance and what activities
this preparation entails (e.g.: dancing, writing, answering questions and looking at themselves
and others on video).

As it was pointed out in the introduction, the information from the interviews has been
qualitatively analysed through a set of procedures proposed by Bardin (2006). This author
exposes several content analysis procedures of texts, one of which is the ‘thematic analysis’.
This procedure implies the discovery of relevant themes found after several readings of a text,
followed by a detailed description of the senses emerging from those readings. In other words,
it is a descriptive/interpretative device and systematic analysis of collected information, aiming
to access the messages’ meanings, grouped in indicators that allow the emergence of
knowledge relevant to the theme in study (Bardin, 2006). In Chapter 4, a detailed discussion
of the content analysis’ procedures and vicissitudes will be presented.

2.3. Phase 3: Group conversations and interviews

This dissertation adopts the first-person perspective, meaning that it does not refer only to an
individual’s point of view (‘I’), but it investigates “[…] the ‘what it is like’ of experience”
(Pakes, 2011, p.42). I achieved this by considering my own experience as an insider core point
of view the (‘I’), in combination with others’ inside experiences that for me are ‘what it is like’
for others. Simultaneously, this study has linked first-person descriptions with third-person
ones, in order to avoid both, a first-person account’s segregation and “[…] another debate about
the philosophical controversies surrounding the first-person/third-person split […]” (Varela &
Shear, 1999, p.2). To enable this, it is necessary to implement methodologies that connect
objective and empirical descriptions that englobe perspectives “[…] on mind where neither
experience nor external mechanisms have the final word” (Varela & Shear, 1999, p.2). Also,
the most explicit way of illustrating these descriptions and perspectives is by using this kind of
studies, such as the workshops, group discussions and interviews realised during this research,
where “[…] explicit examples of practical knowledge […]” (Varela & Shear, 1999, p.3) are
given and analysed. This approach allowed me to both engage into qualitative interviewing and
to bridge the gap between epistemologies of knowing something through my inside experience
of dancing/rehearsing/performing and looking at someone else performing/rehearsing, in
conjunction with understanding their own inside experiences.

24
When approaching the participants’ experience, getting into the dancers’ first-person accounts
has been essential since one main intention of first-person methodologies is to access “[…]
subjective experience as an explicit and active component” (Varela & Shear, 1999, p.2).
Additionally, when considering the concept of self-awareness, it is necessary to use the first-
person pronoun because that is how one thinks “‘I’ thoughts” (Zahavi, 2002, p.10). Subjective
experience considers one’s own understanding of intentions and doings, such as awareness of
movement’s intention, and not only what can be seen by others (Varela & Shear, 1999). The
inclusion of the first-person account allows an acceptance of experience as something to be
investigated within the connection of life and mind as a characteristic of one’s existence
(Varela & Shear, 1999). This study involved more than one participant, so this variety of
experiences was accommodated through a single (first-person) account as a concept of the (‘I’).
This “[…] experiential or first-personal dimension of consciousness must be taken seriously,
since an important and non-negligible feature of consciousness is the way in which it is
experienced by the subject” (Zahavi, 2002, p.7). In order to attain this, the technique of “self-
confrontation” (Theureau, 2002) with video has been applied. This technique belongs to a
theoretical and methodological framework that considers “[…] the ‘cognitive tasks’ as
embodied, situated, […] individual, collective, cultured and experienced” (Theureau, 2002,
p.1). While combining this technique with the use of video, I have concentrated on asking the
participants about the relationship between how they feel while moving and how they feel
while watching themselves on video.

Concurrently, I have applied an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) tool (Hefferon

& Ollis, 2006). This device of analysis and interpretation of information allows an
understanding of how it feels to experience phenomenon. Such an approach considers the
individual’s personal awareness of said phenomenon through their participation in in-depth
semi-structured interviews (Hefferon & Ollis, 2006). When using this kind of research, the
participants are seen as experts in the phenomenon under analysis (Hefferon & Ollis, 2006).
Still, it must be reasserted that “[…] exploring first-person accounts is not the same as claiming
that first-person accounts have some kind of privileged access to experience” (Varela & Shear,
1999, p.2), nor that first-person descriptions are purely factual, but that they enable access to
intersubjective knowledge (Varela & Shear, 1999).

These semi-structured interviews were implemented into two ways: initially as group
discussions, and subsequently as personal/individual interviews. The intention in both

25
circumstances was to use the process as a symbiotic experience between interviewer and
interviewee; stimulating and feeding each other’s creativity beyond what might be achieved
through independent research. This synchronicity might be difficult to attain but there are ways
of inducing it. An approach to connect with the interviewee is to search for common ground
and to create a sense of community and trust, and in this case, I can relate to the participants
since we share a past that helps with contextualisation. This contextualisation has been the
result of our shared cultural practice of contemporary dance within the U.K. dance education
tradition, as mentioned earlier in section 2.1.

Nonetheless, this is said with an awareness that different people, even in a shared circle, will
have different backgrounds. I return to this point in order to introduce James Spradley’s (1979)
methodology on ethnographic interviewing, which intends to learn from people, rather than to
study people (1979). This author refers to ‘culture’ as “[…] the acquired knowledge that people
use to interpret experience and generate social behavior” (Spradley, 1979, p.5). This
interviewing system aims to discover the insider’s view by exploring further than what is seen
or heard to deduce what people know; “it involves reasoning from evidence (what we perceive)
from premises (what we assume)” (Spradley, 1979, p.8). In fact, tacit knowledge is a
substantial part of any culture, since there are subjects that people know and which are difficult
to express in direct ways (Spradley, 1979). This insight of different types of knowledge was
specifically helpful when studying dancers, considering that a great deal of dancers’ experience
and its understanding belongs to tacit knowledge. The sample interview and group
conversations’ questions are presented in the Appendixes 1, 2 and 3, and findings from my
interviews are discussed in Chapters 3 and 4.

2.4. Phase 4: Content analysis of participants’ transcribed speech (group

conversations and individual interviews)
Following a hermeneutical orientation, I was guided to interrogate my own questions by the
participants’ answers, testing their level of pertinence, and eventually, some meanings that they
involuntarily and unconsciously have produced/aroused. Simultaneously, I have paid attention
and valued the possible effects of serendipity and took into account that sometimes the
participants’ answers may contain further information, and even answer to other unpredicted
questions about potentially relevant dimensions that I had not previously considered.
Serendipity in qualitative research, such as this study’s, demonstrates “[…] how planned

26
insights coupled with unplanned events can potentially yield meaningful and interesting
discovery […]” (Deegan & Fine, 1996, p.1). Qualitative research always entails spontaneous
and unintended situations; however, serendipity enables the transitioning from merely chance
to significant findings (Deegan & Fine, 1996).

Moreover, imagery inspired improvisation is another approach that induces the creation of
something new out of existing parts, which is useful in this type of semi-informal interviews
(Wulff, 2012). Question-asking strategies are used instead of fixed sets of questions, since rules
do not cover every eventuality and can happen in various situations (Wulff, 2012).
Concurrently, when interviewing dancers, one can feel an exchange of give and take that is
learnt in partnering work, as if the interview is a duet between the interviewer and the
interviewee (Wulff, 2012). In fact, this kind of ‘conversation’ may gain from this
improvisational approach.

Throughout the process of receiving the participants’ observations, re-listening to them,

transcribing and analysing all the information, various texts clarified and problematised some
of the processes that had happened during those workshops. Accordingly, in Chapter 3, I will
draw connections between these texts with comments and instances that occurred then.

27
Chapter 3: Dancers’ focus on their own process (internal/external function of
rehearsals)

This chapter underlines what I have found out from my experience, and from interviewees'
interventions focusing on the process, and internal/external functions of rehearsal until
performance. The chapter starts with three subsections (my own experience as a performer; my
‘I’ as a viewer; and others’ accounts in group conversations and interviews). After reviewing,
these accounts, I determined that several themes and patterns could be highlighted. Regrouping
and rearranging these answers into themes enabled a systematised interpretation. Subsequently,
I found the following sub-themes: 3.3.1. Performance preparation and its relation to heightened
self-awareness; 3.3.2. From rehearsal to performance; 3.3.3. Feeling while dancing and seeing
on video – ways in which the participants use video. These sub-themes have been analysed and
I have interwoven my own experience as a dancer with the participants’.

3.1. My own experience as a performer

As mentioned in the introduction, my own experiences as a performer have led me to
interrogate my own self-awareness, as well as dancers’ self-awareness in general. Furthermore,
I explored how this self-awareness is experienced and affected in rehearsal or performance and
by the use of video. In this section, I will describe and reflect on certain episodes from my
experience as a performer, connecting them to my main enquire about dancers’ self-awareness.

The transition between rehearsal to performance seems to have various layers, for instance,
performing in front of audiences regularly may become tricky and these kinds of experiences
can generate concentration loss (Hefferon & Ollis, 2006). Therefore, the use of imagery,
meditation, and mindfulness as means of relaxation seems suitable. Something I have noticed
throughout years of rehearsing and performing is how time changes from this first situation to
the latter one, and it has been through practicing mindfulness that this self-awareness and
control have increasingly allowed me to find time to think during performances. This kind of
preparation usually becomes part of the so often described ritualistic preparation. Also, by
observing others around me, I have noticed how different this preparation can be for each
individual, since some people value and work more with self-awareness than others.
Nonetheless, the aim and hopefully the result is the same, i.e.: “[…] a grounding mechanism

28
to help alleviate anxiety and help the dancer focus on the task ahead of them” (Hefferon &
Ollis, 2006, p.152).

Indeed, anxiety and tedium (due to low skill/high challenge and high skill/low challenge) are
two factors known to complicate the experience of flow (Hefferon & Ollis, 2006). The concept
of “flow” was originally recognised by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and “[…] denotes the holistic
sensation present when we act with total involvement” (2014, p.136). Within this study’s
context, this concept is developed as one of the goals dancers aim to achieve while performing,
which is examined in Kate Hefferon’s and Stewart Ollis’ (2006) research. Here, they describe
“flow” as “[…] a psychological state in which the mind and body ‘just click’, creating optimal
performance” (Heffero & Ollis, 2006, p. 141). Personally, I do not experience tedium, because
once it becomes easy, more space is freed for exploration. Additionally, confidence is one of
the main factors for flow to occur (Hefferon & Ollis, 2006). Nonetheless, I have experienced
not being confident before going on stage and then, once performing feeling surprised by
myself and by how well the performance is going, i.e.: experiencing flow.

This kind of experience has manifested itself in various ways throughout my dance education
and professional life. Sometimes, I experience flow by being so aware and in control of my
body and mind that I feel extremely powerful, which allows me to push my own limits during
the performance, since I am in a state of complete trust in myself. Other times, this sensation
may emanate from working very closely with others. When there is a strong togetherness
within a group, one may feel the extension of one’s body to other bodies on stage, creating a
collective consciousness. These varied experiences highlighted the importance of rehearsing
in a way that may help controlling and achieving the right mindset to achieve flow alone, or
within a group (Hefferon & Ollis, 2006), which certainly requires processes that heighten one’s
self-awareness. This type of self-awareness observed when flow is experienced in performance
seems to be associated with the one that will be featured in section 3.3.1., where dancers report
how they prepare themselves for performance. The description of these preparations implies
an aim to be mindful and to be physically prepared for the performance ahead. Indeed, the
chances of experiencing flow increase once the performer feels ready for the performance in a
suitable way.

29
The relationship between the dancer and the audience is also a factor that influences the
occurrence of flow (Hefferon & Ollis, 2006) and that highlights shifts in my own self-
awareness, as mentioned in the methodology chapter. In what concerns this connection, I
question how much of what is happening to the dancers is visible for the audience. Often, I am
surprised by the comments I receive from people who watch me dancing, and recently, these
interactions have challenged my conception of my own dancing and its relationship to the gaze
of others. For instance, during a recent performance where I danced a duet that relied heavily
on facial expression while projecting a direct gaze to the audience, I received surprising
feedback. This happened in rehearsal and performance situations. In rehearsal, my partner and
I were constantly asked to look bored and not sensual and even though all we thought about
while rehearsing was of boredom, somehow our expression was still seen by others as sensual.
These disparate experiences of the performer and the spectator seem relevant for this study of
rehearsals and the awareness that this kind of process produces, because these episodes remind
one of the necessity of using the first-person perspective in order to describe closely what
someone is/was thinking of him/herself (Zahavi, 2002). Even though it was not visible, my ‘I’
thoughts’ narratives are relevant when considering the concept of self-awareness within those
rehearsals’ moments. Tamara Tomic-Vajagic (2012) found out something similar when she
interviewed dancers about their performances in leotard costumes. Often, women and men both
reported how self-aware were they and self-conscious of their body image, to the point that
they felt uncomfortable. But, for this author as a spectator, their discomfort was not readable
— they all appeared very confident in performance, “[…] which suggests that, while the impact
of the costume is aesthetic, conceptual and may affect the dancer internally, this does not
strongly manifest itself as an effect in the performance” (Tomic-Vajagic, 2012, p.292)12.

In the performance context, there was another interesting episode where the musical cue for
the duet was delayed, so we stayed in silence and facing the audience motionless for an
extended length of time. While that happened, we felt uncomfortable because we knew
something went wrong and we were obliged to confront the audience’s gaze while staring back
at them. Nonetheless, afterwards, we received positive feedback on how confident we looked
even throughout this technical problem. Through this episode, I became aware of my own body
through the look of others seeing me. This kind of process demonstrates how there are nuanced

12
I am in debt to professor Tamara Tomic-Vajagic for her suggestion linking this aspect of my study with her
own study.

30
kinds of body awareness that, if not through other’s gaze, one would not otherwise have access
to (Bleeker, 2008). This would not have been possible to achieve merely through mirrors’
reflections or video recordings, only through an awareness of being seen, which leads to
becoming aware of oneself “[…] as a spectacle for others and as part of the spectacle of the
world” (Bleeker, 2008, p.131). Even though I did not have access to that performance’s video
recording, this type of episode has happened to me before, and whenever I get the chance to
watch it on video, I get mixed feelings. I am able to see why the audience did not have access
to what was really happening to me, since my reactions to what went wrong were very faint.
However, while viewing those videos, I can still remember how those moments felt, which
then enables me to identify the subtle physical expressions that mirror my state but that are
almost invisible to the audience. These types of situations elucidate how “the content of an
experience is to be distinguished from the content of a judgement caused by the experience”
(Peacocke, 2002, p.268), since it is evident that the experience itself entirely differed from
qualities projected to the viewer. Indeed, “[…] we need a threefold distinction between
sensation, perception, and judgement […]” (Peacocke, 2002, p.268) in order to understand
situations such as the one mentioned above.

3.2. My ‘I’ as a viewer

Within my own experiences, my positionality acquired various layers: the performer; the
performer who assumes the role of spectator of her own performance and of others’; and while
conducting this research’s workshops and interviews, the viewer and researcher. Throughout
these sessions, I became aware of my “period eye” (Baxandall, 1972), as well as the common
ground I share with the participants, as mentioned in sections 2.1. and 2.3. This emphasis on
my positionality and its layers heightened my attention towards the explanation of certain terms
used within contemporary Western dance environments. Thus, throughout this dissertation, I
found myself having to make slight divagations about those terms or themes. In the next
sections, my role as a viewer will be my main positionality, even though at moments, my role
as a performer will be interweaved with the participants’ contributions.

3.3. Others’ accounts in group conversations and interviews

During the improvisation-based task, the dancers were asked to visualise and embody a flame
that had its own agency while travelling through their bodies. This flame entered their bodies
from underneath, and moved inside them, changing its speed and intensity, which could make

31
the dancers shift in space. This flame continued going upwards until exiting their bodies and
re-entering through different body parts, until returning to travel down, back to the studio floor.
After performing this task, I guided a group discussion about what had happened during this
exercise. The whole task was filmed, so afterwards, the participants viewed that video, which
led to another group conversation. Additionally, I individually interviewed some of the
participants to gather further information concerning their personal processes. This will be
deepened in the beginning of Chapter 4 in association with additional repercussions that
occurred during these interviews and group discussions.

3.3.1. Performance preparation and its relation to a heightened self-awareness

Rehearsals are a long-term preparation that usually occurs months before the performance, and
even though the aim is to prepare something to share in the shape of a performance, it also
includes various tangents that enable the creative process. Rehearsals typically consist of the
following processes: body warm-up/conditioning; exploring choreography through
improvisation methods; generating material (which may be created from improvisation);
subsequent marking of the specific sections; and finally, dancing the material full out. This
section focusses on the dancers’ awareness during the period I have called ‘performance
preparation’, a shorter period of time just before the performance. Some participants mentioned
what they do in the weeks leading up to the performance, outside the actual rehearsals; most of
them, when answering my questions about this type of preparation, reported what they do on a
performance day. I decided to ask them about what they do before a performance
independently, as a way of having access to how they choose to organise themselves in order
to be in a suitable state for a performance.

In relation to these preparations, Cynthia Roses-Thema’s (2008) study concerning the “dancer
as a rhetor” of own performance within contemporary Western dance explains dancers’
relationship to their performances, including short term rehearsals (Roses-Thema in Tomic-
Vajagic, 2012), like those mentioned above. Roses-Thema was more interested in what might
impact upon the performing experience of a dancer, but part of that is also some discussion of
preparation for the show, or how the daily life might challenge these plans (Roses-Thema in
Tomic-Vajagic, 2012).

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When asked about this preparation, most participants started by saying that it depends on the
type of performance. For instance, if the performance involves improvised movement, dancers
might want to recap the ideas that triggered those improvisation-based sections. Otherwise, if
the performance incorporates floor work, dancers probably warm-up on the floor and perhaps
practice certain complicated movements, or even tricks present in that performance’s
choreography. This seems like a reasonable way of starting their answers, however I did not
predict this ambiguity when thinking about my question or their potential answers.
Nonetheless, most participants described similar and common ways in which they prepare
themselves for most performances. There were variations, but the majority talked about finding
the concepts they want to explore, in the case of improvised pieces. They stressed the
importance of physical preparation (e.g.: work-outs, conditioning) and something that would
engage them not only physically but also psychologically (e.g.: yoga, imagery, and marking
the whole piece). From these different types of preparation, I emphasise marking, since all
participants mentioned it and because this activity englobes not only what dancers do before a
performance but also during rehearsals, while combining mental stimulation with physical
action, i.e.: “doing in the world” (Kirsh, 2011, p.201). David Kirsh’s (2011) study on
“marking” helped me to notice and understand multivalent processes in rehearsals that the
participants mentioned. For instance, marking may be used as an individual tool, i.e.: “marking-
for-self”; it may be a tool for communication; or it may also be used for coordination, but
overall, marking is a “mechanism of thought” (Kirsh, 2011, p.180).

When speaking about her pre-show preparation, Viva Foster (12 April 2019) suggested that
she does not have any specific rituals because she worries about becoming superstitious and
dependent on magical thinking. She described two instances where in one of them, there was
a long preparation period, and in another one where there was no opportunity for individual
preparation because she had to collaborate on building the performance set. I was intrigued
about these processes’ impact on her feeling during performance in both instances and that was
when she elucidated that she found it useful to build the space where she was about to perform
in. This gave her an understanding of how everything that surrounded her got there, instead of
only knowing her role in the performance as a dancer, without knowing what happens ‘behind
the scenes’. The construction of her surroundings seems to merge with the symbiotic process
that “body-worlding” is, merging the subject and the contiguous world (Manning, 2009).

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In relation to preparation, Camilla Isola (18 April 2019) talked about her ways of getting
inspired while researching and rehearsing. She explained how she resorts to other visual arts
and music and relates them to dance. Also, Camilla mentioned something she does just before
a performance that differs quite a lot from the other methods people referred to. Camila
reported that she thinks about people she is close to but is geographically far away from (e.g.,
her family and friends in Italy), and about strong experiences they have been through, as a
means to shift her emotional state. This tactic enables her to be vulnerable and open, which
seems to be an important state for her while performing. Camilla has this very specific way of
preparing herself for a performance, nonetheless, she affirmed that she does not have a routine
or structure, so she collects and imitates procedures other people do around her before a show.

Regarding this, I asked the dancers who participated in individual interviews if they ever have
conversations with their colleagues about individual ways of getting ready for a performance.
All participants responded in the negative. It is important to note that in this respect my own
experience varies from theirs, perhaps because I have been interested in these kinds of
processes for a while. I have felt curious about personal ways of preparing oneself for a show,
so I have not only thought about the ways in which I do this, but I have also questioned other
dancers about theirs, even before conducting these interviews.

All these accounts about performance preparation enlighten the varied ways in which dancers
prepare themselves for a show – a situation where dancers aim to be mindful and ready to
confront physically and psychologically highly demanding situations. These preparations
dancers pursuit in order to heighten their self-awareness in performance, signal to a different
form of self-awareness from the one that accompanies video self-surveilling and self-
assessment. The forms of self-awareness that seem to arise from these types of viewing will be
examined in sections 3.3.3. and 4.2.3.

3.3.2. From rehearsal to performance

Going from a rehearsal situation to a performance one entails a layered transition with several
elements, such as the space itself. This spatial transition varies depending on the production,
but commonly dancers start rehearsing in the studio, moving to have rehearsals in the theatre,
and then performing in the theatre stage. Additionally, performing on stage often entails
wearing specific costumes, instead of practice clothes; stage lights, which may be

34
disorientating comparing to studio lights; the presence of an audience; and sometimes dancers
may only get the chance to interact with the set design once rehearsing in the theatre. There are
other examples of how the transition between these two frameworks may occur, since this
always depends on the work in question. As mentioned in the introduction, this transition
enabled me to notice changes in my behaviour, that were conditioned by what circumstance I
found myself in. Therefore, this sub-section focusses on the participants’ responses about this,
since I am both interested in my personal experience, and in other dancers’ experiences and
thoughts about these.

Referring to the rehearsal process, Fraser Buchanan (12 April 2019) brought to light the idea
of rehearsing to adapt to the elements that do not feel habitual on stage until they become
customary. This way of thinking about the process that happens during rehearsal seemed to
sum up the various methods dancers usually apply and how this mental simulation of “doing
in the world” (Kirsh, 2011), i.e.: rehearsal, is a way of preparation for “doing in performance”.
Indeed, dancers use mental simulation during rehearsals while physically dancing to “anchor”
projections of how those movements will look and feel like in a performance context (Kirsh,
2011). This “anchor” is simultaneously internal and external (Kirsh, 2011). This term referring
to dancers’ simulations is reminiscent of Merleau-Ponty’s allusion to self-awareness as a bodily
feature due to the body’s role of “anchorage” in the world (Merleau-Ponty, 2005, p. 167).
These terms seem to link not only because of their linguistic similarity but also because dancers
‘anchor’ these projections with their bodies. These bodies, in their turn, are dancers’
‘anchorage’ in the world, which help them to have a heighten self-awareness even when
transitioning from rehearsal to performance. Simultaneously, dancers’ anticipations of how
something will feel and look like in performance relate back to the experience of “bodily grace”
(Bleeker, 2008) and its connection with performers’ self-awareness and inner proprioceptive
feeling of their movements. This concept emerges as a compound of inner proprioceptive
feeling of movement, which dancers practice when attempting to look effortless while moving.
Bleeker’s “bodily grace” strongly resonates with Fraser’s point about rehearsing in a way that
one’s movements feel habitual even during performance.

One significative difference the participants mentioned between rehearsals and performances
was an energy shift and the lack or presence of an energy exchange between themselves and
the audience. This type of bodily energy change is “thought-felt” (Massumi, 2011, p.140), since
feeling and seeing dance are “lived abstraction[s]” (Massumi, 2011, p.141). Energy is a vague

35
and abstract term, though within this context, it seems that they were referring to the “[…]
collective attention, […] heightened level of attention and engagement […]” (Reason, 2006,
p.88). Here, Reason is referring to video, however, while discussing the differences between
rehearsals and performances, the participants seemed to mention this same ‘collective
attention’ that may be created between performers and audience. This ‘collective attention’, if
looked at through a philosophical analysis of conscious processes in dance, may elucidate how
“the performance is not the process of kinesthetically experiencing, seeing, or aesthetically
appreciating, but something we share with others” (Pakes, 2011, p.38).

Christopher Spraggs also developed his insights about the transference from rehearsal to
performance, specifically within an improvisation-based piece context. He asked: “Why would
you do the performance, what is the performance for? […] Is the performance the correct
manifestation, to share your research? […] sometimes it's definitely not, and you don’t realise
until afterwards […] in performance you're kind of showing the effects of research, rather than
sharing the research” (Spraggs, 12 April 2019). His struggle appears to be based on the
certainty that a performance of this kind should be a type of inscription that shows “[…] process
and making, the temporal unfolding of choreographic thinking, not just a finished artefact”
(Leach, 2017, p.145). Indeed, one may wonder: when/how does one transition from rehearsal
to performance? (Leach, 2017).

3.3.3. Feeling while dancing and seeing on video – ways in which the participants
conceive the use of video
Throughout both workshops and interviews, one of my questions was about the participants’
relationship between feeling (i.e.: their internal experiences) and seeing (i.e.: watching
themselves on video). During these experiments, I was mainly interested in accessing if the
dancers found a connection between these two experiences, or not. In either case, I used the
group conversations and individual interviews as avenues to ask them why they thought the
two experiences were related, or not, and to explore these two activities in various contexts
(e.g.: in rehearsal or performance, recent or old videos, and even from the video I filmed during
the workshops’ tasks).

In view of this, Sophie Holland was surprised by other participants’ disconnection between
what they feel and what they see on video, since she affirms that: “I see what I think is

36
happening” (Holland, 12 April 2019). She then linked this to her “cheating”, i.e.: her awareness
of her movements’ aesthetic through the aid of mirrors and her constant thoughts about what
her movements will look like. She was not the only one to express that what she feels resonates
with what she sees. Laura Calcagno (12 April 2019) said that this happens to her sometimes
and specified that this usually only occurs when she improvises, since when it is choreographed
movement, she knows what each movement should look like and becomes more critical.
Sophie’s constant thinking about her dancing’s visual aspects and Laura’s notion of her
movements when improvising seem to shift their self-awareness, specifically regarding the
relationship between how they feel while dancing and what their movements look like, for
instance on video.

Furthermore, the presence of studio mirrors, paralleled with the filming style, seem to be
relevant influences when researching about self-awareness and the layers of being seen. These
reflections present a visual perception that motivates dancers to ignore other perceptual
information (Bleeker, 2008). The images exposed are of “[…] perfect bodies in control, bodies
that do not sweat and make no sound; bodies that can be perceived as mere spectacle” (Bleeker,
2008, p.163). This opposition between the body represented in a mirror or screen and the
physically present and visceral body epitomises “[…] a body merely seen and a body felt”
(Bleeker, 2008, p.163).

Indeed, most people were distracted and noted how their gaze was directed mainly downward
so to avoid looking into the mirrors or at the laptop screen. This was noticed in the approach
and accounts of most dancers, with the exception of Christopher and Sophie. Interestingly,
these two participants confronted these distractions in quite different ways. Christopher
Spraggs said: “[…] because there are mirrors, […] I’m doing something and then suddenly I’m
looking at myself in the mirror and it’s like: oh, now this is part of it. Rather than two things,
it’s one thing” (Spraggs, 12 April 2019). Sophie Holland explained: “[…] because there are so
many different angles that you can see yourself from here, that I don’t even notice. It kind of
goes so far that I was able to tune out of it […]” (Holland, 12 April 2019). These two reports
appear to illustrate both, how mirrors’ reflection may become part of one’s movement and self-
awareness, and how this reflection may be so intense that it becomes part of the background,
without interfering much with one’s self-awareness.

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With regards to the type of filming and its effects, Fraser Buchanan (12 April 2019) shared his
previous experiences and associated those memories with the filmed task. Since he often uses
this mode of filming, he found it especially distracting because of his awareness of being able
to see himself. He noted that when he watches videos that have been filmed this way, he
unconsciously glances at the laptop and only becomes aware of that when he watches it
afterwards. Fraser’s past experiences with this type of filming heightened his attention to the
fact that he was being filmed while performing the improvisation-based task. This attentiveness
to being filmed seemed to both affect his self-awareness while dancing, and to change his
experience when viewing himself on video. Also, most participants shared their spatial self-
awareness during both sessions. They were careful about positioning themselves in front of or
behind other dancers in relation to the camera. In their self-assessments, participants
commented on how much space they had to move in, and also noticed on video certain
moments when their bodies may have been blocked by another dancer, or vice versa, while
aiming to be within the camera frame. This awareness of what will or will not appear on video,
due to the way of filming with a fixed camera, exemplifies how recording enacts almost as
“[…] its own form of technological censorship” (Reason, 2006, p.86).

When the participants expressed their lack of enthusiasm towards the video, they differentiated
performing the task with an introspective and self-exploratory quality, from performing it with
an exhibitionist quality to show-off their movements. All the participants in the second
workshop, except Christopher, added this as a justification to why they found it tedious to
watch themselves, classifying what was interesting and uninteresting to watch. When touching
this topic, the participants corresponded interesting movement to live movement, and
uninteresting movement to movement on screen. Becky Horne explained this by saying that:
“I’ve felt similarly to you guys, about watching it and didn’t think it was very interesting. But
if I’d been sitting in the room, then I think I would have found it very interesting, because
watching people do things in real life is very interesting but watching them doing things on a
screen that's quite far away…” (Horne, 12 April 2019). Besides the erasure of the live element,
these reports about the dancers’ relation with themselves and their virtual-selves are
reminiscent of Bleeker’s (2008) argument about the developing a ‘second consciousness’. This
is a type of consciousness that arises from the identification with an image of a body without
connecting it to how that may feel intrinsically. Similarly, in my study, Sakeema Crook (12
April 2019) added: “I’m not aiming to be interesting; I’m aiming to be interested in what I'm
doing, and not think about the product” (Crook, 12 April 2019). Here, it seems to be implicit

38
that showing the process is less ‘interesting’ than displaying the product. This reaction was
somewhat surprising since “[…] the process of creation […] is associated with ‘knowledge’”
(Leach, 2017, p.149).

Several participants noted the inefficiency of video when capturing movement, due to its two-
dimensionality and removal from the live moment when the movement happened. These
reports resonate with Reason’s (2006) considerations about dance recordings on video. In fact,
often artists who present work live and on screen explain “[…] that there are things that work
live but that do not work on screen […]” (Reason, 2006, p.88). This allowed me to
acknowledge that most participants found video to be an inefficient tool to capture movement
since they found the screen to be too rigid for the ephemeral nature of live performances.
However, Fraser Buchanan (12 April 2019) distinguished this by explaining that video fails to
capture anything more than the spectator’s visual experience, but that is enough for him when
watching something he called “pure dance”. Here, it was implicit that “pure dance” means
dance that is primarily aesthetically and visually orientated (e.g.: ballet), rather than immersive
performances that are interested in the creation of social spaces, or so called ‘world-creating
works’. This type of ‘world-creating works’ appears to share certain similarities with the effects
of Lev Manovich’s term of “Instagramism” (2017) on certain groups of people and places.
Manovich is a cultural studies and media scholar, who studies Instagram in particular. His term
“Instagramism” (2017) refers to the conjunction of a media form and a specific content, which
situates an image “[…] within the histories of social, economic and cultural ideologies and
corresponding ways to conduct one’s life” (Manovich, 2017, p.73). This term is useful when
attempting to describe this kind of ‘world-creating works’, since both establish a mood and
promote a specific atmosphere that originates particular ways of behaving, moving and
inhabiting space, instead of aiming to narrate a story.

Specifically when considering ways of capturing pieces that belong to this category of ‘world-
creating works’, it is relevant to ponder how “[…] recordings convey little of the impact of the
live event, little of the dynamism of the performance, the emotion, or the charged nature of the
audience experience” (Reason, 2006, p.90). It seems appropriate to reiterate this, especially
within these types of pieces, so one is aware of what might be faded through the act of
recording, or even, so one explores further methods of filming this kind of work. This
understanding might have changed some of the reactions reported by the workshop’s
participants described next.

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Overall, the feeling of watching themselves on video came across as emotionally triggering,
along feelings of monotony and dislike, which in a way was expected, since often there is “[…]
little pleasure in the experience of watching, merely a sense of utilitarian purpose […]”
(Reason, 2006, p.87), such as in these sessions. These negative responses towards their video
image also appear to be connected to the expectation many of them have of what ends up on a
screen. For instance, Sakeema Crook (12 April 2019) elucidated that once something is on
screen it becomes official and she expects it to be a finalised product. This relates to a broader
idea of “[…] performance as a finished entity; something presented as a complete and un-
cumbered moment of experience” (Leach, 2017, p.149). Simultaneously, this importance given
to what is on screen may be dissolved when one thinks about the screen as a “window into a
world” (Jones, 2006, p.150) that one may have access to from the intimacy of their home, for
instance through a laptop such as the one used during the workshop.

Nevertheless, there were two participants whose reports differed in that they suggested an
affirmative relationship with video self-surveilling. In the first workshop, Camilla Isola (18
April 2019) explained that she enjoyed watching herself doing the task because it allowed her
to think about the process she went through, especially since she feels that sometimes she loses
track of what she does while moving, so the video becomes a reminder of that journey. In her
own words: “It helped a lot, and it makes the ideas a bit clearer. By watching the video, you
kind of reconnect with all the images that you’ve been thinking about while you were doing it”
(Isola, 18 April 2019). Her experience suggests that there may be positive aspects for self-
awareness when it comes to the video as a self-surveilling tool.

In a similar account, Christopher Spraggs (12 April 2019) found another positive aspect of
using video as a self-surveilling tool. He explained how he felt distanced from the person in
the video. His account made me think that this ‘othered’ self may lead to a more objective
viewing, perhaps by considering the person on video as “comfortably other” (Jones, 2006). The
distance described by Christopher seemed to help him recognise useful information he would
not have access to unless he had watched the video. This involved a whole different approach
from the way other participants viewed the video after the task, since the latter exhibited more
concern about how they looked when moving, resulting in an aesthetically critical type of
observation. Christopher explained how he approaches viewing himself on video by saying:
“Because you have your virtual-self, it's not me, that film is not me, it's a film of me through

40
an Apple screen, and it’s flat and it's far away and there's people in the way and it's low quality,
so obviously that's not what I look like […]” (Spraggs, 12 April 2019). This comment not only
emphasises how Christopher distances himself from his virtual-self, but it also resonates with
Jones’s (2006) point about the distance which is also related to an awareness of how video as
a medium lowers image quality.

Owing to Christopher’s previous research into phenomenology, dance and filming/viewing

improvisation, he participated in a post-viewing group conversation from a different
perspective. His divergent involvement in the group discussions exemplified how “[…]
perception depends […] on understanding and knowledge” (Noë, 2008, p.663). In this case,
vision “[…] becomes itself an object of knowledge, of observation” (Crary, 1988, p.5).
Christopher’s particular way of viewing led him to even get surprised by some of the common
answers other participants gave. Undeniably, this showed how “the response of the seer will
depend on how the body has learned to perceive itself and the world around […]” (Bleeker,
2008, p.175). For instance, immediately after watching themselves perform the improvisational
task, everyone, except Christopher, expressed their dislike and apathy towards their digital self
and video as a medium. Here, Christopher Spraggs (12 April 2019) expressed an opposite
reaction. He explained how he was very interested in what happens on video and that he was
not dissatisfied at all, since he is accustomed to keeping distance from his digital self. This
enables him to remember and re-explore that improvisatory moment, while gathering more
information. Christopher’s experience illuminates how “[…] for a perceiver with the requisite
understanding, seeing how things look can be an encounter with how things are” (Noë, 2008,
p.665). Vision, rather than a privileged form of knowing, becomes itself an object of
knowledge, of observation (Crary, 1988). Christopher’s way of viewing video enables him to
realise that he does not look exactly as how video represents him. This differentiation between
himself and his virtual-self seem to affect his self-awareness by allowing him to gather
information about his movement that he can only have through video, without being influenced
by the fact that his movement gets changed by that medium. He is aware of those changes but
seems to choose to concentrate on other aspects of his videoed movement.

This situation suggests “[…] that viewers need (and even have an obligation and responsibility)
to unpack the video document and learn to read the screen” (Reason, 2006, p.90) in order to be
able to not only enjoy it but to further profit from the material recorded. Christopher (12 April
2019) mentioned an instance in which he explored filming as movement improvisation. He

41
explained this connection by saying: “The way that you're improvising your brain, comes out
as movement, or it comes out as the way that you’re filming someone” (Spraggs, 12 April
2019). This description of ways of introducing video in rehearsal and performance, not only as
a medium in order to document work, but as something that is done in parallel with improvised
movement, demonstrates how “video is often presented as both a medium and an activity”
(Reason, 2006, p.76).

When it comes to rehearsals in particular, some dancers again reported a negative impact of
video. Fraser Buchanan (12 April 2019), for instance, had simultaneously a negative emotional
relationship towards viewing himself on video, and a distance from his virtual-self; he felt that
this might be a result of the disconnection between his feeling and the experience of doing
something (dancing) and what he sees on video. Fraser’s disconnection between what he
physically felt and what he saw on video recalls Bleeker’s (2008) remarks about how one builds
a ‘second consciousness’ by identifying with an image (in Fraser’s case, of himself) that does
not match one’s internal experience. Yet, this distance/disconnection, contrarily to Christopher,
does not enable Fraser to objectively watch himself, but makes him feel physically
uncomfortable. He stated: “I have a really… emotional sounds a bit much, a visceral… I feel
palpably uncomfortable watching myself, because I feel very little connection with that person”
(Buchanan, 12 April 2019). These different ways of viewing themselves on video seem to
affect their self-awareness in opposing ways.

In fact, Fraser (12 April 2019) reaffirmed his emotional connection to videos of himself when
explaining that he does not watch videos close to when they were filmed, since he needs an
emotional time distance from the performance. Conversely, the other participants expressed
their wish of having access to videos right after a performance, but unfortunately, they typically
have access to them only a few months later. These diverging replies suggest a relationship
with Jones’s (2006 & 2012) view on how visual experience is always culturally grounded. Each
participant reacts to their body visualisation on video depending on what each visual cue might
mean to them. These variations then led to different adjustments of the participants’ self-
awareness, which subsequently resulted in these diverse responses.

From this range of responses, it is relevant to conclude that the participants view video
differently, depending on their previous experiences with this medium. Seemingly, the more
experiences they had with video, the more extreme their positions become in relation to it, both

42
positively and negatively. In more detail, it may be asserted that some participants seem to
accept their virtual-self, considering it useful, beneficial, and potentially triggering a ‘self-
actualization’ emotional state. In contrast, other participants appear to consider the experience
of video viewing to be threatening, feeling betrayed by their virtual-self, or feeling simply
disinterested. Apparently, some of these responses expressing negative feelings are a
combination of tedium with threat. Indeed, this range of reactions illustrate how the
participants’ video usage influences the way they see themselves through this medium,
consequently affecting their self-awareness.

Furthermore, participating dancers’ reactions to viewing a video seem to depend on the purpose
of the recording, which includes aspects such as dancers filming themselves or being filmed.
This difference of context also influences the dancers’ movement quality. This was a surprising
finding, as in my own experience this does not happen as often; my movement quality seems
to be less dependent on my surrounding context in comparison with what the participants
reported about themselves. According to some participants, the idea of knowing how the
context of something may change its viewing relates to another layer of live performance, its
video recording and how this is viewed. Here, “[…] knowing the exact relationship between
any particular live performance and its screen representation tells us much about what it is that
we are watching and may crucially also change how we watch” (Reason, 2006, p.74). Reason
underlines the live event and various documentations of it, as well as edited realities, e.g., when
the performance is reframed to fit a medium. In my study of dance/movement filming, be it a
rehearsal, an improvisation session in the studio, or a performance on stage, dancers’ self-
awareness was altered by the context and function of that video recording.

Throughout both group conversations, I noted how it is quite peculiar to archive/record

improvised movement, since that will no longer be live and will not actually happen when it
happened, losing one of its own primary features. This question does not only refer to
improvisation, but more generally to how to document live performance (Reason, 2016).
Indeed, video may be considered “[…] saviour and death of live performance” (Reason, 2016,
p.73), since it ‘solves’ the ‘problem’ of documentation, but it becomes “something that will
[…] overwrite the original performance” (Reason, 2016, p.73). The erasure of performances’
liveness that happens once movement is filmed seems to be another layer that affects dancers’
self-awareness when self-surveilling their dancing on video, i.e.: as referred before,

43
participants may feel that their movement becomes frozen and reified once it is recorded and
on screen.

Broader questions such as “how might new technological possibilities change our
understanding of archival practices and the relationship between the archive and creative
practice?” (Bleeker, 2017, p.xxi) come to surface when this kind of problematic is discussed.
There seems to exist an on-going “[…] desire to find appropriate inscriptive methods to
preserve contemporary dance pieces” (Leach, 2017, p.145) due to their ephemeral nature. This
solely visual tendency of archiving dance reassures how “what we see or otherwise experience
is one aspect of the dance” (Pakes, 2011, p.34). However, one must be aware that visual
perception only captures one quality of the dance in question, “[…] one of the ways in which
this dance is present” (Pakes, 2011, p.34). These kinds of discussions may help dancers’ video
self-surveilling and self-assessment by explaining that the way they look like when dancing is
only one part of their performance. This knowledge might enhance dancers’ self-awareness
through a more informed approach when viewing themselves on video.

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Chapter 4: Research’s vicissitudes and oddities

This project has employed a malleable methodology that evolved as I deepened my knowledge
concerning the object of study about dancers’ self-awareness, therefore a few things changed
from the first to the second workshop. Upon the second workshop, I conducted six individual
interviews with those participants who manifested their interest and availability. After the first
session, I realised I would gain relevant information from leading some individual interviews.
I decided to concentrate on both dancers’ self-awareness and how that may be affected by video
during the workshop, with the core enquiry: How do dancers feel their movements and how do
they respond to the visible aspects of these same movements? On the individual interviews, the
main focus was on the ways this awareness eventually changes from rehearsal to performance,
mainly investigating: How do dancers prepare themselves for a performance?

This allowed a deeper concentration on each of these research parts, along with the opportunity
to apply Spradley’s (1979) methodology on ethnographic interviewing. This change was
propelled by experiencing the first group conversation, where I realized that a discussion
concerning the process of rehearsing to performing was missing. The dancers had just been
filmed and seen themselves on video, so this awareness was more vivid, therefore more present
in the conversation. Simultaneously, the possibility of conducting individual conversations
enabled me to witness people’s train of thought as they talked. The interviewees implicitly
expressed overall aspects about themselves and their practice; which were seemingly clarified
throughout the conversation. The participants’ speech conveyed personal realisations,
enlightening a sort of journey. This revealed the two-folded features of these individual
interviews: gathering information and allowing the participants to realise something about
themselves and their practice through the conversation.

The information gathering consisted of two workshops where a few things changed from one
to the other and these changing factors were relevant to the participants’ experiences and
answers. As previously mentioned in the methodology chapter, the first session happened in a
small studio without mirrors and with live guitar music by Albert E. Dean, while the second
one was in a bigger studio with mirrors and with live electronic music composed by Camilla
Isola. I led both workshops and filmed them with my laptop (on selfie mode) and a phone. The
laptop was used for the improvisational task, so that I would be able to show the participants
that video. Then, the phone was used for the group conversations, so I could have access to

45
mainly the participants’ speech afterwards. Individual interviews were only conducted after the
second session and here, I merely voice recorded them, but both days had a structure compiled
of: filming the dancers (approx. 10 min.); brief group discussion (approx. 10 min.); watching
the video (approx. 10 min.); group discussion (approx. 30 min.).

My intention when choosing these workshops’ improvisational task was to offer an imaging
structure with a beginning, a higher point in the middle, and an ending. This structure aimed to
allow a variety of improvisational experiences and ranges of movement, speed and
visualization. Even though there was a structured description, this task also intended to give
freedom to the participants. As described in section 3.3., the visualisation centred on the idea
of having a flame inside one’s body and surrendering to this flame’s movement and sensation
of control. The speed and quality of movement depended on the type of flame each dancer
visualised, but their choices could also change throughout the task’s duration. I reflected on
the task’s structure in detail; however, I did not imagine myself doing it in the role of the
participants. I was concentrating on my responsibility as their guide, offering suggestions and
instructions, which led me to forget the general feeling I experience each time I improvise
around a specific task: a worry about following the task. Indeed, every participant expressed
this concern and their wrestle to stop themselves from just moving in their habitual manners.
This topic originated a dialogue about what following a task means to different individuals and
how that interpretation fluctuates in various directions.

I would like to point out that throughout these workshops, the dancers' answers made me
wonder whether they were only mentioning those occurrences because they wanted to be
positive towards the session and research. For instance, various participants expanded upon the
ways in which the task and the information I fed during the improvisation was supportive,
helpful and relevant to what they were doing. That was certainly my aim, however, I did not
expect this to be such a reoccurring comment, which became an encouraging aspect of the
group discussions.

Furthermore, all the participants were very eager to be part of my research, thus, the workshops
were filled with an atmosphere of cooperation that was comforting, but that also magnified
certain aspects. For instance, there was a shared worry to think, do and say what was ‘expected’
or ‘necessary’ within a research about dancers’ experiences. Here, there was an element of

46
‘performativity’ throughout the research which was considered a product/artefact that was
rooted in the culture (Bleeker, 2017) attached to this type of information collection (in the
‘studio’) derived by acquired knowledge the participants used “[…] to interpret experience and
generate [this] social behavior” (Spradley, 1979, p.5).

Such a cooperation led paradoxically to the filtering of the participants’ experiences and
responses. For instance, Becky Horne (12 April 2019) explained that initially she was trying to
do what she thought I would want her to do, which made her feel disconnected from the task.
Another example is by Maude Zimmerli (12 April 2019), who mentioned that she consciously
tried to remember certain feelings and thoughts, to be able to report them back during
subsequent interviews. But, when the conversation actually occurred, she could not recall these,
since she got so distracted when searching for the right words to describe what she was
experiencing. This struggle of reporting one’s perceptual experience is essentially always
present since one’s observational concepts are never as specific and diverse as the experience’s
complex quality/essence (Peacocke, 2002, p.273). The struggle of reporting perceptual
experience relates to the strain of researching about dance experience. Indeed, Fraser Buchanan
noticed this: “Do you think there’s something kind of simultaneously really interesting and
also completely destructive and suicidal about when you research, the frame of researching
dance, is both really enabling, because we’re all talking about things that we’re thinking about
during this process, because we're aware, perhaps of the fact that this is a research project. […]
It almost completely dissolves any sense of spontaneity […]” (12 April 2019).

Fraser’s comment on reflection made me to ponder the inadequacies of creating a research

environment that seems to erase any sense of spontaneity in the studio. This might be attached
to the fact that most times, dance research is based on methods that have not been created
specifically for a dance context. How can one research about dancers’ experiences without
altering their surrounding environment? How may one adapt methods created to study different
subjects in order to find suitable ways of applying them in dance research? These reflections
evoke the consideration of the succeeding questions posed by Varela & Shear: “How do you
know that by exploring experience with a method you are not, in fact, deforming or even
creating what you experience? Experience being what it is, what is the possible meaning of
examination?” (1999, p.13). This type of enquiry relates back to the “hermeneutical objection”

47
since no method of approaching experience is neutral (Varela & Shear, 1999), ergo this
‘objection’ has kept on emerging throughout this study.

4.1. Discussion about participants’ responses analysis

Throughout the whole analytical process, I have adopted a unit of semantic analysis of ‘variable
geometry’13. Since it is the meaning of the affirmations collected that is important to point out,
the analysis unity should necessarily include a single term, a phrase, or even a set of sentences.
With these guidelines, I started the development of a thematic analysis, in which the themes,
instead of being previously constituted, were organized a posteriori, in the manner I shall
describe. It may be considered that the process of content analysis of the participants’
affirmations began (in an incipient and intuitive manner) at the moment the interviews
happened, while I listened to the participants’ replies.

Subsequently, in a more systematised manner, as I transcribed their recorded speech, some of

the answers’ meanings started to emerge. During those moments, I made a pre-analysis, i.e., as
I appropriated the meaning of the respondents' statements, I simultaneously started a first
‘vertical’ reading of each respondents’ discourse. Then, I did ‘horizontal’ readings of the
interviews’ transcripts, that is, I have put in ‘parallel’ the answers given by all the interviewees
to each of the proposed questions. This phase that I have called pre-analysis had as its main
purpose a very broad examination that would allow an identification of the answers’ general
content. The crossing of these two types of reading (vertical and horizontal) enabled the
framing of two analytical grids, one for the group conversations and another one for the
individual interviews (Appendixes 4 and 5) in which I grouped in columns the similar and
dissimilar statements made by each interviewee. I also added two more columns where I
regrouped both statements that I considered as central to my study and unexpected information.

As it will be discussed in section 4.2.3., most participants initially rejected or undermined the
importance of video in their performing practice, however, once the conversations developed
and became more specific, most realised that they actually do use video in their practice in
various ways. A possible line of interpretation is the predominant rejection of the use of video
in contemporary dance as a tool to correct one’s technique and to criticise it aesthetically. My
question, unintentionally, led them to think about one specific way of using video in

13
Analogy with British war planes which have wings that change size depending on the flight conditions.

48
performance and rehearsal, and it was only once other ways appeared in conversation that they
admitted, indeed, to using video in many different ways. These answers not only have heuristic
value in so much as they illuminate a new knowledge – a significant rejection amongst most
participants to using video within their practice – but led me to review my own questioning
and its inducing effects. These answers also produced unpredicted questions and considerations
I had not formerly contemplated, exposing effects of serendipity.

Another relevant aspect of this study is related with the participants’ shared ‘awareness’ about
the workshops being research. Indeed, this awareness may be a structural pattern that arose
from both the workshops and interviews and that highlights a need to reflect on ongoing
research methods/limitations. However, this is stated with an understanding of the difficulty of
choosing methods that do not interfere too intensively when researching about human
experience (Varela & Shear, 1999).

This shared awareness returns to Fraser’s point about the nature of this experiment as part of
my research. Retrospectively, this research and its environment seem to have promoted self-
awareness, while also being a stumbling block for spontaneity. These apparently contradicting
processes seem to happen since the heightening of self-awareness implied introspective
thinking. Even though I am still unsure about the solution for this chain of events and reactions,
I am able to discern both, that this blockage was not constant, and that this rising of self-
awareness did not always entail obstacles. In fact, this noticeable hindrance motivated other
prolific conversations which will be further discussed throughout section 4.2.1.

4.2. Self-awareness and its nuanced layers

Throughout this research’s process, the findings that grew from the participants’ input
highlighted several patterns, as well as variances. Within these, some seem to lead mainly
toward individual experiences. This might be associated with the fact that the embodied subject
is the reference to experience in relation to one’s surrounding perceptual objects, and one is
aware of these only by being conscious of one’s body and its relation to those objects (Zahavi,
2002). Nevertheless, during this discussion, some common findings have been uncovered too.
In order to draw some of self-awareness nuanced layers that have emerged from these
experiences, I will be addressing back to this thesis’ initial questions while cross-
referencing/referring back to some subsections presented throughout Chapter 3. The returning

49
to these aspects allowed me to describe and interpret certain relevant findings considered in the
following three additional sub-themes: 4.2.1. Dancers’ inner conversations; 4.2.2. Dancers’
awareness of being seen; 4.2.3. Findings about the role of video and its connection to self-
awareness. In the following sections I will discuss each in more detail.

4.2.1. Dancers’ inner conversations

This section relates back mainly to the question about the ways in which dancers may find
internal space to think in performances, or more broadly, while dancing; and about their
movement awareness. The section’s title deserves a short derail about the participants’
subconscious slippage between the terms ‘monologue’ and ‘dialogue’ within the broader term
of ‘inner conversations’. The participants conceptualised their ‘monologue’ as a conversation
with an ‘other’, ergo the reference to a dialogue instead of monologue. This discussion
happened throughout the workshops which started with a filmed improvisational task, followed
by a group conversation about that experience.

When asked what she thinks about while dancing, Sakeema Crook (12 April 2019) explained
the connection between her “inner dialogue” (the term she used when referring to the
monologue versus dialogue issue described above, meaning her inner conversation while
dancing), my instructions’ timing and keeping her eyes closed/opened. She found that it was
easier for her to calm down her “inner dialogue” when I fed in information around the task’s
idea and while having closed eyes. On the other hand, whenever she would become visually
aware of the filming, mirrors and other people in space, her inner doubting and questioning
would return. Sakeema’s work with eyes closed is reminiscent of Noë’s point concerning the
connection between eyes, head and body movement with “[…] one’s sensory relation to the
world around one […]” (Noë, 2008, p.663).

Even though this issue arose from Sakeema’s comment, it is noticeable that various dancers
find inner stability when closing their eyes while moving. Within the workshops’ environment,
this need to avoid visual experience derived from the prevention of being aware of the fact that
they were being filmed; their mirror reflections; and even other people’s gaze. Those
circumstances gave rise to an awareness of being watched and enhanced an inner conversation
of an undesirable kind. This produced an aspect around the connection regarding self-
awareness and corporeal grace (Bleeker, 2008). Such a relationship suggests a possible way of

50
conjoining the original questions about dancers’ body awareness and dancers’ procedures to
attain a productive inner conversation: their practice to achieve a type of movement awareness
that comes from within, meaning an inner proprioceptive feeling of movement.

Another participant, Blanche Jandin named this process of inner conversations: “Obstructing
thoughts” (Jandin, 12 April 2019) and compared them to her “automatic thoughts” of what
could be considered choreography when viewing the video. These kinds of manifestations that
dancers noticed about the way they felt and looked like while being filmed bring to surface the
liaison between self-awareness and “bodily grace” (Bleeker, 2008). Seemingly, this concept
and connection emerges as a compound of inner proprioceptive feeling of movement, which
dancers not only practice when attempting to look effortless while moving, but also look for
when self-surveilling.

This awareness of their individual internal conversations unearthed the identification of various
group conversations that related to the participants’ own practice. They referred to their internal
conversations as ‘inner dialogues’, however in the process of analysing their responses, I
noticed how it was odd to keep on referring to their inner conversations as dialogues, ergo the
initial differentiation. In this vein, Fraser Buchanan highlighted his three-fold trail of thoughts:
“I'm listening to what you're saying, but I'm also trying to switch off my own response to what
I'm doing in response to what you're saying” (Buchanan, 12 April 2019). Fraser’s comment
appears to describe a form of silent dialogue between his self-awareness as he silently dialogues
with me as an interlocutor. Diversely, Sakeema used my words and created her own world,
which is something similar to her improvisation-based studio practice. She used my description
of the flame that travelled inside and through her body and took it further. The flame became
part of her own imagined visualisation. She described her process as follows: “I like to imagine
scales and distance, and things way outside of where I am […]” (Sakeema, 12 April 2019).
This variation of thoughts while moving is reminiscent of Pakes’s comments exposing how “in
the constantly shifting stream of experience, we engage in numerous kinds of thought processes
– perceiving, imagining, remembering […] processes related to the different kinds of things
encountered” (Pakes, 2011, p.37).

In the context of internal conversations while improvising within this task, Becky mentioned
how she found herself automatically performing a piece she had previously been involved in.
This reflex made her want to stop doing that since it was not part of the task. She said that due

51
to my instruction of being out of control, her muscle memory took her into that direction.
Something similar happened to Sakeema Crook (12 April 2019) once she decided to abstain
from dancing the piece that the task reminded her of. After these comments that were shared
during a group conversation, Christopher Spraggs (12 April 2019) wondered why Becky and
Sakeema thought that to follow the task they should refrain from their initial instinct, since that
was in fact the instruction. This dialogue not only enlightened the complex idea of following a
task and its intricacies and variations, but it also enabled a sharing of the participants varied
types of inner conversations that happened throughout the workshop’s task. Laura Calcagno
(12 April 2019) also elaborated on the instruction of losing control by connecting it to her own
self-awareness. She could relate to this idea because she has been told: “[…] not to constantly
be aware of [her] body all the time” (Calcagno, 12 April 2019). She has a heightened awareness
of where her body is in space (i.e.: an enhanced proprioceptive sense that makes her look and
feel like she is almost ‘too aware’ of her body/movements, sometimes giving the sensation that
she feels self-conscious) while improvising, which leads her to always be in control, so the idea
of a flame controlling her movement was incredibly challenging.

During this group conversation, Laura Calcagno (12 April 2019) discerned her self-awareness
when improvising by herself without a structured task, from improvising around a task
conceived and guided by someone else. She distinguished the two by stating how when
improvising alone she prioritises sensation rather than visual results, giving her a sense of
freedom, versus moving in response to someone else’s structural improvisation-based task,
which often forces her to go against her own improvising habits. This change in Laura’s self-
awareness depending on the situation she is in, seemingly is an illustration of Zahavi’s (2002)
phenomenological considerations in relation to one’s bodily awareness and its dependency of
the surrounding world. Laura’s level of self-awareness while dancing seems to be dependent
on what type of stimuli is making her move. On one hand, if Laura is alone and is allowed to
choose the ideas that generate her movement, she seems to feel her movements without getting
concerned with its visual outcomes, allowing her to appreciate her dancing. On the other hand,
if Laura has to follow someone else’s direction about the ideas she is supposed to physically
explore, she appears to get apprehensive about how she might look like and even feel
uncomfortable with how that task makes her move.

52
Fraser Buchanan clarified how he addresses his struggle when being filmed while improvising:
“Trying to manage within myself an approach to something that's quite curious and engaging,
as a task, and as a research, and then balancing that, or trying to not offset but acknowledging
an honesty of myself that I look at myself in a very aestheticized way” (Buchanan, 12 April
2019). Fraser’s report about his heightened self-awareness in response to being filmed while
dancing seems to recall Zahavi’s (2002) reflection on how self-awareness is a pre-reflective,
tacit and non-conceptual event. Concurrently, Fraser’s statement evokes Bermúdez’s (2001)
ideas concerning non-conceptual consciousness from a cognitive science point of view. Fraser
appears to be aware that instead of over conceptualizing his process of responding to a task
within a research, he should simply acknowledge how he usually views himself.
Simultaneously, Fraser appears to make an effort of attempting to not let that awareness take
over the initial explorative sense that arises within these types of tasks. Moreover, Fraser’s
comment shows how his body and his movement adapted to the change in his surroundings,
including the presence of a camera, which provoked an activation in his perception. In
reference to the revelation of dancers’ inner conversation, the use of video as a self-surveilling
tool suggested by Bleeker (2008), in my study, facilitated the access to dancers’ considerations
about their self-awareness, which became even more visible once the participants were
confronted with those videos. This type of self-awareness that is observed when dancers
reported their ‘inner conversations’ seems different from the one that was noticed in section
3.3.2. where dancers reported their awareness during rehearsal, in relation to how something
will feel and look like in performance.

4.2.2. Dancers’ awareness of being seen

One of the features that surfaced in this analysis was the shift that occurs in performance when
there is an audience. This alteration, a posteriori, conjoined the dancers’ responses to the
presence of a camera recording their movements. These two different experiences, with similar
reactions, arose together, which underscore the presence of a pattern: the knowledge of being
observed impacts changes in dancers’ self-awareness together with how they behave once they
realise they are being watched. These two akin processes destabilise visual deception since
they arise an awareness of being seen while not being able to see oneself (Bleeker, 2017,
p.120). Being seen affects equally one’s self-awareness and one’s relation with the world
(Bleeker, 2017, p.123). This seems to facilitate an endorsement of one’s “[…]
self(mis)recognition, but it can also deny positive identification […]” (Bleeker, 2017, p.130).

53
Also, being seen brings to surface the notion of becoming aware of one’s self through someone
else’s gaze (Bleeker, 2008). In the context of theatre and in Bleeker’s own words: “Through
our awareness of being seen, we become aware of ourselves as a spectacle for others and as
part of the spectacle of the world” (2008, p.131). This type of awareness and its repercussions
were developed during this research through the access and reflection on my own past
experiences as a performer and on the differences in peoples’ responses to themselves. When
noting this, the idea of becoming a spectacle for others while belonging to the world and being
a spectacle for it too (Bleeker, 2008) was mixed with the fact that the participants reflected
mainly on their own experience and image, perhaps becoming also a spectacle for themselves.

4.2.3. The role of video and its connection to dancers’ self-awareness

Section 3.3.3. comprises a discussion about the relationship between feeling while dancing and
seeing on video. Also, throughout this debate, the ways in which the participants conceive
video was considered. In this regard, the predominant pattern found was participants’ rejection
of a use of video in their practice, which later on, during conversation, changed. This
circumstance propelled a rethought of my questions’ terms and its “hermeneutical objection”
(Varela & Shear, 1999) which restricted this analysis to the video as a seeing medium. In fact,
the conversations and the research reaffirm an overall approach to video which neglects a way
of reflecting feeling or remembering feeling.

As discussed in Chapter 1, dancers use video in rehearsals for various purposes – to promote
themselves or their work; to learn choreography; video projections of dancers are often used
within choreographic work; or, video is commonly used for archival purposes. These uses are
frequently for the institution or the choreographer’s concern. However, dancers’ reports in my
study indicate that they use video mainly for two reasons: as a memory aid, and as a self-
surveilling tool.

As a memory aid, video appears to be used especially when it relates to sporadic rehearsals. In
this same vein, various participants explained how watching videos of themselves dancing,
specifically improvising, helped them to remember things they had forgotten about; video also
may help to remember moments where they were aware of the camera and, if applicable,

54
mirrors. Sakeema Crook (12 April 2019) mentioned social media, particularly Instagram14 as
a platform medium that is constantly present within our generation, and which is another layer
adjacent to video within dance culture. Indeed, this heavily visual platform and its option of
sharing one’s ‘Instagram stories’15, connects the use of video with its effects on one’s self-
awareness. She specifically enhanced the prompt comparisons dancers make with easy access
to other people’s videos, as well as the pressure of filming oneself and posting regular dance
videos on social media. Particularly after hearing Sakeema’s comment, I too paid more
attention to how my self-awareness is affected by Instagram. I have wondered if when I do not
share a video of myself dancing, for instance, I truly experienced that uncaptured moment. This
may seem odd, but I have noticed that if I receive a reply to one of my Instagram stories, I feel
rewarded initially. It is only once I rationalise that reaction that I become aware of the tension
between social media and self-awareness. Its impact on what I think and know about myself,
in other words, my self-awareness, has become tangible.

Additionally, dancers from this study, including myself, belong to a generation which is
accustomed to the idea of challenging fixed binary identity structures which are often translated
into “[…] changed articulations of subjectivity in relation to new technologies of social
networking […]” (Jones, 2012, p.7). This unstable consideration of identity might be the result
of this generation’s daily confrontation with seeing oneself on video. All use of social media
seems to be changing the relationship of seeing oneself on video and in self-imaging presented
by Bleeker, for example. While not referring to social media in specific, but to the relationship
of watching oneself on video in general, Bleeker expresses the oppositional relationship
between a body that is seen and one that is felt present. However, during this study and as part
of my ‘period eye’, some of the dancers seem to fuse the bodies seen on screen with being
actually present. This fluid process appears to change the way the participants watch
themselves on video and use video as a self-surveilling tool in rehearsal or post-performance.

Indeed, social media may present the “[…] subject in a layered and flexible self-
representational […]” (Tomić-Vajagić, 2014, p.90) manner. Perhaps, social media might also
become a platform that may allow “the construction of a second consciousness that manifests

14
Instagram is a platform medium that has changed the history of modern media with its options “to capture, edit,
and publish photos, view photos of your friends, discover other photos through search, interact with them, […]
all from a single device” (Manovich, 2017, p.11).
15
Instagram stories are a feature within the Instagram application where one may post photos and videos in a slide
show format during a limited time period to which other users may respond via message or with photos/videos.

55
itself as the result of identification with an image of the body, divorced from the sensory
vulnerability of the body felt from the inside […]” (Bleeker, 2008, p.143). This constant visual
technological advance entails “[…] new modes of interpretation and engagement” (Jones,
2006, p.139), presenting and pushing forwards “politics of viewing” (Jones, 2006, p.139).

The constant exposure of videos of others dancing, or even of oneself, reported by Sakeema
Crook (12 April 2019) entwines with ideas of malleable ways of self-representation, that are
possible due to the simple access social media provides. Sakeema mentioned how it is easy to
compare herself with others through this visual medium, which resonates with Bleeker’s (2008)
quotation about the separation between seeing and feeling internally that can happen through
visual associations of the body. Sakeema’s comment also led me to think about social media
as the scopic regime that Bleeker (2008) develops within the context of the theatre. In both
cases, the way of seeing oneself depends on how one views oneself within a specific cultural
environment. Simultaneously, Sakeema’s comment also seems to reflect Manovich’s term of
“Instagramism” (2017). Manovich finds that Instagram not only functions as a scopic regime
but also impacts formations of cultural identities. This term, helps to illustrate how the
increasing contact with bodies’ images on video that Sakeema reported, seems to create new
ways of looking that keep on developing along these technological changes, namely Instagram.

56
Conclusions

The title of this dissertation contains the concept of self-awareness and throughout the study
this term is conceived according to Merleau-Ponty’s (2005) views. This thesis considered
dancers’ self-awareness in performance from a phenomenological perspective, in line with
Zahavi’s (2002) conceptions, concentrating specifically on how this self-awareness might
change from rehearsal to performance. The research’s participants were viewed as essential
collaborators who described their internal and external processes while both, dancing in
rehearsal and performance, and throughout their other various performance preparations.
Moreover, these dancers examined and explained their use of video during those different
contexts.

The study aimed to not only grasp how performers’ self-awareness may change in several
environments, but to also understand the type of preparations dancers might undertake to find
internal space and to be mindful while dancing, ergo enhancing their self-awareness in a
positive manner. Furthermore, this research addressed dancers’ views on the role of video
within dance and more specifically, within their own practice. Also, the use of video during
the research led to conversations about dancers’ connections/disconnections between how
moving feels and the visible aspects of those movements, that merge with some points
concerning the oppositional relationship between a body that is seen and one that is felt, as
Bleeker (2008) analysed. The research proposed an examination of these variants that may
affect dancers’ self-awareness by taking into account the participants’ experiences and
responses, as well as by entwining those with my own experience as a performer. Through this
process, key patterns and contrasts between different participants’ outcomes and my own were
highlighted.

Among this study’s overall conclusions, dancers’ self-awareness in performance is affected by

the kind of rehearsal process that precedes that performance. As discussed in 3.3.1., most
participants started by saying that their preparation depends on the type of performance. For
instance, if the performance is based on improvised movement, dancers usually revisit the
concepts they want to explore throughout the piece. In the case of performances that consist
mainly in set choreographed movement, the participants mentioned to mark typically the whole

57
piece. Additionally, the transition from rehearsal to performance was explored in section 3.3.2.
Here, the participants explained their rehearsal procedures towards making something
unhabitual become habitual on stage. This process illustrates characteristics of dancers’ self-
awareness, in that it reveals how they feel and how that might look, even in a different situation.
This finding coincides with my own experience as a performer, once the variations that occur
within the transition from rehearsal to performance and the subsidiary reflections that
accompany these changes allowed me to note changes such as, shifts in self-awareness.

Another outcome of this research has to do with the complexity that arises from dancers’
conception of video usage. In 3.3.3. it was discussed how that usage affects dancers’ ability to
connect how they feel while dancing with what they see on video. Within this debate, Jones’s
(2006 & 2008) arguments supported an understanding of how the relationship between
representation and embodiments may be intersubjective, allowing me to see the relationship
between seeing and feeling in a more fluid way, not only in terms of being connected or
disconnected. The discussion illustrated how this relationship between feeling and seeing had
many variations within different participants. Some found similarities and connections between
what they felt and what it was visible in their movements, while others mainly noted the
inefficiency of video to capture their live movement, ergo they did not consider that what they
felt while moving was in accordance with what they saw on video. These particularities related
to archival questions concerning live performance raised by Reason (2006).

In relation to that, the role of video in dancers’ practices was examined (4.2.3.) while noting
how that affects their self-awareness. In order to have access to the video’s impact on the
participants’ self-awareness, I asked them to dance while being filmed in the workshops. Their
knowledge of this medium’s presence seemed to already bring a certain weight of self-
awareness in the process of performing the improvisation-based task. Their self-awareness
appeared to have increased even more once they viewed that video recording. When
considering the role of video, in general, the participants use video mainly as memory aid, but
the central point that arose in the discussion of this medium’s role and effects was how video
is present on social media. One of the participants mentioned Instagram in particular, and this
allowed conclusions about this platform’s effects on dancers’ self-awareness through its
functions as a scopic regime and its impacts on cultural identities, just as Manovich (2017)
found out in his study. As mentioned in section 4.2.3., my experience of feeling dispossessed

58
of my own performance as a dancer when I do not post a video or photo of some event, led me
to consider the possible prejudicial effects of this medium on dancers’ self-awareness.

Moreover, and from a broader overview, some paradoxical findings emerged from participants’
speech concerning the use of video, depending on how they deal with self-awareness. On one
hand, the use of video seemed to enhance participants’ proficiency while dancing, gaining
further information about the way they move, and enabling improvement in the search of their
own movement quality and performative presence. On the other hand, this medium’s usage
appeared to inhibit and paralyse these same aspects.

The study enhanced the importance of dancers’ ‘inner conversations’ when accessing dancers’
self-awareness. As explored in section 4.2.1., the increase in the awareness of being watched
(for instance on Instagram) increased an inner conversation of an undesirable kind. Moreover,
this study clarified what it means to ‘inner conversate’ while dancing through several
descriptions of participants insights about this topic. Through discussions about these ‘inner
conversations’, it became clear that this issue included various subtleties. For instance, this
conversation may happen between a dancer’s self-awareness and this dancer’s silent dialogues
with someone else; or it might happen solely within that dancer’s own thoughts. Additionally,
some participants considered two opposite aspects of ‘inner conversations’, which may be
experienced as either beneficial or adverse to their practice. Such considerations seem to
illustrate those “thought processes” that occur during one’s “stream of experience”, as Pakes
(2011) points out.

Furthermore, the process of writing this dissertation has consolidated my understanding of

various concepts of contemporary Western dancers’ self-awareness, specifically within a
phenomenological tradition. However, what has been most underlined throughout this
experience is what initially attracted me towards this tradition: the understanding that one can
only study the body after examining how that body relates to the world (Zahavi, 2002). This
simple ‘rule’ has been incredibly important as a guide through a study about dancers’
awareness of their bodies, since “the body is not a medium between me and the world, but our
primary being-in-the-world” (Zahavi, 2002, p.21). Indeed, the body is one’s perspective on the
world and one does not perceive one’s body, but one is it (Zahavi, 2002). In relation to dance,

59
this way of conceiving the body suggests that dancers do not perceive their movements, but
they are those movements. Additionally, this research reinforced the questioning about the
relationship between dance and philosophy. Similarly to Pakes’s (2011) enquiry, I found
myself wondering why I needed philosophy to confirm what I understood in an embodied way.
However, I am aware that this study has helped me to reconstruct and deepen this embodied
knowledge. Furthermore, while writing this thesis it became clear that this relationship between
dance and philosophy is two-fold: it creates conflicts, as well as insights to both fields (Pakes,
2011).

Even though this study has not concentrated heavily on World Dance, as I have been writing
it, questions around where this research belongs to, its origins, and more generally, its
relationship with the field of dance studies appeared gradually. I wonder if, similarly to “World
Dance”, this research might add to the dance world, and while doing that, if it will re-world it
just by being out in the world (Savigliano, 2009). I ponder how different this research might
have been if it were carried out in a different dance culture and a different geographical place.
These are certainly merely a few alternatives that arise my curiosity about how differently this
dissertation would have turned out, however these variations led to considerations about
worlding within the phenomena of globalization (Savigliano, 2009) and in the context of this
research about movement and self-awareness. Undeniably, this “[…] form of globalizing
redoubles the all-encompassing emphasis beyond the metaphorical, deepening the pragmatic
repercussions of control […] [while] eliciting local reactions that are always steeped in
violence” (Savigliano, 2009, p.164). With this in mind, I assess my self-awareness not only as
a performer, but as someone who is writing to share something with the dance world, perhaps
as an attempt of worlding my writing.

The experiences and awareness of the surrounding environment led to some broader
phenomenological questions such as: How do I experience the world? What is my relationship
with it? Who am I in the world? And more specifically, how am I in dance rehearsal and
performance situations? Along these questions about my position in relation to the world, ideas
concerning movement, body and world arose, introducing the concept of “body-worlding”
(Manning, 2009, p.13), meaning that one moves to create one’s world (Manning, 2009). This
helped me to consider both, what my position is, and what my research is in relation to the
world. It seems compliant to research about performers’ self-awareness within the context of

60
dance/movement once considering that we move to create our world, therefore forming our
place in the world, a synergetic process. In other words, “worlding occurs in the process of a
world becoming subject, or a subject becoming world” (Manning, 2009, p.66). The process of
writing this dissertation also underscored an awareness that until then had been somewhat
hidden. I became conscious of the shared language created within a contemporary dance
context and that the reader might not use this language, so I started giving special attention to
the way this language and its semantic subtleties are ‘translated’ into text (Spradley, 1979),
i.e.: an attempt of translating knowledge from contemporary dance into an academic paper.

The motivation underlying the choice of my research’s theme has been beyond pure curiosity,
comprising both, the hope that this dissertation eventually might be useful/helpful to other
dancers, or anyone watching performances live and/or on video, and the aim of enhancing the
proficiency of my own self-awareness while dancing. The findings of this study may also
reassure dance students/practitioners about the ways they already incorporate video in their
work while broadening their awareness about the ways they perceive those videos and
themselves. Moreover, hopefully, this study of self-awareness may be useful for performers’
knowledge about ways of approaching the rehearsal process and other performance
preparations while having these conceptions in mind.

While closing these concluding thoughts, I anticipate the development of a subsequent study
concerning dancers’ positionality within their professional practice and the research’s context.
I hope that this future perspective will fill the void that I fear when finishing this project.

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Appendix 1

The Playground (Rambert Company) workshop - core group conversation questions

After improvising/dancing while being filmed (approx. 10 min.):

1. How did you feel while doing this improvisational task?
2. How did you feel while being filmed?
3. Could you draw parallels between previous experiences you have lived during
rehearsals or performances with the improvisational task you have just done?
4. Do you ever catch yourself thinking while dancing? If so, could you give examples?

After viewing the video (approx. 30 min.):

1. How did you feel while watching yourself?
2. Are you used to watching yourself on video? Or is this something new for you?
3. Could you draw parallels between your experience while doing this task and the
experience of watching it on video?
4. Are you able to recollect what you were thinking about and experiencing while dancing
when watching yourself on video?

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Appendix 2

Laban workshop - core group discussion questions

After improvising/dancing while being filmed:

1. Could you describe the improvisational task you have just done and how its
narrative/guidance affected you?
2. How did you feel while doing this improvisational task?
3. How did you feel while being filmed?
4. How is your practice otherwise?
5. Could you draw parallels between previous experiences you have had during rehearsals
or performances with the improvisational task you have just done?
6. Do you ever catch yourself thinking while dancing? If so, could you give examples?
7. What is the difference between [one of the examples and another example given]?

After viewing the video:

1. Could you describe the viewing of this video?
2. How did you feel while watching yourself?
3. Are you used to watching yourself on video? Or is this something new for you?
4. Could you draw parallels between your experience while doing this task and the
experience of watching it on video?
5. Are you able to recollect what you were thinking about and experiencing while dancing
when watching yourself on video? Could you describe these thoughts and experiences?
6. Can you think of other instances [besides filming and watching yourself] in which you
are aware of your self-perception?
7. What is the difference between [one of the examples and another example given]?

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Appendix 3

Core individual interviews questions

1- When and how did you start dancing?

2- How do you usually prepare yourself for a performance? Could you take me through
this process and tell me how it is like to pass from rehearsal to performance?
3- Now could you describe your day when you have a performance? Especially the hours
just before it happens.
4- Could you describe what the usual rehearsal process consists of?
5- I am interested in also finding out various ways by which dancers prepare themselves
for performances. Do you ever talk about this with your colleagues?
6- You have mentioned various ways by which you prepare yourself for a performance,
can you think of anything else you do?
7- Do you ever use video during rehearsals? If so, could you describe how you normally
do this?
8- Do you watch videos from performances? What is the difference between watching
videos of rehearsals and watching videos of performances?
9- How is watching a recent video different from watching an older one?

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 Appendix 4
Central Statements
Camilla - I think there is like a really nice thing about having control
of the flame and losing it.
- […] the idea of like being filmed or moving with someone
but also working on a kind of interior idea is […] pretty
difficult, I think you need to actually concentrate
completely on what you’re doing, but sometimes I felt this
kind of weight on what I was doing.
Umut - […] the physicality of it, for me felt quite like light…
when I think of fire, it’s not like something that is super
heavy, but then in the video there were moments that
contradicted that, which was quite interesting to see.
- This experience, in a sense, helped me to like not put so
much weight on the actual process of videoing, in a way.
Because I always think that I’m gonna watch myself and
I’m gonna be super critical but it doesn’t have to be
anything more than a tool for research.
Group Conversations Grid
Similar Statements
- I was distracted at the beginning but then once
you actually get into what you’re doing… and also,
I think we’re used to it.
- the fact that you were sticking to the task and
giving information was really helpful not to zoom
out completely.
-I just don’t like the whole idea of show reel, or like
impro thing, because it changes anyway, every
time you do something, it’s gonna be different
anyway and I just don’t like the idea of putting
yourself out in a video. And also, there’s like a lot
of showing off […].
- As you’re moving, your temperature goes up and
then you actually feel a physical flame inside […].
- We were aware of it but not necessarily like
conscious of it […].
- I think I catch myself a lot while I’m improvising
[…] I catch myself thinking and questioning if I’m
really doing the task or if there are moments of me
like clicking back into like, you know, doing
improv. for just pleasure, habits and stuff like that,
but I think actually having a very clear like
sensation helped quite a bit. It wasn’t so abstract
that there was space allowed to doubt […].
- Your instruction helps me more with the
affirmation that I am really being faithful to the
task.
65
Dissimilar Statements Unexpected Statements
-I think my parallel is with a research
I’ve done with Laura on fluid and water,
because it’s kind of like abstract
movement that you do, and it’s a lot of
repetition as well, and you kind of go
into this state of trance, I think, just by
repeating […].
- I also think that you don’t want to
perform yourself in front of the
camera… I mean, some people do that.
But I kind of liked it, honestly. (similar
to Christopher, but for different reasons)
[…] to think of the process and the
journey from when the beginning to the
end, and how you develop. Because
when you do it you kind of lose track of
what you’re doing and it’s actually nice
to re-see it.
- It helped a lot, and it makes the ideas a
bit clearer. By watching the video, you
kind of reconnect with all the images that
you’ve been thinking about while you
were doing it.
- I think it was quite nice and maybe a
little bit different from my own personal
practice. Like there was allowance of
time […] the duration of this really
allowed me like to delve into it more
deeply.
 - I really don’t know any dancers who like
watching themselves in video.
- […] we both finished facing back from the
camera.
- I was thinking when I was watching the video: did
I really do that? If there wasn’t like a materialised
thing, and I was asked to reproduce something like
that, if I attempted, I don’t think it would be
anything similar to what I did initially.
Sakeema - […] the rawness of that always makes me feel a bit weird, - […] even though I knew the context of the - I had a whole world going on, […] - Something that was really
and it makes me feel like it's not a polished, finished thing filming, and because of that and because of the similar to my own practice, I like to useful for me in terms of
and there’s always something… Because it's also me doing context of this room, I thought: I’m not aiming to imagine scales and distance, and things deepening my
it, I can't be like well it's their choreography, they made be interesting, I’m aiming to be interested in what way outside of where I am […]. understanding of what the
those choices […]. I'm doing, and not think about the product. flame was when you were
- […] social media […] comparing it to other things that - […] it's on a screen now, so it’s an official thing, talking about where the
you've seen. so it should look like this. flame comes from and not
- […] so even watching this and comparing it to other - This reminds me of a piece I’ve done. Let’s stay just from underneath, but
improvisations that I would have seen, or group research away from that, and then I watched it back and I how did the flame get there,
things and how I'm kind of looking for happy accidents to was like: this looks really similar. it kind of expanded my
happen for it to be a choreography. entire vision of what that
- I find it really easy not to think around the time when you could mean physically.
give a bit more information. So, like, when you're giving - […] social media […]
information, just afterwards, I was trying my hardest to comparing it to other things
surrender my brain chatter to just that and keep thinking that you've seen.
about those words, and for that part I had my eyes closed. - […] so even watching this
And whenever I would open my eyes, and even having and comparing it to other
awareness of the filming, or that everyone else was maybe improvisations that I would
doing something different from what I had imagined, or see have seen, or group research
myself in the mirror, then all this other stuff was coming things and how I'm kind of
in, like: Oh, I should be doing that, this should look this looking for happy accidents
way, maybe I'm looking at someone, maybe I haven’t to happen for it to be a
moved enough yet, like so much stuff… so ok, I’ll close choreography.
my eyes again. Or you’d say something again, and I’d be - I feel like it's the pressure
ok, I can let go of that, if that makes sense. maybe to be making
something new all the time.

Blanche - Obstructing thoughts - I was very bored watching myself […] I couldn't - […] it might be because of
- thinking about choreography see anything. I couldn’t see any detail. And I also this frontal kind of filming.
started like watching other people and I thought: Frontal far filming thing,
I’m sure that what they were doing was very because that’s also why
interesting, but I can’t really see it. video dance exists. It’s like
- It’s another thing to show it.

66

Maude - […] since I know it’s a research, sometimes I had like
thoughts… I was like: Oh yeah, I can really feel the fire in
my feet. So I was like: okay, I really have to remember this
feeling and what they're saying and what I'm doing right
now, so then I can say it. […] and actually, I don’t
remember it. I got somehow distracted but then because I
was thinking about which words I could put on this thing
[…].
Viva - I think that I was aware of it because it made it quite like
flat, like, the space as well, we were sort of… like, doing
our thing, but aware that we had to be within a certain
space, and it felt like I was really aware of this side of the
room, rather than like a whole 3D.
Christopher - […] because in your proposal thing it was saying about
the phenomenological experience that we have, and I’ve
done a lot of research with phenomenology and dance with
camera, filming improvisation.
- I'm really interested in stuff as it happens and it's coming
along, in this case in relation to heat and stuff. […] I'm
really used to then going back using that to remember, and
then also we re-explore. […] when I'm watching that
moment I'm remembering part of what I’m doing, and then
- […] the video that's used for practical use, like the only way that can come
watching the piece that you’re going to have to do closer to a live performance.
because you have to remember the steps and
counts, I find that really useful, and I like that
purpose for the video. Or, the purpose of a piece of
art, like, this is the video, and this is the final
product, this is what I want to show. But, the use of
video that's starting to be the main use, which is
marketing ourselves… I really have a problem with
it and therefore I think I really push it away.
- I just noticed that there was someone behind me
and I thought: Oh no, I’m hiding this person.
- […] what I felt and experienced while doing it
doesn't reflect on video at all, I was super into it
and there were so many things happening in my
head, well, and in my body as well, but that doesn't
show on the video. And after just like, one minute
I was already bored.
- Yeah, it was a bit boring, because also I wasn't
aiming to be interesting. That was something for
me. So, I knew that I was going to do weird stuff
and I don’t care because it's just for me and I feel
good doing it and this is my fire right now, but if I
had to perform it, or like show the fire, I would do
something completely different.
- […] in the beginning I was quite at the back on
the floor and someone was in front of me I was like:
Maybe it's not helpful that I can’t be seen but at the
same time I don't want to move and it's fine to not
be seen. So, it was a very conscious thing in my
head.
- […] at the beginning, because the flame is - […] when I'm watching the thing, I - […] there's two separate
obviously something that’s not… it’s the images, wasn't bored at all, because it's like I'm dancing yous. The dancing
it’s the imaginative, it’s something that you’re used to seeing like that one step removed you that you record, and
working with mentally, which is then a contrast on camera, that improvisatory place. watch and stuff, and there’s
later on for me because once you start moving you - […] interesting and fun. the dancing you that you
can literally feel heat. - My interpretation of doing the task palpably loathe, or
- […] I realized that because the way that you were would be to not say no to those things. whatever. (About Fraser)
feeding stuff in, it was quite steady continuous, that And for you, to be doing the task is to - I managed to get to a place
it was quite supportive, than if you just dropped it that I was interested in quite
67
 I'm like, thinking about it now as I'm watching it […]but in at the beginning and then left a load of space, for say no to those things. I like that they’re quickly, because that's 10
also the fact that it looks that way, that I had no idea that it me to start finding something new. both correct. minutes, and usually like
looked that way. So, there's like so much… there is more takes some time to get to
information, that’s much more interesting and I couldn't this, I mean, sometimes you
have had the first time around […] that's some extra go straight away but other
information. times it can take about half
- And even though none of the experience is then translated an hour.
into the camera, because it's a different medium.
Obviously, it’s not the same to me, but it's new, more, fresh
information, more interesting stuff, and even when I can’t
see myself, because I’m behind everybody else, I’m seeing
stuff that I'm being blocked by […].
- I was like shocked, well, not shocked maybe, with the fact
that you were boring from watching it quite quickly. But
then, not that’s a bad thing, I was like: oh, I didn’t have that
experience whatsoever.
-Because you have your virtual-self, it's not me, that film is
not me, it's a film of me through like an Apple screen, and
it’s flat and it's far away and there's people in the way and
it's like low quality, so obviously that's not what I look like
[…].
- I was going to say that it’s interesting the fact that you
made the decisions to not go
to those places, and decided that that’s not the choice that I
should be making, because there were moments when I
went to think similar things, but because you were saying
like, the flame controls you, and if the flame is taking me
into this thing, then like right.
- […] the sudden and almost intrusion. But because there’s
mirrors, for me it's like, I’m doing something and then
suddenly I’m looking at myself in the mirror and it’s like:
oh, now this is part of it. Rather than two things, it’s one
thing.
Sophie - I think it made me remember moments when I - I don't think that's what I was doing was - Is it something about how,
was really aware of the mirrors and stuff like that, particularly different from… some of the how seriously you feel you
that I had forgotten it even happened […]there states took it further away from what I have to take it, maybe.
were moments I forgot happened and which I was was comfortable with.
aware of being watched or being able to see what - I think for me, because there's so many
was happening. different angles that you can see yourself
- I was jumping between things; I didn’t stick with from here, that I don’t even notice. It
anything for a long time. I wasn’t obsessed with kind of goes so far that I was able to tune
anything. out of it, because there's just so much
- I wanted to say, what Maude was saying that: oh, information going in. It's like that thing
I need to remember what I’m thinking, what that when something is so loud that it’s
you’ve said has made me think, and how that's almost silent.

68

Becky - […] muscle memory thing. So, it was like, you said to be
out of control, so then my body started doing that, well, I
did for like a while and then said: No, don't do that.
translating. I mean, I wasn’t necessarily that
successful but there were quite a few times I’ve
been like: oh, I need to try and remember what that
is that made me move in that way. So, I think that
was quite a big one for me. And actually, the same
as Blanche as well where I was sometimes: ah, I
am in front of this person. And I didn't do anything
about it, but I was just aware.
- I give myself a lot of authority to do what I want
in my practice, and in the first five minutes of this
I really was not doing that at all. I was going with
the travelling flame, I was doing what I thought
you would want, which is really bizarre.
- At one point you said something about not being
in control of the flame and let the flame control you
and I had a flashback of working with a
choreographer, an Israeli choreographer, so it was
very in that style.
- I think that’s the thing that is definitely
related to the video, because I think that
if I’d been sitting watching… I’ve felt
similarly to you guys, about watching it
and didn’t think it was very interesting.
But if I’d been sitting in the room, then I
think I would have found it very
interesting, because watching people do
things in real life is very interesting, but
watching them doing things on a screen
that's quite far away…
- I'm not actually sure I've ever watched
myself doing a piece of improvisation
for somebody else's research. I will use
film as something to help me when I’m
doing my own research, but when you’re
working for someone else, I’ve never
had them showing that back before.

Laura -So, like if I had to be filmed, or if I had to look at myself
in the mirror, improvising, by myself, with my music or
with silence, I would be like indulging my movement and,
oh yeah, this feels cool, whatever… But if I have to really
stick to a task that doesn't feel a 100% part of how I would
normally move, then I become super conscious of how it
looks like from the outside.
- I related it a lot with the fact of not being in control,
because I've been told not to constantly be aware of my
body all the time. You know, I think I'm very aware of
where my body is in space every single time and every
single time I improvise, I put a lot of effort to know where
my body is in space. I never completely let myself go, that's
something that never happens. So, when you said, you
know, the flame might get you to do something that you're
not totally in control of… because I find that very
- […] allowing my body to be driven somewhere
else, which is something I rarely do. So, yes,
especially when you say something about the flame
might want you to do something you don't
necessarily want to do […] something that doesn't
really belong to my vocabulary usually.
- […] ideally, I would want to watch it straight
away but usually you get like 3 months later.
- Yeah, it was very helpful, it didn’t come from
nowhere, everything was very relevant.
- Yeah, I always become super conscious of what
shape my body is taking.
69
- I have the opposite, every single time I
look at myself improvising, I actually
feel: oh yeah, oh yeah, that felt really
good, and it really resonates with what
I’m seeing in the screen. […] that
happens when I do improvisation, it very
rarely happens when I do steps of other
people.
- I think I like the rawness, I like the fact
that it's not polished, […] I like the
unpolished product.
- If I allow myself to not be
in control of what's
happening with my body,
then I’ll look back at it and
be like: God What's that?
-Because I took a bit of a
break from dancing recently,
and then I went back into it,
I think that recently I have
been improvising and
filming myself just for the
sake of seeing what it looks
like now.
 challenging. I really tried to make it happen, even though
it will probably take me longer to really take it to a place
where I'm totally not in control of what the flame, or
whatever, is doing.
Fraser - I'm listening to what you're saying, but I'm also trying to - I feel like I spent the first five minutes of the
switch off my own response to what I'm doing in response improvisation trying to depart from my internal
to what you're saying. narrative of how well, or unsuccessfully I'm like,
- I loathe watching myself on video in a dancing setting. thinking about the task […].
More than a lot of things, and I feel like it's because I have
this insane… an insane disconnection between the way I
feel what I'm doing and then what I see in a video, or even
in the mirror. […] I had never done class in front of mirrors
until I went there, and so it was a horrendous experience
for me to like, see what was happening. […] I have like a
really, emotional sounds a bit much, a visceral… I feel
palpably uncomfortable watching myself, because I feel
very little connection with that person.
- […] you appear to be able to like approach yourself with
like a level of almost objectivity. (To Christopher).
- Trying to manage within myself an approach to
something that's quite like, curious and engaging, as a task,
and as a research, and then balancing that, or trying to not
offset but acknowledging an honesty of myself that I look
at myself in a very aestheticized way.
- I have to have like emotional distance from a
performance.
- Because I use this mode of filming, I find it really
distracting because I'm aware that I can see myself, and I
had a memory… I was far enough away that I wasn't
looking, but I had a memory in my head to begin with…
when I watch myself moving on this kind of video of this
weird eye thing, when I don't think I'm looking at myself,
but then when I watch myself back, I see myself like
snatching a momentary glance.
- But just whether it's like somebody with a camera, or a
laptop, or the mirror, it’s just the different layers of being
seen.
- Do you think there’s something kind of simultaneously
really interesting and also completely destructive and
suicidal about when you research, the frame of researching
dance, is both really enabling, because we’re all talking
about things that we’re thinking about during this process,
because we're aware, perhaps of the fact that this is like a
research project. But then there's also something like
destructive about that as well. It almost completely
70
dissolves any sense of like, just spontaneity, or something
just happening. […] opens a window of like possibilities,
and lots of other different things that we’re talking about.

71
 Appendix 5
Individual Interviews Grid

Central Statements Similar Statements Dissimilar Statements Unexpected Statements

Sophie - […] trying to put it into words rather than doing it… - […] you re-establish the aims, or what the feeling is - I don’t have a very good memory
- Sometimes it’s not helpful because you just get to that you want to be taken away, maybe, or not taken […].
that bit and you're like: oh, I actually don't know what away. So maybe it's just getting on the same plane as - […] but it was very much like
happens and you do, you’re just like over thinking. everyone else who’s dancing or involved. And remind functional rather than like mental
- I think what I found interesting earlier, that people yourself of the parameters, so that you don't go in and preparation […].
were saying, is that they don't find the aesthetic that start bringing a totally different energy.
they see is what they feel that it is, and I think I do. I - […] I run the piece in my head before I go on, just like
see what I think it’s happening. And that doesn't imaging it, nearly entirely, I would say, in the head
necessarily mean that I'm very satisfied before I'm rather than doing it physically.
seeing it, it means I have the same feelings on both of - I think there's always a difference in energy to some
them. But then maybe that's because… I don't know, extent, even when you feel like you're giving everything
maybe I'm cheating, maybe I was looking in the in a rehearsal. You know, it’s never going to be the
mirror more than I realized […]. same, I mean, it should be the same. I guess like, you're
- I think that's probably where I feel that like not getting anything back from anyone, so it’s not
disconnect, in a way, I think it was Chris that was feeding it.
saying that he feels like he's watching someone that
isn't him on video. I think that's how I feel about older
versions, but I think that's because I'm still obviously
still like developing my practice, so even things from
like 3rd year, which is 3 years ago, are massively
different, and like that's a very steep slope for me.
- […] when I'm seeing something, it’s quite on a pair
with what I feel is happening anyway, so when I'm
watching something, I'm not being like: Oh my god,
what are you doing? I knew that was like this or like,
I kind of felt that that was the case. So, if there is
something negative, I already knew it was happening
and if there's something positive that’s like: nice
but… so I think maybe that's why it’s not like
massively.

72
Fraser - I am aware that there appeared to be a lot of people
that I trained with that focussed more on just relying
on themselves to be able to do it, and not overthinking
or consciously thinking about those things. Whereas
I felt as though, if I didn't consciously or overthink
those things, I couldn't just rely on them to happen.
- I feel as though I have to practice the way, or what
I'll be doing on stage and rehearsal, and I can't rely on
that to be something that will just happen when I’m
on stage. I remember having conversations with quite
a few people actually that, especially teachers, would
correct other people like: I know that you're just
going to do it on the day, but you need to show me
you're going to do that now. And that used to confuse
me because I thought: I don't know how you can not
do this before just doing it on the day, and it felt like
I needed to embody it.
- A good example of that, like making something
natural that feels unnatural, maybe something like
ballet, was for me my face. I didn't think my face was
doing anything problematic until I saw myself in the
mirror and watched myself on video. And then I
became aware that I really had to think about my face.
- Because that context didn't feel very normal, so I
had to rehearse making it feel more normal.
- For work that I make myself, I care about what
something feels like for me, and what it will feel like
to be in that space when I'm doing it.
- […] you become concerned in the video that you're
displaying the feeling, or you're displaying the
energy, and that's something quite difficult […].
- […] when I take photographs in the Chateau, which
is an LGBTQ venue in Camberwell, there is a really
tangible energy in the Chateau, which feels really
kind of world creating and great. And whenever I
take photographs, I always look back at photographs
and think: photographs in the Chateau look dreadful.
And there's nothing to do with the feeling and the
Chateau, […] it's not an environment that
aesthetically looks like the thing that it feels.
- The transition from rehearsing in the day to -I find it impossible to learn material - I watch pure dance work, that
performance in the evening was more about getting into off of a video, which is something arguably succeeds, in a visual
a headspace. I knew physically what I was doing, so the that I didn't have to confront until I context because that's what it was.
preparation was more about grounding myself, I think, was at Rambert. I find it very Then there's not much difference
and finding myself to be present. difficult to translate movement that's between sitting in the back of
- […] meditative, sort of going through a kind of yoga not just mirroring. Often, I would Sadler’s Wells, as there's to
practice, but very, very, very personalized, with myself watch a video, the first few instances watching something on your
quite quietly. where I was learning dances off of laptop, arguably, because you're
- […] there's a psychological thing where I feel like I video, I would be mirroring what's sat there, you're seeing something
have to have, just before I go on, or maybe within the happening, and then realizing that quite flat, and it's quite small, and
half an hour or 10 minutes before I go on, I have to feel I’m doing everything on the wrong it's square, and it's static it, and in
like I've physically thought in my head about everything side. front of you.
that I'm doing. If I don't do that, I will become scared - […] when I watch rehearsal videos,
just before I go on, if I have not physically gonne I don’t really like them, but I watch
through my head, bit by bit what I'm doing, I will forget. with the knowledge that it would be
- […] a kind of turbo quick mark of all the dance we do. ok when it's in the space and in
Just to settle, it’s not even a physical thing, it’s just to context, and with the whole
settle myself mentally. environment of the, whatever that
- […] it also depends on the work […]. work is, where it is, the place, the
- Not really, unless it's for practical reason, in my own sound, the day.
work. Because I'm not ever usually too concerned with
aesthetics on a kind of recreating something exactly.
(Initial denial)
- The practical use of video for logistic things, rather
than dancing. (Starts acknowledging the use of video)
- I like using video as a different medium, to be able to
collage stuff. […] We did this improvisation, filmed it,
watched the improvisation, zoomed through, picked the
moment, and then tried to articulate what that moment
was: bobbing, wafting, jump, escape, shoulder, and then
whatever that description then became an improvisation
instruction. (Realization)
- when I watch the final product, […] bothtimes
watching the film of the final project, I didn't feel
entirely content, because what I saw in no way
embodied what I was feeling, and what I knew to be the
energy and the moment in the room. […] I think both
rehearsal film and performance film for me share a sense
of disappointment and the sense of a degree of failure.
- […] it's to do with the medium, not the work. It’s the
two dimensionality of medium which fails to work
which is more than just about a visual experience.
73
Sakeema - I know that there are some people who like to have
their space on the show today. […] I think, each kind
of company atmosphere, there's like a general thread
of similarities and then everyone has their own little
personal things.
- I personally like to try as well, if I can, to leave the
theatre before a show, and just go for a walk, or
pretend to be a normal person. […]I guess for me it's
a process of grounding I guess, because I can get
quite carried away with nerves so, I try to, if it's a big
show and something I’m nervous about in particular,
I try and get those things over with meditation and
getting outside, just things that normalize a bit,
because otherwise I find that you can get lost […].
- Trying ideas, asking lots of questions, having
discussions. It depends on the process obviously, but
some of them require you to give a lot in terms of
your own opinions or experiences. Some of the
processes I’ve been are very much given to you, the
movement’s given to you, everything is prescribed,
the way that you do. Yeah, and I find generally with
all the processes, even if the move has just been given
to you, there's like a big pool.
- . I really enjoy being in the studio, and rehearsing,
and working on something, and I enjoy that kind of
shift between when it's just been set and you're still
kind of unsure things, to when you feel quite
comfortable in it and you can begin to play or think
about other things, or engage with the space more,
that's a really fun transition for me. When you can
almost be having a conversation while doing the
movement, because then it feels like you own it more.
-I think I don't use video myself […]. (Initial denial) - I think the reason I don't use it, and
- obviously some people that I work with, like maybe used to use it more while I
choreographers, will use it and then send it for us to look was training, and then I worked with
at or keep in our heads and I will watch that. Kerry Nicholls who said that you
(Realization) shouldn't rely on video to remember
- […] there is a lot of imagery […] I try to run over the things, you should use your brain.
show, all the material in my head, opportunities like
visualizing it.
- I mean, physically I will try to include like extra
workouts, depending on what the piece demands,
whether it's more stamina, stamina heavy pieces.
- I also try and make sure that in the weeks leading up to
performance that I have at least one day where I'm not
thinking about work […].
- […] meditate, I would do some yoga, I’d probably do
a work out, maybe roll out my body a little, so that my
body feels already before I leave the house, like very
fresh and in a good place. […] generally, on a show day
I like to be really physical but really gentle in class, so
like taking the warm up in a really like listening way to
my body. I try and make sure that I do something, yeah,
for my body and my mind […] kind of resetting.
- […] it also depends on the piece […].
- […] everyone would be on stage at some point during
the break, going over material. It was kind of like
something we all had to do together. Whereas with
some, everyone just turns up at beginners’ call, and then
goes on.
- I prefer watching a performance recording, than a
rehearsal recording, because then you can see
everything as it's imagined, like with the costume and
the light and sound. Because in performance you're
trying to create an illusion or a fantasy.
74
Viva - […] in rehearsals when you're watching things -I think it can be quite relevant for me especially - I don't have any specific rituals or
back, I think it can be beneficial that you can see areas remembering things like when you're creating work. things that I have to do because I
where you can improve but then it can also be - I guess it depends on what you're doing and like, how think in the type of work that I do,
disheartening when it doesn't look how you thought much money it has […]. that can sometimes be a bit
that it felt. - I guess in rehearsal you can be closer and then in dangerous because I often don't have
- […] when it doesn't look as good as it feels that I performance you have videos that are quite far away. So, the time to do the preparations, you
also question: What am I, like, trying to make it look it changes everything. know?
like to make it look good, you know? - I think for me, it's like photos, do you ever look back - […] for improvising, I can watch a
- […] when you see it on video, it's completely on a photo, and you think: I remember at this stage I video from five years ago and now,
different from when you're seeing something live so thought I looked really horrible and I wasn't happy with and actually, the fundamentals of the
I think it can also be, like, I can be quite harsh on myself, and now I look back and I just think like: I wish movement quality is kind of the
myself, because it's not what it actually looks like. I was happy with myself then because I looked better same, but maybe it has like different
- I think I've been quite like conscious not to develop then, than I do now, so I think with time, I can be less influences from a teacher that I was
any like habitual thing that I need to do before critical of myself at that time, more forgiving, whereas working with at that time […].
performing because then I worry that if I can't do it, if it's something that I filmed this morning and I'm
then it's going to affect me a lot more. looking at it, then it's really like: well, this is me now so
- I noticed that people really get quite habitual with it's not good enough.
their way of doing things.
- […] weird stuff that people get…. What's that
word? You know, like they worry if they don't do it
then it's going to be…. superstitious.
- I would like to have more opportunity to work like
cross training outside of the rehearsals, go to the gym
to get on a fitness level, because I find sometimes if
the show is not finished until the very last minute
before the performance period, then it's hard to get
into like the show stamina.
- […] it's already done, you know? You can’t really
change it, it felt how it felt so…
- When I'm watching something, I'm so much more
focused on the aesthetics of watching it. And I don't
care so much about like: Oh, this moment I really felt
like this and it was amazing. All of a sudden, when
I'm watching something, I'm really critical of it,
whereas when I'm doing it, I can appreciate more like
the feelings that I'm getting.

75
Chris - […] giving live feedback rather than recording
myself.
- Cameras linked up to live projection in the
performance. So, and that was being recorded as part
of the archiving process that was going on, so it's like
the whole performance, and the rehearsal process
were being filmed and recorded at the same time that
we were watching live as part of the performance. So,
we were using film.
- Because that was an integral part of the research as
to how there are these different elements that you're
exploring in the piece, whether it's other people or
some of the… it was all improvisation based, but
looking for a camera, the act of filming someone is
just like improvising movement. In terms of the outlet
of what your brain is doing. The way that you're
improvising your brain, comes out as movement, or
it comes out as the way that you’re filming someone.
- […] what you're doing, what the processes are, the
mental tasks and the things that you're researching in
performance, that sometimes it manifests as a
movement enquiry, but on an equal level, it manifests
as the filming eye. How you follow what's going on
around the space, as an audience member moving
around the space, as somebody who can hold a
camera and film it: How does that change your
perception?
- it's interesting what you're saying about the camera
being used for feedback but actually it was used as a
way to explore. As to externalize, some of the mental
processes just like when you're moving physically,
when you have an inquiry and you're moving
physically, your thoughts are being manifested in
movement, but the thoughts are also being
manifested through the lens of the camera.
- […] often in performance, you lose links, things get
lost. I mean if it's steps you forget detail, or you go
over the board and you've done too much, which
means the detail has lost the other way, because
you've lost the subtlety. I think for improvisation
stuff it’s the same.
- […] it massively depends on what kind of
performances and what the structures are for
performances.
- […] rehearsing, practicing, just like repetition […].
- Never really filming. Never filming really. Not, not my
choice. Maybe the choreographer might film a bit to
record it so we can look back and remember, but never
really filming myself so I can give myself tips. (Initial
denial and assumption)
- […] having said that, some work that I've done was
specifically using cameras and film and live film
projection. (Realization)
- […] if the piece is improvisation based, it's always
really interesting to see the massive differences between
the performance and the rehearsal […].
- I think going over the hooks, […] things that you can
fall back on. […] getting into the right body […].
76
- […] a lot of the process for me is
talking and discussing, so sharing,
finding out, fitting in stuff in
improvisations like, watching and
getting feedback to help manipulate
the process going forward.
- […] with stuff that I'm leading, it
also tends to be improvisation
based, when it’s dance,
contemporary dance setting that
you are researching something and
it's improvisation, and then when
that moves from rehearsal to
performance…. How do you
rehearse an improvisation for
performance, and there's always to
kind of: Why would you do the
performance, what is the
performance for? What's the point
of doing a performance, when… is
the performance the correct
manifestation, to share your
research? […] sometimes it's
definitely not, and you don’t
realise until afterwards. And it's a
struggle that I have a lot with
watching dance a lot, whether it's
improvisation based, or if it’s just
choreography. Dance is not a very
good medium to communicate
things often, sometimes it's great
because no movement means
anything, it's all interpreted and
laid on top, and any meaning or
things that we're trying to find
from it is massively subjective
compared to something with text,
for example, that's got a lot more
tangible meaning in that way.
[…]in performance you're kind of
showing the effects of research,
rather than sharing the research.
- making people finding a way for
the performers to be interested in
performance, as opposed to just
reproducing something that has
come before.
Camilla -I think it shifts a bit my emotional side, because I
kind of, like, put myself in an emotional state, which
I kind of like, because of distance and because I don't
see these people every day… I kind of like, close it
for a bit, so like reopening all these kinds of ideas
[…]it tells me to feel more connected with my
emotions, which I then bring into performance as
well. I feel I'm a bit more vulnerable when I perform,
and when I do this thing before performing, because
I let myself go a bit more and I don't hold, or I don't
close.
- I think it's like really interesting to see how you
develop through the years. But how like some
movements, kind of like stick with you, you continue
doing the same thing.
- […] because it brings back to some memories and
to something spent together and you kind of like jump
back into space and in time as well.
- But probably it’s because I tell myself to avoid to
over judge yourself when you watch stuff.
- I think most of the times just kind of like, disconnect
completely from what I do. […] I think it's just the fact
of putting the attention on something different and
giving the body something different as well. […]
indirect inspiration […].
- I first warm up my body, the usual stuff, which is like
some physical exercise, some yoga as well.
- No, not really. (Initial denial)
- Maybe in rehearsal, sometimes. Yeah, indeed in
rehearsals, especially when… it's either like, when I
improvise, and I want to like, make something from
improvisation. (Realization)
- […] recording to remember.
- I've never really been talking about the way I prepare
myself to performances, and I kind of like, look at
people and see how they prepare […].
- […] rehearsal video is […] less aesthetic […].
77
- I think for like all the period of
research and rehearsal, […] I kind of
like to look at other things that are
related to theme but not in dance, so
I get inspiration from other like,
types of arts. I think mainly music
and architecture sometimes, and
also, I think these days as well, art,
as in paintings, most of the time, to
see… to look at moods and look at
poses as well. […] I kind of like use
the music and the images space and
dynamics to relate to dance.
- […] in nature. […] Mainly like
going to open spaces. […] looking
for something that you want to bring
into the piece […].
- I start thinking about all the people
that I know. And like, how I would
perform for them and how,
especially people that are not here to
see. And I kind of like connect
quickly. […] It's not that I think
about one specific thing but it’s
more kind of like loads of
information from experiences that I
had with, like, strong experiences
that I had with people that I care
about.
- […] most of the time I don't even
look at it back.
- […] if I record something it’s
probably something silly to put on
marketing […] I don't think I record
in the kind of like real and right way.
- […] I kind of steal some stuff as
well.
- I don’t really have a kind of
routine, or a structure that I use, so I
kind of like keep… collect stuff
from the people, but I don’t really
talk with them about it, which is
interesting.
- […] rehearsal video is […] funnier
as well, to watch, because you allow
 yourself to play […] go towards the
video and do something silly, or
make it interesting, or make it funny
for when I see it back.
- I think most of the time when I
don’t see these videos for a long
time, it's kind of like unexpected and
surprising. It’s a good reaction.
- I think in general it’s positive,
because I kind of get hooked from
surprises and things that I don't
expect […].

78
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Buchanan, F. (2019). Guided by Inês Pinheiro, 12 April, London.

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