Perso.univ-lille3.fr

Incorporer
Biliana Vassileva Fouilhoux, Maître de conférences en Danse, Université Lille Nord de (extrait de FOUILHOUX, Biliana (2010), Dance Training as Cultural Embodiment, Trickster -
Rivista del Master in Studi Interculturali - Pubblicazione n. 9, Il Malessere dell'identita',
Dipartimento di Storia, Università di Padova, Italie)

The history of body/mind dualism has implications for dance which concerns soma, self and
movement in terms of new possibilities.The theoretical body/mind split in Western mythology and
philosophy have associated body with matter and mind with spirit whereas constructing dancer's
identity in the field of dance studies is more concerned with matching the body-self instead of
mastering it. There is a tactile-kinaesthetic basis in any dancing indentity. Along with new physics,
relational aesthetics, phenomenology and somatic practices dancer's identity is shaped as an
inseparability of the body-mind and a continuos self-understanding. Dancers create the matter and
the meaning of their identities. In dance the body/mind is not merely culturally constructed ; rather,
it is aesthetically conceived. The dancing body is sentient, conscious and aesthetically intelligent.
Thus dancer's identity remains a flexible framework allowing new elements to be incorporated or
« flows » (new styles, cultures, training) to be let in because dancers value both the corporeal and
the phenomenological flexibility of the human bodily movement.
In the process of dancer's training there are many different dance-making 'ecologies': « ranging
from those structured by highly formalised organisations (dance companies) to the kinds of
informal but enduring artistic collaborations based on friendship or a kind of bodily comptability »
(Gardner, 2002: 55). Dancers encompass an enormous variety of these modes of dance-making
which finally turn into identity constructing factors. The diversity of situations and working
relations have a huge impact on dancers' subjectivation – how they constitute themselves and their
identity through their relations to 'training' and to choreographers and choreographic processes. The
contemporary dancers' cultural experience is full of paradoxes – it's impossible to be original
without referring to tadition, and it's unbearble for a dancer to be predictable. Nathalie Schulmann,
in charge with the dancer's health issues at the National Center of Dance in Paris, compares this
quest of originality and singularity to the childhood phenomenon when one tries to assert himself.
Aggressiveness and collapse occur during training because shattering one's representations by the
bias of the body expereince makes the self balance too fragile and disorganized. Nathalie
Schulmann considers this space as transitional: « Accepting the lost is for me equal to Winnicott's
explanation of the evoltuion of his psychoanalysis : taking in charge the interpretation and therefore
the re-cognition of one's own representations demand a specific posture for the one who observes,
accompanies and guides.There is a paradox in the current tendency of omnipotence of the
knowledge acquired in a theoretical way which gives the teacher a momentary rigid mental
structure, making him assert interpretations, for the others, as unique truth. It's important for the
teacher analyst not to understand everything, to know to shut down and to persevere. » (Schulmann,
2005)
The skill, the mastery, the control can easily become dogmas if the dancer mistakes his training and
his knowhow for his own embodyment. Drawing from his teachning and observation experience
Nathalie Schulmann points out the fragility of the dancer while constructing his own dancing
idenity.
The dancer hesitates between the material body and the more subtle emanation of specific inner
intentions. He doubts the confidence he can give to the functionning of his body and senses the lack
of realibility of the experiences he's going through. He has to simultaneously take support on an
objective anatomy model of the body and dissolve this abstract knowledge by the acceptance of the
instability of the instant experience. The choice and the integration of the expression options are
contstraining : far away from the calm spell of the knowledge acquired , he is always alert.
« Dancer's subtle and schizoid play of maintaining and losing balance contribute to his incertainty
about what he gives to see from the interior and the performance codes which cross him from the
exterior. Little by little he constructs a set of mysterious bridges, of protection envelopes he
believes invisible, of shields which make him invincible.apparently. » (Schulmann, 2005)
At that stage the dancer's identity is a plurimodal dialogue developing the vision, the hearing, the
kinesthetic and making choices. Millions of information are crossing the senses : touching with
seeing, hearing with feeling. According to Hubert Godard This particular mode already defines an
identity, a certain manner of sharing the sensory: « The identity is a reduction of the degree of
freedom. Freud said a child is a polymorphe pervert, which is to say he knows to take pleasure from
all the parts of his body. But little by little culture imposes a particular manners of taking pleasure
and a body image is designed. It's important to see that from a certain point this sensory
organisation becomes an identity and later this identity is going litterally to order the motricity. We
cannot go back or educate a motricity if we do not refound the manner thses senses were crosses,
constructed, the manner they have to take pleasure from the flesh and are therefore more legitimate
than words. » (Godard, 2001 )
Dance as a culture of hybridation
As a result of the contemporary cultural hybridity new identities are formed in the overlapping
cultures. Research concepts as cultural embodiment which produces a 'double consciousness' show
an increase in the awareness of multiculturalism in the field of dance studies. The embodiment of
cultural characteristics means that gestures and movements are absorbed by the body as result of
living in a particular way in a particular society and culture. Thus the process of constructing the
dancer's identity also incorporates issues of race and ethnicity in an individual or social and cultural
dimension.
FOUILHOUX, Biliana (2010), Dance Training as Cultural Embodiment, Trickster -
Rivista del Master in Studi Interculturali - Pubblicazione n. 9, Il Malessere dell'identita',
Dipartimento di Storia, Università di Padova, Italie, 10 p.
FOUILHOUX, Biliana (2011), La construction sociale du corps, Revue Semeion N 8 Le
Corps, Editions Universitaires de la Sorbonne – L'Université de Paris Descartes, pp. 89-94
FOUILHOUX, Biliana (2009), Le modèle du corps en danse comme « prescription
mathématique. Le corps comme étalon de mesure, Magma Revue franco-italienne en
sciences humaines et sociales N 10, sous la Direction de Orazio Maria Valastro, IRSA-
CRI, Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, 11 p.
FOUILHOUX, Biliana (2010), Apports et limites de l'analyse fonctionnelle du corps dans
le mouvement en danse: croisements théorico-pratiques et enjeux pédagogiques, Colloque
Imaginaires, Savoirs, Connaissance, Le Cnam Pays de la Loire, Maison des sciences
humaines, Angers, pp. 39-49
FOUILHOUX, Biliana (2009), Les capacités d'imagerie en danse contemporaine : usages
et stratégies d'incorporation. Colloque international IV Biennale de l'AFRAPS Le Corps en
Mouvement 2, organisé par la JE 2516, Laboratoire Santé, Éducation et Situations de
Handicaps de l’Université Montpellier II.

Source: http://perso.univ-lille3.fr/~pguisgand/downloads/BF_Incorporer.pdf