Short Abstract:

‘Dance’ is a concept that has triggered epistemological discussion on multi-layered experiences. As researchers from different countries and bodily practices, our inquiry follows the need to unwrite the term 'dance' to open a space for varied ontological understandings of corporeal practices.

Long Abstract:

Around the world, there are complex and multi-layered bodily activities that academia calls and researches as ‘dance’. While a commonly used term, the concept of a ‘dance’ has triggered much epistemological discussion and calls for a multi-layered engagement. As researchers and practitioners from different countries and bodily understandings, our inquiry follows the need to unwrite the term dance to open a space for varied ontological understandings of corporeal practices. Stemming from how communities define their practices to how we as researchers immerse and represent multi-dimensionality and multi-sensoriality of bodily experience and knowledge, we aim to discuss unconventional lines of representing and writing about “dance”. The discussion will unfold based on three different perspectives: (1) the unwritten notions of dance accessed through maternal lines of memory and the use of the body, the voice, and the gesture—as the primary mode of remembering and narrating, (2) the exercise of writing about dance in emic terms that do not fit western categories and (3) the unwriting of the personal agency when addressing the complexities of the nationalistic definition of ‘classical’ dance genres in India, while simultaneously reflecting on diasporic representations and conflations. We hope this panel contributes to a wider discussion on dance and bodily experience as a tool that addresses local ontologies and paths for including ephemeral knowledge in ethnographic and artistic research.