Kinaesthetic Empathy, Ethics and Care by Leroy, Christine;

Short description:

Kinaesthetic Empathy, Ethics and Care develops a philosophy of dance that highlights the psychological, aesthetic and ethical significance of dancer-viewer interaction in the moment of performance.

Long description:

Kinaesthetic Empathy, Ethics and Care develops a philosophy of dance that highlights the psychological, aesthetic and ethical significance of dancer-viewer interaction in the moment of performance.

Leroy draws on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, dance studies and care ethics to analyse kinaesthetic empathy as a form of intersubjective performance. She shows how, in the contagion or interweaving between corporealities of dancer and viewer, each party supports or upholds the other in a process of mutual care. Dance movement involves a play with gravity which alleviates the weight of repressed desire and redefines the contours of the body-image, facilitating psychological self-repair. Through projection into the body of another, we can develop our independence and autonomy as subjects, even in the midst of relational being. Richly illustrated with theatre dance examples, Leroy?s argument develops a corporeal basis for ethics and reveals how a return to the moving body through dance helps lay the foundations for a more humane society.

This book will interest philosophers, dance researchers, care ethicists and care practitioners, as well as advanced students in these fields and general readers curious about the aesthetic and ethical potency of theatre dance.

"This is a text that resonates beyond the specificities of dance performance and has relevance for understanding all kinds of aesthetic encounters, and their ethical implications. Whether or not one ends by agreeing with the author?s central argument, this is a book that will challenge the reader to review their basic assumptions about the nature of care, and at the same time will certainly deepen understanding of the process of giving and receiving care. Leroy?s book makes a major contribution to the growing literature on care aesthetics, and the appearance of this translation should mean that her work assumes its rightful place at the centre of international debates in this fascinating field."

Martin Robb, Professor of Care Ethics and Culture at The Open University, UK, and host of the Careful Thinking podcast

Table of Contents:

Introduction to the English Translation

Translator?s Preface

Foreword: On Gravity by Angelin Preljocaj

Introduction

PART I. THE AESTHETICS OF EMPATHY

Chapter 1. Prelude by way of example: Wim Vandekeybus?s Blush

Chapter 2. Kinaesthetic empathy and dance theory: fundamentals of a concept

Chapter 3. Aesthetic emotion in dance: kinaesthetic experience of the flesh

Chapter 4. Between bodies: transitional space and potential space ? the space of play

Chapter 5. Playing with gravity

PART II. A QUESTION OF ETHICS: UP-HOLDING, SUPPORT AND CARE

Chapter 6. Holding and handling: reciprocal care

Chapter 7. Care for being

Chapter 8. Up-holding and care

Chapter 9. The ethical force of dance

Chapter 10. Maurice Hamington and the embodied epistemology of care

Chapter 11. From kinaesthetic empathy to care for the other: DV8?s The Cost of Living

PART III. HEALING THE SELF, REPAIRING THE FLESH: ?ESIRE?S (RE-)DESIGN

Chapter 12. Dance and care of the self: from the weight of the flesh to an ethics of subjectivation

Chapter 13. Overture by way of a conclusion: movement as ethical restoration