Abstract

In this thesis I explore how contemporary dancers’ ‘sense-abilities’ and movement are shaped by anatomical discourse in dance training. Part 1 introduces the problem of how anatomy risks reducing conceptions of the body and asks how we may foster expansive relationships to anatomy. Part 2 exposes a troubling number of binaries that are upheld through the tendency of anatomy to universalize the body into foundational truths. Part 3 details a sensory ethnographic method that foregrounds the practice of relating to anatomy in contemporary dance. My Practice as Research project, “Anatomical Imaginaries”, invited five anatomically trained professionals to compose an audio description of the head-tail relationship. I then provided a context for contemporary dance artists to engage with these imaginaries through movement exploration while attending to their unique sensorial experiences. Part 4 understands my project thinking with: contemporary anatomy which offers an abundance of methods and models; sensory anthropology that understands culture to have influence on sense-abilities; and feminist science and technology studies that foregrounds how practices are culturally informed and informing; all of these fields trouble universalizing ways of knowing. I conclude by encouraging a proliferation of the models we dance, weaving together sociocultural and feminist theory as a means of unravelling the binaries upheld through scientific effects of truthfulness.