Abstract

This paper examines relationship between the body – seen and perceived – and ways we think, imagine and construct the conceptual body in time and space. Deborah Hay, improvisational dancer and choreographer, talks about ‘being seen not being fixed’ in a unique, three-dimensional body. When the spectator meets the solo dancer, he/she rediscovers his/her momentary reality through the process of observing and interpreting dancer’s shifting identity. I am looking at the solo performers, working alone or in isolation within a group, in order to investigate the subtle shifts in the body/mind, and re-examine dominant preconceptions about unity between the performer’s body, and the performance act. Solo dancers form intimate connection to their body of memories, and meet the implicit expectation of intimacy between the performer and the viewer. Uses of stillness, repetition, shadowing, distortion of the body and the release from the compositional hierarchy, invite questioning of the silent contract implicit in everyday meaning construction and the habitual reading of the bodily movement in life and performance.