Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This study involves a critical research paradigm with embodied portraiture serving as the primary method. The project confronts challenges laid out by practice-led research, locating the origin of praxical knowledge in the act of artmaking, or in this case, in the creation and performance of a dance film, The Seeing Place. As an emerging discipline, embodied portraiture emphasizes the ability to use artistic processes to draw on subjective, interdisciplinary, and unexpected methodologies to generate new knowledge, but acknowledges the wisdom of the socio-culturally inscribed body in doing so. With this study, embodied portraiture reflects paradox and a search for goodness while exploring the impact of academic capitalism on dance training in institutional spaces. It further addresses the role of a diverse audience in terms of meaning-making. The study draws extensively on Lawrence-Lightfoot’s (1983) portraiture work as well as Dixson’s (2011) conceptualization of jazz methodology. Examples of embodied portraiture’s research strategies, including improvisation and ensemble work, are discussed.