Table Of ContentTouching and Being Touched
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Touching and
Being Touched
Kinesthesia and Empathy in Dance and Movement
Edited by
Gabriele Brandstetter, Gerko Egert and
Sabine Zubarik
DE GRUYTER
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Touching and Being Touched
Motion, Emotion, and Modes of Contact 3
I Touch
Jean-Luc Nancy
Rühren, Berühren, Aufruhr
Stirring, Stirring up, Uprising 13
Niklaus Largier
Figure, Plasticity, Affect 23
Erin Manning and Brian Massumi
Just Like That
William Forsythe – Between Movement and Language 35
Gerko Egert
Movements of Touch in MAYBE FOREVER 63
Katherine Mezur
Cold Burn (Teion Yakedo)
On Touch in Contemporary Japanese Performance 83
Krassimira Kruschkova
The Fault Lines of Touching 105
II Kinesthesia
Mark Paterson
On ‘Inner Touch’ and the Moving Body
Aisthêsis, Kinaesthesis, and Aesthetics 115
Hilge Landweer
Choreographies With and Without a Choreographer
Intuitiveand Intentional Corporeal Interactions 133
VI TableofContents
Gabriele Brandstetter
“Listening”
Kinesthetic Awareness in Contemporary Dance 163
Corinne Jola
Do You Feel the Same Way Too? 181
Dee Reynolds
Empathy, Contagion and Affect
The Role of Kinesthesia in Watching Dance 211
III Empathy
Marie-Luise Angerer
Affective Modulations in Politics, Theory and Art 235
Robin Curtis
Is the Movement of the Filmic Image a Sign of Vitality? 249
Ann Cooper Albright
Feeling In and Out
Contact Improvisation and the Politics of Empathy 263
Sabine Zubarik
“Touch Me If You Can”
The Practice of Close Embraceas a Facilitator of Kinesthetic Empathy in
Argentine Tango 275
Kornilia Chatzimasoura
Lost and Found in Interpretation
Senses and Emotions in Contexts of Argentine Tango 293
Sonia Abadi
Dancing Tango
The Weave of an Emotional, Corporal and Social Network 309
Notes on Contributors 319
Introduction
Touching and Being Touched
Motion, Emotion, and Modes of Contact
“RührenundBerühren,”“Touchingandbeingtouched”–thiscomplexsemantic
fieldwillbe thethematicfocusofthe collectionofessayspresentedin thisvol-
ume.¹ As a form of both haptic and affective contact,the act of touching is not
merely a physical gesture or a pragmatic action. Touch constitutes a complex
form of connection in which the relationship between the one touching and
the one being touched is almost never clearly defined.
The essays collected in this volume discuss acts of touching and being
touched from a twofold perspective: as the movement and touching of the
bodyandasaformofbeingmovedandtouchedemotionally.Whatkindsofre-
lationships do weestablishwith one another through touching? Howcan spec-
tatorsbetouchedbyadanceormusicperformanceorwhenwatchingafilm?In
whatwayaretheseformsandpracticesoftouchrelatedtotheevocationoffeel-
ing?Andhowcanwedescribethecontactandcommunicationbetweendancers,
or between performers and their audience?
Touch is a fundamental element of dance. The (time) forms and contact
zones of physicaltouch are a means of expression of both the dancers’ self-ref-
erence and their interaction. Liberties and limits, options and taboos of touch
give us insight into the aesthesis of different forms of dance, their dynamics
and communicative structure, as well as into the production and regulation of
affects. However the configurations of touch in the interaction of touching and
being touched are as different andvaried as the practices of dance themselves.
They reflect historical and cultural differences in the understanding of how
touchhappens,whichfeelingsitproducesandconveys,andwhichestheticcon-
ceptsandcommunicativerulesitexpresses.Anessentialformoftouchindance
isthe seizingof thepartner’shands.² The forminwhich this happensreveals a
lotaboutthecontactrulesofproximityanddistanceinagivensociety,therev-
erential gesture of seizing the partner’s hands and bowing in courtly dance, or
the different ways of forming a circle or chain by seizing each other’s hands –
as they can be observed in folk as well as in stage dances. Different rules of
touch apply to artistic dance for example 19th-century classical ballet, where
Theproject“RührenundBerühren–movereimTanz”(AffectingandTouching–moverein
Dance)wasdirectedbyProf.Dr.GabrieleBrandstetteratFreieUniversitätBerlin(2008–2012),
withinthescopeoftheclusterofexcellenceLanguagesofEmotion.
Cf.Nordera,Martina,“Prendreparlamain,”in:MarieGlon/IsabelleLaunay(ed.),Histoiresde
gestes.OuvragecollectifsousladirectiondeMarieGlonetIsabelleLaunay,Paris2012,165–180.
4 Introduction
the touch between the dancers forms part of the esthetics of the performance:
ease,theillusionofweightlessness,andthefloatingeleganceofmovementcon-
stitute the ideals of ballet. In ordertoachieve these effects,specific techniques
of movement are employed which control the body’s balance and orientation.
Withrelationtotouch,thisentailsforexampleminimalfloorcontact,theballe-
rina’s toe dance.The contact of male and female dancers in the pas de deux is
dominatedbyformsoftouchthatconveytheimpressionoflight,floatingmove-
mentswhenholding,supporting,orliftingthepartner.Aninterestingtensionbe-
tweenthehapticinteractionofthedancersandtheemotionalbeingtouchedof
the spectators mayderive from the esthetic principle of dissimulation: the rela-
tivelymechanicalformsofcontactinthepasdedeuxconcealtheirtechnicalna-
tureinthemasterlygameofseemingly“light,”fleetingandaffectivegesturesof
touch,thus conveying a“feeling” that appeals to the spectators’ empathy.
Not only courtly dance and ballet, but also the different practices of social
dance,culturallyandsociallyvaried,usenumerousgesturesoftouch.Argentine
tangoinparticularcannotbeconceivedofwithouttouch–itbeginswithanem-
bracethateverythingthatfollowsdependson.Duetothestrongimprovisational
characteroftango,touchhastobeunderstoodasanonverbalformoftransmis-
sion and communication of the leading dancer and the partner who follows.
Through the different forms of touch, the partners communicate with each
other, kinesthetically aligning all parameters of their movement: dynamics, di-
rection, intensity,orientation of the body axes, and floor contact.
As these seem to be mostly prosaic, physical techniques,we may ask our-
selveswhy Argentine tango in particularis consideredtobe ahighlyemotional
dance and the quintessential expression of passion and erotic desire. At which
pointandhowexactlydoemotionscomeintoplay?Aretheemotionsthatspec-
tatorsperceiveeven relevant to the dancers,or arethe dancersconfrontedwith
completely different feelings, less “encompassing” and “psycho-logical,” and
concerninginsteadthe“smaller”physicalrealities?³Itseemsthatapleasantem-
bracewill inevitablyproducepositive feelings such as harmony, sympathy, and
joy,astheseareconveyedautomaticallywiththetouchitself.Feelingsofoppres-
sion,anger,self-doubt,orpowercandevelopwhentouchismoreofahindrance
thanahelptothedancers’communication,i.e.,whenitisnotwell-coordinated
Theabove-mentionedresearchproject“BerührenundRühren:movereimTanz”(cf.n.1)dealt
with these matters, looking at various aspects of the problem.The researchers conducted in-
dividual and group interviews as well as questionnaire surveys, and organized experimental
workshopsthattheyobservedandparticipatedin,inordertoanalyzedifferentstatesofmind
(e.g.,grief), states of transmission and perception (e.g., flow), and situations of touch (e.g.,
closeness,embrace).
