DANCE, EMBODIMENT, AND CULTURAL ECOLOGY:

THE REFLEXIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BODIES & SPACE

Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Masters of Fine Arts

in Dance

Mills College
Spring 2015

By
Lauren Baines

Thesis advisors:

__________________
Ann Murphy
Assistant Professor, Dance Department

__________________ _____________________
Ann Murphy David Donahue
Chair, Dance Department Provost and Dean of the Faculty
 UMI Number: 1590230

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 One enters into a world by being embodied in it.
-Francis Sparshott1

In the contemporary Western world, many individuals conduct themselves as if

they exist autonomously from their environment. Engaged in digital platforms,

segregated from their physical realities, unaware of their bodies, and unconcerned with or

ignorant of the persuasion of marketing psychology and political rhetoric, they ignore the

nuanced power of their very presence in a space and do not question the possibilities or

outcomes of their interactions with the spaces of their daily lives. What is more, they

ignore something even greater: there exists a dynamic, reflexive relationship between

bodies and space as both entities respond to and mold one another.2 When we fail to

acknowledge the intricate and powerful relationship between human movement and real

spaces, we risk becoming complacent in our actions and indifferent to potentialities of

different settings. We scurry and rush from site to site, attention locked into task and

routine, disconnected from both our bodies and from the places we inhabit. In this

disconnection, we deprive ourselves of a certain agency. We lose touch with our own role

in our cultural ecology. This ecology is not a static system, it is a dynamic and fluid

relationship between humans and our lived spaces. Also, as Lucy Lippard notes, the

Greek root of the world ‘ecology’ means home.3 Gaston Bachelard elegantly summarizes

1
Francis Sparshott, “The Future of Dance Aesthetics,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51.
2 (1993), 230.
2
Herein “reflexive” is employed to denote a circular or bidirectional relationship between cause and
effect, wherein neither element (body or space) can fully be regarded as either cause or effect. And in turn,
how both body and space illuminate and affect aspects of the other.
3
Lucy Lippard, “Looking Around: Where We Are. Where We Could Be,” in Mapping the Terrain:
New Genre Public Art, ed. Suzanne Lacy, (Seattle: Bay Press, 1995), 114.
1
our sense of home does not reside in geometry or architecture, and a house is not a static

space:

I will be an inhabitant of the world, in spite of the world. The problem is not only
one of being, it is also a problem of energy and, consequently, of counter-energy.
In this dynamic rivalry between house and universe, we are far removed from any
reference to simple geometrical forms. A house that has been experienced is not
an inert box. Inhabited space transcends geometrical space…transposition to the
human plane takes place immediately whenever a house is considered a space for
cheer and intimacy.4

Thus, when we neglect our role in our cultural ecology, our cultural home, our

community, our public spaces, — favoring instead engagement in cyberspace and

conceptual spaces — we fail to recognize, and intentionally apply, the power of our

actions to either reinforce values and behaviors, or to affect change in the places where

we live.

The spaces of our lived experience are neither unchanging nor empty, they are

alive and responsive — both shaping our actions and responding to our interactions —

and filled with the energy of those occupying them. Astronomer and theorist Fred Hoyle

“looks upon space as the product of energy. Energy cannot therefore be compared to a

content filling an empty container.”5 A body occupies space and, through movement,

activates it, transforming abstract space into places and sites of (inter)actions, memories,

and meanings. And this is not a stagnant or one-directional relationship. Lived bodies

and lived spaces counter-animate and affect one another. While the activities performed

within a given place can affect the characteristics of, perception of, and future

4
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1994), 46-48.
5
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, (Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing, 1991), 13.
2
interactions with that place, the characteristics of a place––both the physical

characteristics such as architectural features and overall layouts, as well as the

social/psychological characteristics including societal customs and expectations

associated with a place––may dictate and direct the behaviors of those occupying it.6

Site dance, which occurs in real time and real space, with live bodies interacting

with the features of a site in an honest and authentic manner, acknowledges this dynamic

loop between bodies and space in which each entity shapes and molds the other, and

utilizes this reciprocal relationship to activate spaces and a community’s engagement

with them. Site works offer “less abstraction…than if you are dancing on a stage” by

bringing movement and performance into daily life and featuring dancers who contend

with the real elements of the environment in which the dance is performed.7 This

structure makes the intricate body-space relationship tangible to viewers who may see

themselves reflected in the actions of the dancers. Thus, dance performed in public

settings and intentionally structured to address the context of the site in which it is

performed may incite viewers to reflect upon their own movements within the site, which

may in turn shape or inform viewers’ future relationships with these public spaces.

Contrary to more traditional models of theatre and dance that separate the experiences

and realities of performers and audiences, expecting audiences to suspend disbelief and

“[demanding] a great and continuous effort on the part of the dancer; and on the part of

6
Tim Ingold, “The Temporality of the Landscape,” World Archaeology 25.2 (1993), 152-174. In fact,
as this paper will later address, activities transform abstract space into “place.”
7
Jo Kreiter qtd in. Melanie Kloetzel and Carolyn Pavlik, eds, Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure
of Alternative Spaces, (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2009), 241.
3
the audience to hold the dance away from the world everyday,” site dance engages

audiences and the art in the same phenomenological plane.8

Phenomenology is the philosophical theory of experience and consciousness that

supposes our consciousness generates our reality — whether this consciousness is

derived from perceptual experiences, memories, or fantasies. In other words, our reality

does not merely relate to the physical objects we come into contact with, but rather to our

perceptual experiences. Site dance not only anticipates, but more importantly promotes

that viewers and performers attend to and experience the same phenomena or sensorial

possibilities of the space in which dance is performed (although they may be perceived

slightly differently by each individual). As such, site dance generates a strong claim for

being a phenomenological art form able to induce a higher state of engagement and

embodiment for audiences than traditional performance, which holds great potential.

Situating dance — culturally informed, intentional, aesthetic movement of the human

body — in alive public spaces awakens both intentional and unsuspecting audiences to

the power of human movement, let alone presence, in urban spaces and allows viewers to

fully experience their perceptions and memories of the places, as well as recognize the

potential capacities of these places, as the areas are activated by the dance. Thus, site

dance needs to be seen as a method or approach for changing a community’s relationship

with a site through its ability to activate public spaces in alternative ways (including

filling areas generally not occupied by human activity), to draw attention to the dynamic

interaction between bodies and space, and to address historical and current social

8
Paul Weiss, Nine Basic Arts, (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961), 214.
4
structures. Site dance offers a deeper understanding to audiences (insight) about their

own actions, associations, and meanings attached to these sites; awakens viewers’ agency

and embodiment in and around these sites; and, by extension, empowers a community,

demonstrating ways to affect change in the places of their everyday lives.

The term site dance characterizes professional dance presented in a non-stage,

non-theatre venue that conceptually engages with the site in which the dance is

performed. The delineation between site dance, sited dance, site-sensitive dance, and site-

specific dance continues to be debated within the dance world. In general, site-specific

dance refers to performances that are choreographed or scored for a specific location

from the inception of the work, and the performance addresses various aspects (physical

and/or conceptual) of the site. Through its content, structure, and movement the

performance references, incorporates, and/or illuminates aspects of the site’s history,

architecture, current versus historical usages, the communities associated with it, or other

details specific to the actual site. Site-sensitive dance can suggest that a performance’s

content pays less attention to the specific history of a site or its current state, but in some

way still references or was inspired by some aspect(s) of the general place where the

dance is performed. Site(d) dance is a looser term that encompasses the above structures

as well as dances that are simply performed in non-traditional venues (i.e., performances

occurring outside of places deemed theatre and dance venues, whether these be indoor or

outdoor spaces, public or private property). These pieces may or may not address the site

in the content of the work.

5
 For my purposes, I use site dance to focus on dances that utilize sites in the urban,

public landscape and deliberately take aspects of the site into account in all stages of the

creative process — from inception and research, to rehearsals and structuring, to

performance. These works, as I will discuss, attempt to engage with the cultural context

of the site, its import (or invisibility) to a community, or its potential for future

engagement/activation, with particular attention in this paper to Western modern and

postmodern dance.

One might argue that any dance is first “sited” in the body because movement

emanates from the body. While it is true that the body produces movement and thus may

be regarded as a unique energetic space, dance—that, is intentional, patterned movement

through space and time––can only occur within a larger physical context, and this context

needs to be considered in understanding the intentions behind and reception of a site

dance. Contemporary site dance choreographer and performance artist Ann Carlson

acknowledges that, “As choreographers, perhaps the first ‘site’ is the body....,” but she

makes it clear that it has to circle “out...from the site of the body to the context of where

the body stands.”9 The body itself holds much context and history, having been shaped by

individual and collective experiences and the environments in which it resides. It is of

particular importance with site dance to consider the interplay between the contexts of

body and space, and how they influence one another. Investigating the body-space

relationship as it pertains to site dance, we see how the body not only occupies space, but

also activates it (and likewise, how space activates aspects of the body).

9
Ann Carlson qtd in. Melanie Kloetzel, “Site-Specific Dance in a Corporate Landscape,” New Theatre
Quarterly 26.2 (2010), 134.
6
 Integrating dance within the places of lived experience, site dance offers a strong

potential for engaging community awareness and agency. California-based choreographer

Anna Halprin has engaged public spaces throughout her almost eighty-year career and is

seen by many as a predecessor to later site dance movements. Beyond a personal

preference and passion for dancing outdoors, communing with nature, Halprin has

utilized public spaces for dance to address issues of import to a community. Created mid-

way in Halprin’s career, and after early site dance works were being presented by other

choreographers, Planetary Dance speaks to the role of dance and community.10 In an

interview with Patricia Maloney, founding editor and director of the Bay Area online arts

magazine Art Practical, Halprin explains the impetus for creating this dance:

I created Planetary Dance in 1980 in response to a series of murders by an

individual nicknamed The Trailside Killer. He killed seven women from our
community on Mt. Tamalpais, which is a place you go to have picnics or
weddings or to meditate; to be on the mountain is a beautiful way to enter into
nature. But for two years, we were not allowed on the trails because of the
murders, so I decided that we needed to reclaim the mountain...With the
community, we performed a dance starting at the top of the mountain, and as we
came down the mountain, we made offerings at the sites were the seven women
were murdered. About a week later, the killer was caught. He had been on the
loose for two years. It became a myth in this community [that the dance led to his
capture].11

Although Halprin does not fully claim that the dance directly led to the assailant's capture

or the resolution of other societal concerns, she recognizes the power of dance to bring

10
As will be later discussed, early site dance (before the term was even applied) began to develop
around the late 1960s.
11
Patricia Maloney, “Interview with Anna Halprin, Part 2,” Bad at sports April 8, 2013, Art Practical,
<http://www.artpractical.com/column/interview_with_anna_halprin_part_2/>.
7
awareness, healing, and empowerment to the community.12 The mountainside that had

become static, if not foreboding, was enlivened once again. Mt. Tamalpais was reclaimed

as a living, inviting site.

While Planetary Dance developed as a community ritual intended to address a

specific site, other works by Halprin brought attention to larger issues around the politics

of space. Blank Placard Dance, first performed in 1967 with the San Francisco Dancer’s

Workshop, features a group walking on public streets, carrying blank placard signs.13 In

their march, the participants collected protest statements from random individuals they

encountered on the streets and then wrote the statements on the signs for their walk back

as a way to give voice to issues of concern to actual community members. However,

Halprin and the San Francisco Dancer’s Workshop had not pursued a permit to legally

protest or gather. As a result, to avoid being jailed or fined, participants had to stand ten

feet apart according to city regulations on lawful versus unlawful assembly.14 The

structured, formulaic separation of the dancers countered notions that public space is

open and available to the public. Thus, in bringing attention to matters of personal and

collective concern and offering a voice to citizens who might feel unheard in the

community, Blank Placard Dance also brought attention to the politics of public spaces,

and the (at times) invisible boundaries of control and access structuring our daily

activities and interactions.

12
The Planetary Dance has been performed annually since 1980, each year dedicated to a different
community issue.
13
The dance has been re-staged several times, with an upcoming performance slated for May 2015.
14
Maloney, “Interview with Anna Halprin, Part 2.”
8
 Even when citizens are not directly engaged in a site performance, bearing

witness to dance performances in public spaces still engages a public and individual

consciousness in a unique way. Not unlike public protests or riots, dance in a public

setting reminds viewers of the power of the human body in its environment, how its very

presence and action can function as a force that questions assumptions about behavioral

decorum, uncovers structures of power, and, on occasion, heals trauma, pain, or unrest.

As Halprin explains, “I don’t think of it as politics so much as this is what is affecting us

as a community or a nation or part of the global consciousness.”15 And as Lippard

suggests, there needs to be a recognition of our role in our microcosmic communities, in

our local cultural ecologies, in our public spaces, for change to occur.

Drawing attention to a community’s routines for acting and navigating in and

through a particular space— either by reflecting typical movements or demonstrating

new possibilities for interaction — site dance brings self-awareness to a viewer’s cultural

values, societal expectations, and personal assumptions associated with those places and

the sites therein. Lippard believes we now find ourselves in an “ecological crisis,” a crisis

of feeling not at home in the world: “...we have lost our own place in the world, we have

lost respect for the earth, and treat it badly. Lacking a sense of microcosmic community,

we fail to protect our macrocosmic global home.”16 And if we do not protect our spaces,

our global home, we may render our world inhospitable and cease to exist ourselves,

along with our spaces. Although altering an individual’s or a community’s disregard for

the environment and their personal role in the local, let alone global, community is no

15
Anna Halprin qtd. in Maloney.
16
Lippard, 114-115.
9
small task, bringing attention to how we interact with the physical world can begin this

process. Site dance has the ability to reflect and demonstrate the power of human activity

in shaping our sense of place and, through the dancers’ actions and negotiations of the

area, it can potentially alter a community’s perception of a place. In this process,

community members may become aware of their own sensual presence and start to see

how the physical and psychological characteristics of places develop through their own

actions, and perhaps decide to alter their own behaviors in turn.

In order to better understand these relationships, and the application of site dance

in transforming a public’s interaction with place, it is prudent to tease out the differences

between site, place, and space. While these terms may be made synonymous in everyday

language, for the purposes of this paper they are defined in anthropological and

philosophical theory. Space here is regarded as conceptually the largest container,

encompassing “logic-epistemological space, the space of social practice, the space

occupied by sensory phenomenon.”17 On a fundamental physical level, Maurice Merleau-

Ponty suggests that, “Far from my body’s being for me no more than a fragment of space,

there would be no space at all for me if I had no body.”18 Our bodies are our locus of

perception, they enable us to construct our realities. And again, this relationship is not

static; a two-way exchange exists between lived bodies and lived spaces as they

continuously affect one another.

17
Lefebvre, 11.
18
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, translated by Colin Smith, Phenomenology of Perception, (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1962).
10
 As Henri Lefebvre discusses, abstract spaces are transformed into places through

interactions and relationships: “(social) space is a (social) product.”19 In his essay, “The

Temporality of the Landscape,” anthropologist Tim Ingold discusses the production of

place within a culture and explains how human activities are central to the delineation of

places within geographic regions.20 He postulates that actions are key to imbuing a space

with meaning as activities (tasks) transform undefined space into a cultural place as the

performed behaviors, activities, or events come to be associated with those specific

places.21 Place thus exists as a social and cultural product created (or produced) through

human activities and interactions with and within spaces. A place might be a geographic

area or a physical structure, but its transformation into “place-ness” derives from its use

and import within a community/society/culture by the tasks associated with it. The

concept of site refers to a specific area within the larger context of a place where an

activity occurs or a tangible feature resides (e.g., a building, artwork, or natural element).

To fully appreciate the role dance can play in the perception and molding of

public places, it is important to understand “temporality” and “landscape” as Ingold

defines them. In his essay, he substitutes “landscape” with the term “taskscape” to make

concrete his argument that human actions (tasks) create our sense of the land. A body

occupies a place and, through movement, activates it. As philosopher Edward S. Casey

proposes:

There is much more to be said about the role of the body in place, especially
about how places actively solicit bodily motions. At the very least, we can agree

19
Lefebvre, 26-27.
20
While the term production suggests the economic implications of these theories, that is not a focus of
this paper.
21
Ingold, 71.
11
 that the living-moving body is essential to the process of emplacement: lived
bodies belong to places and help to constitute them. Bodies and places are
connatural terms. They interanimate each other.”22

Places and bodies do not exist as static entities, nor can one exist without the other. In

referencing bodies or places, one automatically presupposes the existence of the other.

Bodies produce movements and activities that in turn create places. Places not only shape

human activities, but also cannot exist without human intervention. As Ingold recognizes,

changing actions (activities, tasks) change the nature of a site or place within the

community’s mind. Thus, as the activities associated with a place change over time, so

too does a community’s understanding of the landscape. When site dance engages with

specific buildings, structures, and features in the public landscape, it can bring awareness

to the role of these sites within larger cultural places and may change the perception of

these sites by reinforcing or countering the actions associated with the sites.

It is helpful to understand this concept within social theory, and clarify how

behaviors and expectations that may be (unconsciously) ingrained in a community’s

interaction with a place will, in turn, define perceptions of that place and promote

behaviors that may reinforce that perception. For example, individuals may avoid visiting

a certain park that has been deemed “sketchy” or is located in a “bad neighborhood.” As

fewer families and individuals frequent the park, it may, in fact, become a site for illicit

activities. As the expectations and pride in the park diminish, it becomes secluded and

abandoned and, in turn, becomes an even more ideal venue for antisocial activities. But if

a community garden or playground is established in the park, and the neighborhood

22
Edward S. Casey, “How to Get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch of Time:
Phenomenological Prolegomena,” Senses of Place, ed. Steve Feld & Keith H. Basso (School of American
Research Press, 1997), 24.
12
comes together to revitalize not only the land but also the image of that park, the

perception of the park changes along with the activities associated with it. In a sort of

positive reinforcement loop, the changed activities and physical appearance of the site

reinforce one another and promote the new cultural perception of the park as a place of

safety, comfort, and enjoyment (not unlike Halprin’s work reclaiming Mt. Tamalpais).

The contemporary programming and funding trend of “Creative Placemaking”

follows this logic, striving to revitalize a community’s interaction with urban spaces by

offering new, energized means for engaging with public spaces that revolve around

creative and artistic solutions which, in turn, create a sort of behavioral reform. A white

paper issued by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2010 on Creative Placemaking

explains: “In creative placemaking, partners from public, private, non-profit, and

community sectors strategically shape the physical and social character of a

neighborhood, town, city, or region around arts and cultural activities. Creative

placemaking animates public and private spaces, rejuvenates structures and streetscapes,

improves local business viability and public safety, and brings diverse people together to

celebrate, inspire, and be inspired.”23 The programs and artistic interventions — such as

mural campaigns, independent retail, playgrounds, and comfortable seating — reassign

meaning to these places through the favorable activities and new features incorporated

into the sites. Thus, Creative Placemaking can be summarized as the intersection of the

arts and community development as city leaders, urban planners, and (local) creatives

23
National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the United States Conference of Mayors and
American Architectural Foundation, Creative Placemaking by Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa, a white
paper for The Mayors' Institute on City Design, a leadership initiative, NEA 2010, 3
<http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/CreativePlacemaking-Paper.pdf>.
13
including artists, designers, engineers, and visionaries, transform “forgotten” and

underutilized spaces into places of desired qualities: places of culture, fitness, modern

living, family fun, and leisure. Creative Placemaking efforts invite interaction with spaces

rather than just making functional or utilitarian changes.

In many ways, Creative Placemaking and other redevelopment programs address,

in part, the concept of habitus—the socialized norms that guide our behavior, including

lifestyle, values, dispositions and expectations developed through the activities and

experiences of everyday life. These programs, which sometimes are permanent and

sometimes utilize a “pop-up” structure, reveal to a community the potential of a public

space by altering perceptions of that place and offering new conceptual realizations of the

site, which may result in engendering new pride and ownership in the place.24 The efforts

in turn transform community behaviors into positive, desirable modes of engagement that

activate and sustain the new dynamics of the site and allow more permanent changes to

the area as the now-engaged public supports further positive developments.

Similar to these programs, site dance can take the first steps towards awakening

people to the places they occupy in their daily lives, the cultural structures guiding their

behaviors, and the possibilities for new and different modes of engagement. Site dance

can likewise reflect, influence, and affect habitus and, consequently, engagement in

24
“Pop-ups” are another trend and buzzword in contemporary urban planning, in which businesses and
art activities might appear for short term residencies in un-leased storefronts or temporarily installed
structures such as shipping containers, or for short-duration occupancies within larger, more established
businesses.
14
public space.25 While dance may not offer the same tangible products as community

gardens, mural campaigns, and other more permanent interventions, dance affords a

unique performative example of the interaction between the dynamics of bodies and the

dynamics of space. The experience (and lasting memory) of seeing human bodies interact

with public spaces in unexpected, exciting, challenging, or fun ways — as afforded by

site dance — can assist a community in experiencing and recognizing new potentials for

engaging with a site. Contemporary site dance choreographer Joanna Haigood is

“fascinated by the connection between memory and place, the resonance of past lives and

events evidenced in the architecture, in the landscape, in our behaviors.”26 Places hold

memories for individuals and publics, and site dance both recalls pre-existing memories

and creates future memories through its interactions with sites.

To better understand this ability of site dance to inform and alter a community’s

relationship with a site, it helps not only to consider several site dances that attend in

differing specificity to their sites, but also to examine philosophical theories of perception

and embodiment that can help explain the potential reception or experience of these

works by viewers. Postmodern choreographer Trisha Brown emerged as a creator of early

site dance before site dance was even used as a label to describe these practices. Inspired

by her studies with Anna Halprin and the investigations of Judson Dance Theatre (of

which she was a founding member) in the early 1960s, Brown wanted to explore the

potential of dance outside of the traditional concert venue, and started creating works that

25
“Public space” is a bit of a misnomer, as the activities associated with these areas make them places;
however, this paper will abide by common vernacular instead of attempting to counter the parlance with
“public place.”
26
Qtd. in Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards Website, “Joanna Haigood,” 2014,
<http://ddpaa.org/artist/joanna-haigood/>.
15
activated and brought attention to arguably underutilized areas of the New York

landscape. Some scholars suggest the desire by Brown and her contemporaries to take

performance out of the traditional theatre space may have been spurred by financial

restraints,27 but this mentality was also part of the larger cultural and artistic ethos of the

time: “Just as visual artists were rejecting traditional modes of creation and display, the

choreographers of the New York-based Judson Dance Theater, fresh from their studies

with Halprin, Cunningham, Cage and/or Dunn, began abandoning the proscenium theater

in favor of ‘art in context’” — essentially, art in the context of daily life.28

Since the 1950s, artists have pushed art out of traditional settings and into public

urban contexts as a means to engage viewers in deeper sensate experiences and more

intimate, honest relationships with the artwork. American curator James Johnson

Sweeney (1900-1986) is recognized for his revolutionary approach to the presentation of

art by dismantling museum space. Sweeney saw traditional museum picture frames as

distracting and detrimental to the art, and wanted to free artwork from what he saw as a

fence or encroachment.29 The Earthworks (or Land Art) movement, which developed in

the 1960s, went even further and literally removed the gallery or museum structure, to

make art (and viewer) directly engage with nature. California’s Light and Space artists of

the 1970s, whose works were site-specific and ephemeral, shifted the relationships

between viewers, art, space, and light. Artists of this movement strove to create

27
See: Janice Ross, Anna Halprin: Experience as Dance, (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2007), 103; and Melanie Kloetzel and Carolyn Pavlik, eds, Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure of
Alternative Spaces, (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2009), 11-12.
28
Kloetzel and Pavlik, 11-12.
29
Marcia Brennan, Curating Consciousness: Mysticism and the Modern Museum, (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 2010), 7.
16
“heightened sensory experience in the receptive viewer” and “produce a higher state of

consciousness” by creating installations that required audiences to move through and

engage with spaces in nontraditional ways.30 Rejecting previous modes of creation and

display, visual artists strove to develop works and methods of exhibition that placed

viewer and artwork in the same time and space, and within the larger context of life,

stressing a phenomenological method of emphasizing personal perception and experience

for presenting and encountering art. This breaking of presentational boundaries, exploring

avenues for dismantling expectations, and creating more visceral and phenomenological

modes of engagement for audiences permeated the arts of this time. And in this

exploration, performance came to be an integral component as happenings and other

movements brought live action (and interaction) and time-based art into the

deconstruction of space between audience and artwork.

In early works, Trisha Brown demonstrated an interest in the socio-political

implications of space and in viewing, as well as exploring, the “reciprocal relationship

between location and vision and, in so doing, mold[ing] the experience of her

audience.”31 Brown’s Roof Piece (1971) was one of the first works to offer a new concern

“with the relationships between artist and audience, and choreographer and site” within

the parameters of what later would be regarded as site dance.32 Staged on the roofs

around Brown’s SoHo apartment, the piece featured dancers costumed in red against the

industrial and barren roof landscape, with New York as the larger backdrop. The dancers

30
Robin Clark, ed. Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface, (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2011), 20, 50.
31
Amanda Jane Graham, “Out of Site: Trisha Brown’s Roof Piece,” Dance Chronicle 36.1 (2013), 63.
32
Ibid, 62.
17
were positioned on different rooftops (stretching for seven blocks North-South and three

blocks West-East), expanding the sense of perspective and distance, as well as

challenging the communication between the dancers who were engaging in a silent relay

of movements across the rooftops. The performance brought attention not only to the

movement of the dancers, but also to overlooked components of the SoHo district.

Site dance offers great potential for revealing the intricacies of the body-space

relationship and thereby empowering viewers to recognize the potential of their own

interactions with space. One of the first steps in perception is attending to things. And as

Brown’s work demonstrates, site dance provides an opportunity for viewers to see and

experience the human body and the larger spatial environment in new ways by bringing

awareness to relationships that might otherwise be taken for granted. Site dance can

activate the literal and figurative spaces that in some ways are the hardest to activate:

overlooked areas, places held static in the minds of the public, features rarely noticed.

Therein, site dance can also call attention to the potential of our everyday spaces and our

role in generating places infused with memory, meaning, and import.

As Amanda Jane Graham explains, “Roof Piece…A dance in and of SoHo, it

physically and metaphorically laid claim to an actual geographic area and its

architecture.”33 Brown’s work withdrew from typical interactions with the environment

and spurred audiences to see, experience, and engage with SoHo in new ways — and in

ways that seemingly influenced and complemented the changing environment of Soho at

that time. Through her investigations—of new sites and settings for dance; the interplay

33
Ibid, 60.
18
of bodies within a larger, urban landscape; and new relationships between audiences and

performances—Brown (who is a visual artist as well) demonstrated a new concern for

dance’s role in the larger cultural landscape. By pulling the performance and the

audiences “back” into the real world, the daily life, the known landscape, the lived

experience, Brown established a new framework through which to view dance, and to

view known landscapes. This new “view” related not merely to sight or a perspective on

dance, but an entirely new experiential “view.”

Another early piece by Brown, Man Walking Down the Side of a Building (1970),

featured a man walking down the side of building—suspended by one rope, the performer

walked down the facade, defying gravity, and countering standard modes of interaction

with the environment. This work, particularly its re-staging a few years later, also

addressed the interaction with, and access to, local geography for the SoHo community:

Man Walking literally and figuratively walked the line between private and
public, thereby vacillating between intimate and unsanctioned gathering and
‘legitimate’ performance. Consciously situated in a place that required special
information to see or to access as an audience member, the first performance of
Man Walking marked a historically significant moment in dance and urban
development, forgotten in the midst of its spectacular reincarnation. Nonetheless,
the dance’s restaging was, at least to this researcher, an effective reminder of just
how meaningful SoHo’s shifting geographic and cultural landscape was to the
creation and perception of the work, and how crucial Brown’s dance was to
physical and mythical reconfiguration of the neighborhood.34

Brown’s work stands as a poignant example of the shifting interest in audience

perspective and experience as well as in engagement with the environment as a living

entity. Graham suggests, “Brown shared these interests with her contemporaries in the

34
Ibid, 66.
19
postminimalist [sic] art world, which recognized the political and social influence of the

environment on artistic experience and that experience, in turn, on the environment.”35 In

fact, Brown aptly demonstrates the potential of site dance to change how audience

members see their relationship to a place through the unique relationship between bodies

and space, bodies and sites (regarding the bodies of both performers and viewers).

Brown’s investigations expanded the notion of negative space in dance and

concepts of “access” within public space. In compositional terms, dance often concerns

itself with the interplay of negative and positive space, positive space being the space

occupied by the body, and negative space existing as the “open” or unoccupied space

between and around bodies, body parts, and other objects. Brown expressed a desire to

push beyond these parameters and activate overlooked and unoccupied spaces: “I have in

the past felt sorry for ceilings and walls. It’s perfectly good space, why doesn’t anyone

use it?”36 In the interplay of body and space in a larger spatial context, Brown

demonstrated site dance’s ability to delve deeper into the possibilities within architecture

and larger spaces, moving beyond simple investigations of positive and negative space,

and demonstrating how dance can activate spaces that are generally ignored or trivialized

by, if not physically inaccessible to, humans.

In her unprecedented activation of (public) space through movement and dance,

Brown brought a new focus to the body’s role and presence in the community landscape

and required audiences to engage both mentally and physically with the spaces through

which, and by which, they watched the performance. Contemporary philosopher Alva

35
Ibid, 62.
36
Trisha Brown qtd. in Graham, 64.
20
Noë suggests that “the defining feature of the body’s sensual presence is the way it

resides (usually) in the background. If we are to hope to bring this pervasive feature of

our lives, of ourselves, into focus, then we need actively to withdraw from our habitual

engagement with the world around us. We need somehow to let the body itself crowd into

the space of our attention and let itself be felt. And this is not easy to do.”37 Brown’s

dances managed to bring the body out of the background and illustrated Ingold’s

perceptual description that, “Like organism and environment, body and landscape are

complementary terms: each implies the other, alternately as figure and ground” through

her interplay of dancers and the broad New York landscape.38 In both Roof Piece and

Man Walking the activation of these previously unexplored spaces and the interplay of

negative and positive space, presence and absence, public and private, accessible and

inaccessible, challenged (and broke) previous boundaries and structures. Not unlike the

dismantling of traditional models of display and interaction within museums, Brown

emphasized the perceptual experience of her performers and audiences in direct

commune with their environment (and the art integrated within). In so doing, she set the

stage for further explorations of how dance could infuse itself within daily living and

thereby could help draw attention to social and political concerns.

Turning to a more contemporary example of site dance’s ability to address

historical structures and influences, Joanna Haigood’s Zaccho Dance Theatre took to the

streets of San Francisco in 2010 and staged Sailing Away in the heart of bustling Market

Street, literally performing along the sidewalk, amidst pedestrian traffic. Performed, in

37
Alva Noë, Varieties of Presence, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 12.
38
Ingold, 63.
21
part, for essentially an “accidental” or “incidental” audience of citizens and tourists who

unexpectedly encountered the dance among the public street, Sailing Away demonstrates

the potential of site dance to interject itself into the daily lived experience of a

community. Sailing Away presumably sparked confusion and intrigue, joy and

frustration, as dance filled the streets of busy mid-day San Francisco traffic, interrupting

daily life. But, in so doing, the work also brought attention to the history of places

encountered in daily life.

A review of the 2012 re-staging of Sailing Away articulates how site can engage

citizens with the histories of their lived spaces:

Representing prominent citizens of the time who lived and worked on or about
Market Street, the nine actors dressed in stunning costumes walk us from Powell
to Battery Streets along Market, stopping to highlight historic monuments along
the way like the Daughters of the Revolution, the Old Saloon and the plaque
which marks the San Francisco shoreline at the time the first gold was discovered
in California. It also marked the place where the pier was; however, landfill has
moved the piers far away. As we stood there, it was interesting to think how over
100 years ago, we’d have been standing in water. [emphasis added]39

By placing dance, and the body, in the lived experience, site dance activates communities

and public space, and can empower audiences to recognize their role as active agents

shaping their environment. The sites chosen for Sailing Away resonated on several levels:

they not only addressed the history of the characters in the piece, but also challenged

audiences to consider the changing (or unchanging) conditions experienced by diverse

populations who have occupied and worked on those various sites. And even if audiences

possessed no detailed background about the concepts and movements for this work, their

39
Wanda Sabir, “Joanna Haigood’s ‘Sailing Away’: Black exodus from San Francisco 1858 and 2012,”
San Francisco Bay View, September 21, 2012, <http://sfbayview.com/2012/09/joanna-haigoods-sailing-
away-black-exodus-from-san-francisco-1858-and-2012/>.
22
attention was at least drawn to the potentials for embodying and activating public spaces

in unexpected ways.

Like this Haigood piece suggests, site dance staged in public settings for “non-

audiences” can give agency to spectators––people can choose to watch, to engage, to

question. Ann Carlson suggests offering performances for unsuspecting audiences might

even spark more genuine engagement: “I love the opportunity for a passerby to ‘stumble’

upon something they didn’t expect. In work inside a theater, people are deliberate about

attending and they are familiar with their role as spectators. I enjoy the potential to upend

all of that.”40 Site dance has the potential to engage citizens in new conversations and

interactions with the spaces of their daily lives. No longer an action or practice reserved

for the stage, at times seen as a space of affluence, “site dance boasts a level of

accessibility seldom associated with dance performances.”41 This also removes the

conditioned interaction with performers that is de rigeur on a formal stage—the assumed

boundaries between performers and audiences––along with the standards of appropriate

audience behavior such as sitting quietly in their seats. With many site dances, the

audience is allowed, encouraged, and sometimes even required to move during the

performance. Whether on their own volition or guided by performers/ushers, as viewers

move through the space to witness the dance — adjusting their location to literally and

figuratively gain new perspectives and vantage points from which to watch — the

audience members increase their own embodiment within the performance space. Rather

than passive viewers expected to remain in their seats, (as typical of most dance

40
Ann Carlson qtd. in Kloetzel and Pavlik, 104-105.
41
Kloetzel and Pavlik, 4.
23
productions within formal theatre venues), the audiences of site dance interact with the

world of the performance. They knowingly and intentionally exist in the same time and

space as the dancers. By placing dance in the lived world, site dance allows

choreographers, dancers, and viewers to engage with the movement and its interplay with

space realistically, without the illusions and abstractions of the traditional stage. Site

dance, inserted into daily life, can allow more reflection, identification, inference, and

projection by spectators as they share with the performers the same access and potential

engagement with the fluid dynamics and phenomena of a space.

Alva Noë writes that, “It may help to consider two different ways of thinking

about theater. In one way, audience and performers are together; they share a space and

they are both present to each other. This is the sort of shared, real presence we enjoy

today at sporting events. We are there to be eyewitnesses to the spectacle. In a second,

distinctively modern way of understanding theater, actors no longer share a space with an

audience; they reside in a symbolic space.”42 Site dance returns us to the former—to the

shared presence and awareness of spectator and performer. By emphasizing performers’

shared existence in time and space with audience members, site dance permits audiences

to experience greater presence in the actions being witnessed.

Our bodies serve as our connection to the world; they are our meaning makers,

our sites of perception and experience, enabling us to access components of our

environment through sensory information from which we construct our realities. Casey

explains, “If it is true that ‘the body is our general medium for having a world’ (Merleau-

42
Noë, 5.
24
Ponty 1962:146), it ensues that the body is the specific medium for experiencing a place

world.”43 Socially and psychologically, watching other humans move through space,

spectators may see themselves reflected in the actions of the dancers, and this is a

powerful, engaging experience: “When you perceive an event unfolding, it is not as if

you occupy a dimensionless point of observation. You live through an event by coupling

with it. What you experience is the event, as it plays out in time. You experience the

singer’s song, and the ball player’s play, and the dancer’s dance, by tracking what they do

over time.”44 In that exchange, or projection of self into the actions of the performer,

there exists great potential for agency and empowerment of the spectator.

Originally called “metakinesis” by the first major dance critic in the U.S., New

York Times critic John Martin, today’s dance scholars like Ann Daly call it kinesthetic

sympathy (or empathy) while researchers in neuroscience have come to refer to it in

recent years as the result of simultaneous activation of brain areas supporting the physical

action in both the viewer and the doer. If nothing more, what is true is that we as

audience members can see a dancer interacting with and moving in and around a site, and

can extrapolate that movement to our own experience and imagine the sensory effects of

that interaction if not literally feel parallel sensations. From our own past sensate

experiences, we can imagine what a dancer might be experiencing if they are climbing

the rough bark of a tree versus touching the cool marble of a polished column. And while

viewers may not believe they can perform the same movements with the same clarity and

virtuosity as the dancers, “the dance owes its special aesthetic impact to the viewer’s

43
Casey, 24.
44
Noë, 81.
25
awareness that the dancer’s potentialities are also his or her own because they are

embodied in persons with basically similar bodies.”45 Thus as dancers in site work

inherently acknowledge and contend/interact with the real aspects of the places in which

they dance—the same environmental factors experienced (or potentially experienced) by

audiences—they enable viewers to experience new relationships with the sites as well.

Thus site dance might be regarded as an artistic medium that best supports a deep

engagement with the phenomenology of a space. As Ingold writes, “movement is the

very essence of perception.”46 By watching site dance we can see ourselves transposed

into the place of the dancer as we share in real time much of the same “sensate

experience” as the performer.47 Even when audiences may not physically engage with the

spaces during the performance, the dynamic relationship between bodies and space in site

dance offers opportunity for a greater level of embodiment for performers and audiences

alike. This, in turn, can alter how audiences associate with those sites.

Through a case study of her own site-specific dance installation Project 3 (2007),

contemporary choreographer Victoria Hunter attests to the power of site dance to

establish a cycle of embodied reflexivity, in which one is attentive to the phenomenology

of the space, which, in turn, creates a heightened sense of self-awareness for the viewer

and performer, increasing present-ness and embodied experience.48 Whether explorations

of a site focus on the physical structural elements, the current usages or future potentials

45
Judith Lynne Hanna, To Dance is Human: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication, (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987), 133.
46
Ingold, 71.
47
Clark, 31.
48
Victoria Hunter, “Spatial Translation and ‘Present-ness’ in Site-Specific Dance Performance,” New
Theatre Quarterly 27, no. 1 (2011), 28-40.
26
of the sites, or even on memories of prior states of the sites, site dances can generate new

dialogue about a place and/or engender new activations of sites and places within a

community. And when providing audiences with more information and context about

place, site dance has the capacity to bring genuine attention and interest to histories,

social structures, and community needs, which can incite a community to action.

In his seminal work The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre articulates how

time, space, and energy exist as interwoven concepts:

Even if the links between these concepts and the physical realities to which they
correspond are not always clearly established, we do know that such links exist,
and that the concepts or theories they imply — energy, space, time — can be
neither conflated nor separated from one another…When we evoke ‘energy’, we
must immediately note that energy has to be deployed within a space. When we
evoke ‘space’, we must immediately indicate what occupies that space and how it
does so: the deployment of energy in relation to ‘points’ and within a time frame.
When we evoke ‘time’, we must immediately say what it is that moves or changes
therein. Space considered in isolation is an empty abstraction; likewise energy and
time.49

Space, in other words, presupposes movement and interaction between entities. Dance as

an art form is comprised of time, space, and energy (sometimes called dynamics). Thus,

at its most fundamental level, dance articulates the relationship between space and time

through energy and is a relationship that presupposes the presence and necessary

interaction of all three elements. Site dance, with its more specific focus on the interplay

between bodies and culturally shaped space (or place) promotes a greater embodiment in

the sites where the performance occurs and brings greater attention to the interaction of

these elements. Even visual artists creating earthworks (or land art) have acknowledged

49
Lefebvre, 11-12.
27
dance (and its considerations of time, energy [body movement], and space) as inspiration

for their own work and concepts:

[Richard] Serra...claimed that dancer Yvonne Rainer’s performances of the 1960s

helped him to think about his work in terms of ‘the body’s movement not being
predicated totally on image or sight or optical awareness, but on physical
awareness in relation to space, time, movement,’...[Trisha] Brown, too, explored
this reciprocal relationship between location and vision and, in so doing, molded
the experience of her audience. More than mere topographic foundation, each site
these artists chose to occupy with their artworks was laden with historical and
cultural associations. It was as if the site and the artwork were equally porous and
fluid, their essences mingling.50

Site dance offers performers and audience members the potential to move beyond

their bodies as corporeal entities, to find themselves existing in the interaction between

time, space, and energy (body). This makes “embodiment…a movement of incorporation

rather than inscription, not a transcribing of form onto material but a movement wherein

forms themselves are generated.”51 In its movement and activation of places, dance

generates (or produces) something new. As Philosopher Paul Weiss states, “The dance is

appreciated not by those who note how the dancers are placed from moment to moment,

but by those who see how they move in, to, and from their places, and who are aware that

something is being produced by the movement.”52 And when placed in lived experience

and cultural places, site dance enables viewers to see themselves and their potential in the

cultural ecology reflected, creating new relationships between them and their

environment.

50
Graham, 63.
51
Ingold, 63.
52
Weiss, 205.
28
 By physically activating sites in new ways, occupying spaces that traditionally

may not receive human intervention, and interacting with sites in non-normative,

unexpected, and even transgressive ways, site dance brings awareness to viewers about

themselves and their interactions with these sites. Site dances may be transgressive by

addressing unfavorable histories of a site or challenging current employments of the sites.

Other works might be used to illuminate contemporary relationships along racial, ethnic,

religious, or other lines, thereby addressing a cultural divide between social groups.

When specifically constructed to expose histories and/or change a community’s

relationship to a site, site dance can use its purpose to do more than simply bring a new

awareness to audiences about the public space of their daily lives: it can employ dance as

a means to bring about a desired change within the cultural ecology.

Scholar and former dancer with H.T. Chen & Dancers, SanSan Kwan reveals how

site dance Apple Dreams (2007) brought healing to the Chinatown community in

response to the pain, prejudice, and disenfranchisement the community encountered in

the wake of the World Trade Center attack on 9/11. Staged in the Winter Garden of the

World Financial Tour (adjacent to the former Word Trade Center) this site dance not only

involved members of the local community, but also gave a voice to the larger community

and the issues affecting their lives some six years later. Kwan suggests that in this work

“Chen re-maps a traumatized space into something ordered but diverse,” utilizing the

“embodied symbolic action” of the ritual performance as a way to “to rebuild after

crises.”53

53
SanSan Kwan, Kinesthetic City: Dance and Movement in Chinese Urban Spaces,
(Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 2013), 89, 99.
29
 Aligned with the anthropological theories of Ingold and others included in this

paper, Kwan acknowledges that the act of creating and performing dance in turn creates

culture and one’s sense of place. Kwan summarizes: “Choreography is an art of space;

making dances creates place...choreography, as a process of bringing bodies together in

space and time, can forge new places across old geographies, turning difference into

community.”54 Instead of seeing bodies and spaces as separate entities, site dance

recognizes these elements as existing hand-in-hand and provides a platform by which

audiences can likewise see and experience the potential of their future interactions with

these sites and cultural places.

From a young age, we are taught about the relationship between organisms and

their environment. Our cultural lessons, however, many times negate the importance of

the space we inhabit beyond environmental concerns (e.g., the effect of lack of resources

or of a natural disaster). The context of space, nonetheless, plays an important role in our

development as individuals and a society, “our architectural environment constantly

contributes a major condition to that process of self-formation which is fundamental to

existence.”55 The layouts of cities and constructions of buildings inform behaviors and

expectations of the populace. Intrinsically, we respond to physical environments whether

natural or man-made. But again, the exchange is not one-sided. As discussed by

philosophers and anthropologists alike, humans come to process and understand the

world through their interactions with their environment.

54
Ibid, 118.
55
Louis Hammer, “Architecture and the Poetry of Space,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
39, no. 4 (1981), 382.
30
 Site dance holds potential for affecting change and activation of community and

public space by affording tangible and real-time examples of the dynamic relationship

that exists between bodies and space. If movement is at the heart of perception, dance

(specifically site dance) is a powerful method for demonstrating and observing the power

of bodies in space and the relationship between these two entities.

Dance Anthropologist Judith Lynne Hanna contends, “the efficacy of dance

communication in political thought and action appears to lie in the actual power of the

body instrument, body image, symbolism, psychological bases, communication system

characteristics, and composite variables psychologists found to be persuasive.”56 Through

the actions of our bodies, we can best affect change for ourselves and others. But it is not

about corporeality. Rather, it is about embodiment and the dynamic counter-animation

between bodies and space. Through its greater level of embodiment for audiences, site

dance holds potential for affecting activation of communities and their relationships to

public spaces.

Besides, our bodies already exist as entities steeped in cultural and historical

context. As Judith Butler writes: “As an intentionally organized materiality, the body is

always an embodying of possibilities both conditioned and circumscribed by historical

convention. In other words, the body is a historical situation.”57 Thus, site dance holds the

possibility to engage our lived places and our lived bodies in the most contextual and

honest manner. To fully engage with our spaces and affect change we need to be

embodied in the lived world, and by noting the centrality of embodiment we can

56
Hanna, 132.
57
Judith Butler, "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and
Feminist Theory," Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988), 521.
31
“… identify and underscore the important elements of human agency in both the physical

construction as well as the social production of place.”58 Site dance promotes both

phenomena, offering a greater level of embodiment within our lived spaces, and drawing

attention to the active exchange of being present in a site. By placing dance in the lived

world and allowing choreographers, dancers, and viewers to engage at a deep

phenomenological level of shared embodiment and shared perceptual experience, site

dance becomes an effective agent of social change.

58
Arijit Sen and Lisa Silverman, eds, Making Place: Space and Embodiment in the City,
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014), 4.
32
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36