Dance and Silence

The age of humans has gotten increasingly loud in terms of literal sound and environmental impact. Recognising silence as a disappearing ontological value, there is grief around our loss, but there is also a greater desire for opportunities to experience silence in its various diverse forms.

This book explores the critical dynamics of silence within choreography, performance and composition, comprising a series of conversations with researchers and practitioners, including choreographer Rosemary Lee, architect Richard Dougherty, architectural historian Pérez-Gómez, Natural Horn player Isaac Shieh, neuroscientist Tony Steffert and drummer and aerialist Jonny Leitch.

These conversations: – question what has been silenced through the immobilisation of our bodies through movement-saving technologies; – discover points of convergence through silence in seemingly separate and unrelated physical, conceptual and philosophical spaces; – examine neglected intelligence and marginalised ways of knowing of gesture and movement Ultimately, we come to see how dance, embodied modes of inquiry and corporeal-based understandings within socio-cultural and ecological contexts can propose pathways in the absence of sound.

Author Biography

Vipavinee Artpradid is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University, UK.

Petra Johnson is an independent multidisciplinary artist and researcher. She holds a PhD in Social Sculpture and has devised cross-cultural art projects, bridging communities in China and Germany. She runs annual workshops at the China Academy of Art and occasional workshops at the Urban Ecology Lab at Tongji University, China. Between 2018 and 2020, she directed the curatorial program for Lijiang Studio in Jixiang Village, Yulong Naxi Autonomous Region, China.