July 7-9, 2011

Venue:

RADIALSYSTEM V
Holzmarkstraße 33
10243 Berlin
www.radialsystem.de

Conference language: English; optional dance performances partly in German

Free admission. Please register here. Thank you!

About the conference:

Touch is a fundamental element of dance. The (time-)forms and contact zones of physical touch are means of expression both of self-reflexivity and the interaction of the dancers. Liberties and limits, creative possibilities and taboos of touch convey insights in the "aisthesis" of dances: in their dynamics and communicative structure, in the production and disciplining of affects.



The conference "Touching and to be Touched - Kinesthesia and Empathy in Dance" is steered by the question in what way forms and practices of touch in dance are connected with the evocation of feelings. The planned contributions therefore will research touch from the perspectives of motion and touch of the physical body and of being moved/being touched in the emotional sense.



Guiding questions for this conference ask about the modes of transfer - between touching, being touched and observing touch in dance. Working on the assumptions of various theories of body, emotion and senses, how are the processes of tactile touch, and being touched emotionally, interpreted? Is there a specific spectrum of emotions that is activated during these processes (within both the auditor and the practitioner)? How could the relationship of movement, touch and emotion be analyzed in connection to kinesthesia and empathy?



The conference is divided into three sections:



1. Contributions to the concepts of touch in dance, and to the theory of touch within the dynamic relations between kinesthesia and empathy.



2. Contributions to the theory and practice of Contact Improvisation with particular reference to touch and emotion.



3. Contributions to Argentine Tango investigating
    
    - the relationship between different techniques/styles and emotional effects,
  
    - the interplay of movement and music,
    
    - sensation versus emotion regarding kinesthesia and empathy.