Thoughts, and extracts from books on dance as philosophy.
DANCE AS A PHILOSOPHICAL DIDACTIC
Can philosophy of the body be taught by means of a philosophical didactics, which does not contain in itself a dialogical language, but a body language like dance?
The teaching of philosophy has maintained a search process, starting from guiding question of how philosophy can be taught. Addressing a philosophical issue with young people in secondary education today is, in principle, already a problem that is questioned to a great extent by each teacher, insofar as the tools used to achieve it must correspond to the particularities of this knowledge. But in the same way they must adapt to the needs, concerns, problems and daily events of the students themselves.
Generating a critical, reflective and analytical attitude of a student, through tools used for decades, which in the classroom are observed as unattractive for the young, but not ineffective for those who do philosophical, leads to postulate a new proposal that encourages and is attractive as a didactic for the teaching of philosophy; music and dance, these complement each other as a pedagogical instrument, not to teach history of philosophy and philosophical theories of the great thinkers, but to potentiate the skills of analysis, criticism, reflection, argumentation, questioning and everything that makes philosophy a process of construction of the same man, who is immersed in a social and cultural context.
It would be meaningless to teach philosophy, when the subjects are able to identify and expose a philosopher’s thought, but when faced with the problems of their environment they do not assume a philosophical attitude, which involves everything that they have in themselves. The same, music and dance, being arts par excellence, means by which the senses are sharpened and produce great works of
art in time, space and in the company of movement, attractive to any being, are a striking path to gestate in the young people a taste for philosophy and for embracing a philosophical attitude in the way they see the world.
Dance as body, movement and experimentation:
The body is a communicator of sensations, emotions and personal impressions that can be expressed through a set of elements in a form of language; which is a thought without words. “This is a non-linguistic experience that rethinks the dominant notion of thought, and that has implications for epistemology, aesthetics, and evolution.”
Traditionally it has been affirmed that thought has a close link with spoken language and only in these terms can rational thought be classified. A thought without words such as dance, would then not adapt to a rational thought according to the above. The dance underlies the experience and it is for each movement in it that a story is created; movement is not a means of thought, nor is it a measurer of the
same, body movement in personal experience, constitutes in itself thought; a thought without symbolic language has the same value as rational thought.
With the above, the body receives another meaning, where movement is the means by which body and world are related. “Movement is the way of being in the world of a body”. The experience of the world, through the movement of the body, carries with it a radical affirmation, where movement and body are indivisible and its sense of being is its unity. This unity is necessary for thought, since the world has to be
constituted from them, since it is in principle the primary form of thought, since the body-movement complementation is the first human means of experience without speech, which maintains in yes a language “Movement is the foundation of our epistemological construction of the world”
Epistemology:
Part of the philosophy that studies the principles, foundations, extension and methods of human knowledge. “During those same years, historians and philosophers of science began to appear, bringing new problems to scientific epistemology”
After a brief explanation of the fundamental features that must belong to the structure of the dance; dance, and its dynamic experience in the world, is a form of resistance to the world being experienced without symbolic language and is an open possibility to explore, appreciate and know the world directly and without intermediaries, involving creative thinking.
State of the Art
Pedagogical guidelines for philosophy in secondary education: Curricular, didactic and implementation proposal
The reading of texts, seminars, reports, essays, dissertations and philosophical debates, are some didactic strategies for the teaching of philosophy, which have been applied and have been effective for decades in schools, because at the base of each of them, it is intended to bring the subject closer to the exercise of maieutic, so that he himself questions himself and creates his own position in thinking, based on the question as the origin of all restlessness and philosophical problems.
“In the teaching of Philosophy, the question has a vital perspective. In everyday life, any area of human knowledge is full of problems, of problematic situations that require decision-making in the face of multiple alternative solutions.
But, these strategies link the student with philosophical thoughts, which limit in a certain way, their opportunities for experimentation with other learning systems, with the above the importance of maieutic is not cancelled, since it is fundamental in the philosophical exercise whatever it may be. The didactics used, even music and dance as philosophical didactics, need it to be considered as a pedagogical tool.
“Precisely in the problematic curriculum, the aim is to develop a philosophical attitude aimed at investigating and subjecting our beliefs, judgments, feelings and evaluations to permanent examination.” The problem linked to dance, will generate a philosophical attitude, since, in order to generate conflict between ideas, reflection and analysis, there must be, in principle, a cause to destabilize and question the positions of the students and, therefore, solutions can arise. how creative, as can be through dance.
The musical language in artistic education: Music, dance and dramatic art
This work deals mainly with musical education, but it links dance as a complement, while musical knowledge is related, with the movement codes learned in order to acquire the bases that allow the development of the artistic interpretation of dance. As a guiding principle, everyone who dances must have in himself an awareness of the musical fundamentals, since these are the foundations of the
harmony of the dance and what it is in itself.
“A mere rational understanding of rhythm is inconceivable without feeling the kinetic force that leads to action, in the same way that dance cannot be understood as a mere bodily technique detached from the impulse, emotion and character provided by the music”.
There are some positions that affirm that dance can exist without music, but they assert this because any subject can move and create an achievement of movements without melody, but music is not only sound and melody, dance is based on the mathematical principles of music, it may be possible to make movements without music, but these movements, to be harmonic, must have rhythm, constancy, time,
melody and other essential characteristics that music possesses, that is, without the above, that is, without what it is in yes music cannot exist dance or at least a harmonic dance.
Ponce de Luis Leon (2006)
Think of dance
The author presents dance from a conception of beauty itself, with a philosophical foundation from Socrates, Plato, etc., where dance is the poetry of the body, as it establishes a language, not precisely a system of concepts and ideas. Fixed as symbolic or conventional language, but rather a constant emotional process that, through sensations, can perhaps with greater evidence transmit ideas that are more apprehended by those who receive them.
The body tends to nature, because it remembers that it is the substance of the world and belongs to it, therefore, the body leads itself through movement to its origin, being part of the nature of the dynamic and impermanent world. “Dance is also a powerful way of moving through nature.”
The body understands beauty, only insofar as it is complemented by movement and dance to know about it, the body without movement could not know, it would only be an immobile, lifeless object, but it is due to the dynamics of its nature, who can know the beautiful and this beauty, harmony and aesthetics can only be offered by dance. “Dance also becomes one of those sources of momentary and infinite joy through which natural beauty is accessed”
Estrada Rodrigo. (2006)
Readable Dance
“Dance is a text that is elaborated as a design on the body, and is stretched out for an open and lively reading.” This text, like the dance in this writing, is taken from ballet, where each consecutive movement is a word, which understands who dances it and who admires that text. Ballet and the language of ballet, gave another meaning to the dance, a message of plenitude, delicacy, continuity that has to do
with the content of its own text while dancing.
Dance has a trace “Dance is read and written” at the moment the choreographer writes each movement, the writing of the dance is defined by each word in movement to the beat of the melody and the harmony and constancy of the dynamics of the body, writing is a composition of movements, that is why dance cannot be read with just one, but with a group of them, let anyone who has seen writing read.
Finally, an interesting proposal is made about the non-verbal argument, gestural code, where dance is “a proposal for the construction of a corporal discourse”, raised as a codification and combination of interpretation and expression systems to generate alternatives for corporal assimilation. meaningful from reality.
Restrepo Urrea Adriana. (2005)
The Art of Dance and Other Writings
“Dance is a model of behaviour” affirms the author, since she assumed that dance was social and cultural, social from a physical exercise, which seeks aesthetic refinement, with moral and sexual content, and cultural dance, typical of context of the most specific and particular subject from which it develops. That is to say that dance is always influenced by the social and cultural context of the subject that dances, also transmitting that content.
“Dance is not only an art that gives expression to the human soul through movement, but also the foundation of a complete conception of a freer, more harmonious, more natural life. Dance is not reduced to a set of figures and a sequence of movements, this, in addition to being a form of expression, envisions a particular situation of an individual who is immersed and influenced by the contextual reality, of his reality, which cannot be away from their culture and society in which they coexist with others.
Isadora Duncan. (2003)
Folkloric Dances from Colombia; DidacticProposal for Basic Education
In this text, dance is considered as an educational element, where the recognition of the body, the movement compose a harmony that leads to configure what dance is as such. It explains some of the methodologies applied to teaching dance in the field of physical education and evaluation instruments such as observation formats and performance tests. In addition to this, he presents us with the fundamental elements of dance.
“On the one hand, the body through which man communicates and expresses himself in a variety of ways. On the other hand, the body moving in space, time, in interaction with the environment that surrounds it in accordance with a rhythmic structure and energy”.
Each one of the previous elements constituted in its content, by aspects, which in sets glimpse each one of them, for example: Time is accompanied by duration, measure, pulsation, speed, pause, phrase. Space contains shapes, distance, planes, directions, levels, trajectory, focus. The rhythmic structure is constituted by accentuation, duration, anticipation, synchronization and reproduction. In the energy, which is contained, strength, weakness, spontaneity and constancy. And finally In the integration, is, the group, the space the time, subjects and objects.
The previous elements that in harmony constitute the structure of the dance, have a certain objective and purpose within the school, as a means of expression and a form of language different from the conventional one. “Rhythmic movement and dance are integrated into body expression together with musical elements. The body is capable of expressing and communicating sensations and feelings through
its movements, relating to others and to space”.
Argüelles Dorlly. (2000)
The Experience of Movement and Dance
This text tells us specifically about movement, which is seen as a means through which the body relates to the world. “Movement is the way of being in the world of a body” for the above, movement and body are an indissoluble couple in animated life. In this way, the movement in complement with the body, are meaning givers to the extent that the world is constituted from them.
It is also proposed that if our body implies a being in the world in motion, it implies a way of being in the world that is different from stillness; mobility must play a relevant role for our being. That is why “dance would be an experience according to our being and practicable throughout our lives.”
Zuluaga Diana Patricia. (2000)
Thought about Movement
In this text, there is one of the possible criticisms that dance would have as a philosophical didactics. Traditionally, it has been affirmed that thought has a close link with spoken language and only in these terms can rational thought be classified. A thought without words such as dance, would then not adapt to a rational thought according to the above.
The dance underlies the experience and it is for each movement in it that a story is created; movement is not a means of thought, nor is it a measurer of the same, body movement in personal experience, constitutes in itself thought; a thought without symbolic language has the same value as rational thought.
With the above, the body receives another meaning, where movement is the means by which body and world are related. “Movement is the way of being in the world of a body”
The experience of the world, through the movement of the body, carries with it a radical affirmation, where movement and body are indivisible and their sense of being is their unity and this unity is necessary for thought, since the world has to be constituted. from them, for being in principle the primary form of thought, since the body-movement complementation is the first human means of experience without speech, which maintains a language in itself. “Movement is the foundation of our epistemological construction of the world.”
Sheets Johnstone (1999)
Dance at School
In this work, the author gives us a glimpse of a general concept of dance, the approach that dance contains as an educational reform, the forms of dance, the dimensions that can be experienced through the exercise of it, the elements that serve as a foundation for dance analysis. In addition to this, she proposes a theoretical foundation and a didactic position through dance.
But before delving into these contents, she presents as a point to analyse and reflect, the knowledge of the body before talking about dance, “The specific reason for dance is to know the body.” Movement, an inherent element of the body and that constitutes dance, must be studied as the particular form that makes up a whole, because only then from the body, understanding its logic and its structure and its main quality; the movement, it is possible to approach the dance.
García Ruso Herminia María. (1997)
The Philosophy of Dance; Dance Chronicle
This text focuses on the nature of dance, its most predominant characteristics, and the way in which it could be understood philosophically. The author, using analytical techniques, compares dance with the phenomenon of another human being, both in the arts and in culture in general, and considers meaning and expression within movement as important themes.
“Dance a practical reality” the author, starts from the empirical plane to acquire knowledge, and affirms that dance, being a cultural attribute element of the body, acquires from the nature that surrounds it, experiences for their own personal learning. Dance as a practice, which is immersed in reality, developed by movement, not only generates emotions and sensitivity for art in the subject, but also acquires elements of experience to speak from the language of dance.
Julie Van Camp. (1996)
Dance Philosophers
The author of this text argues why philosophers have not devoted part of their thought reflecting on dance and attributes this cause to the fact that dance has a female fertility principle at its anthropological root, “dance was, in its origin, an essential part of ancient fertility rites. As such, he related the participants to the mother earth and to the feminine side”.
In most communities in the world, patriarchal domination is presented, there is talk of what has to do with masculine domination and it is excluded by culture, thought and what has to do with femininity and sensuality.
“Philosophers have denied the reality of the sensual presence of the body.” The most predominant philosophical currents, such as idealists and empiricists, conceptualize the body from a merely mental perspective or that it is an object that obeys the physical laws of nature, the body in philosophy, is a complex machine or is part of dualism, mind-body, but it has not been taken or reflected philosophically
from aesthetics, from feeling, from the sensory or emotional experience of the subject, as if it can be done from dance, with a philosophical content.
Levin David Michael. (1983)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ponce de León Luis. (2006) El lenguaje musical en las enseñanzas artísticas: Música, danza y arte dramático, Madrid: Editorial CCS.
Estrada Rodrigo. (2006) Pensar sobre la danza. Bogotá. Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo.
Restrepo Urrea Adriana. (2005) La danza se lee. Bogotá. Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo.
Isadora Duncan. (2003) El Arte de la danza y otros escritos. Madrid. Akal, S.A.
Argüelles Dorlly. (2000) Danzas folklóricas de Colombia; Propuesta didáctica para la educación básica. Colombia. Editorial KINESIS.
Zuluaga Diana Patricia. (2000) La experiencia del movimiento y de la danza. Bogotá. Editorial CCS
García Ruso Herminia María. (1997) La Danza en la Escuela. Barcelona. Editorial INDE.
Julie Van Camp. (1996) La filosofía de la Danza; Crónica de Danza. Barcelona. Editorial INDE.
Levin David Michael. (1983) Filósofos y la danza, Madrid. Editorial CCS