What counts as “philosophy” of dance? This is a vexedmethodological question. The array of academic approaches undertakento promote serious investigation into the distinctive nature, andhuman importance, of dancing evidences the complexity of capturingmovement in words. Some writers utilize tools familiar fromAnglo-American analytic philosophical traditions. Others developconceptual resources from existentialism, phenomenology and, morerecently, somaesthetics. Many equally rigorous ways of addressingphilosophically resonant aspects of dance are pursued by thinkers whostart from embodied or practice-based foundations. Thought-provokinganalyses incorporate insights and methods used by dance studiesscholars, sociologists, historians, educators, anthropologists,ethnographers, practitioners, dance critics, evolutionary biologists,cognitive scientists, and psychologists. As a field, philosophy ofdance has grown to encompass an array of resources needed tounderstand the varied cultural and personal dimensions of dancing.

The potential for this area of inquiry is enormous. This is, in part,because dance engages many branches of philosophy, includingmetaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, ethical theory,aesthetics, and the philosophy of art. The topic is alsointellectually rich because humans have danced throughout all ofrecorded history for artistic, educational, therapeutic, social,political, religious and other purposes. In addition, there aredance-like undertakings on the margins of what many regard asdance-proper, such as digital/animated dance or forms of competitivedancing analogous to sports like gymnastics or ice-skating (see McFee1992). As a result, the question of what counts as “dance”can arise readily alongside the question of what counts as thephilosophyof dance, generating both philosophical andmeta-philosophical opportunities for sustained deliberation.

The challenge for any scholar in dance philosophy is to draw togethera multiplicity of approaches and concerns so they are in productivedialogue with one another. While there are marked differences inacademic style across the field, all participants have an intellectualstake in illuminating our dancerly lives so we might better understandjustwhat dance is and appreciatewhy it matters.The primary aim of this entry is to introduce several basic familiesof concern that recur across disciplinary domains and to offerresources for further research at the end of each section.

For more on the relationship between philosophy and dance, as well asdetailed treatments of questions about dance philosophy andinterdisciplinarity, see Boyce 2013, 2021; Burt 2009; Carroll 2003;Challis 1999; Cohen 1962; Colebrook 2005; Conroy 2012, 2019; cf. CullÓ Maoilearca 2018; Cvejić 2015b; DeFrantz 2005; Farinasand Van Camp 2021b; Foster, Rothfield, and Dunagan 2005; Fraleigh1999; cf. Franko 2014a; Friedman and Bresnahan 2021; Levin 1983; T.Lewis 2007; McFee 2013a; Pakes 2019b; Redfern 1983; Sheets-Johnstone1984; Shusterman 2005; Sparshott 1982a, 1982b, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1995,2004; and Van Camp 1996a, 2009, 2021a.

• 1. Analytic Approaches to Dance as Art
  • 1.1 Problems of Identity and “Re”-Activities
  • 1.2 Dance as an Ephemeral Artform
• 2. Dance, Action, and Agency
  • 2.1 Choreography, Authorship, and Copyright
  • 2.2 Dance Improvisation
• 3. Dance, Lived Experience, and Kinaesthetics
  • 3.1 The Primacy of Practice
  • 3.2 Bodily Responses
• 4. Dance and Cognitive Science
• 5. Additional Dance and Philosophy Connections
  • 5.1 Non-Western and Non-Traditional Philosophy and Dance
  • 5.2 Dance, Ethics and Social-Political Philosophy
  • 5.3 Dance, Film and Digital Technology
• Bibliography
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Analytic Approaches to Dance as Art

Although many dance-related topics have been treated by philosophersof a broadly analytic persuasion, thinkers in this intellectualcommunity have had an overriding interest in dance qua artform. Hence,they have attended primarily to concert or theater dance, and havegiven sustained thought to three central questions: What is thedifference between a movement event that is dance and one that isnon-dance? (The definitional question.) What kind of thing is a workof dance art? (The ontological question.) What conditions must besatisfied for the same work of dance art to be performed on multipleoccasions? (The identity question.)

The definitional question preoccupied a number of early contributorsto the field of dance philosophy from roughly the 1950s to the 1990s.Their shared goal was to offer an account that could distinguish thedancing in concert performances from other kinds of movement thatmight be seen on stage and, thereby, to indicate what makes dance, asa form of human moving, special. Well-known suggestions highlighted,among other things, the expressive qualities of the movementsperformed (Beardsley 1982), the symbolic potential of the movementperformance (Langer 1953a and b; cf. Conroy 2015), or theperformance’s relationship to artistic institutions and danceart practices (Carroll and Banes 1982). (SeeSection 2.) Several influential philosophers of dance, however, resisted thedefinitional project, arguing that it must suffer fromunderinclusivity given the wide array of extant dance styles and forms(Sparshott 1988; cf. Sparshott 1995) or urging that the attempt tooffer essentialist definitions is futile (McFee 2021b). In recentdecades, attention in so-called “analytic aesthetics” hasshifted away from various attempts to define dance and towardexplorations that highlight its distinctiveness by emphasizingmetaphysical and appreciative issues.

Those projects that address the ontological question introduced abovecenter on identifyingwhat kind of thing the product of danceart-making is—an object, an abstract entity, an event, a morefluid process, or something else. It should be noted, however, thatphilosophers differ with regard to which aspects of dance as artshould be given primacy of place for the purposes of pursuingontology. Dance art practices recognize an array of metaphysicallyrelevant features that one might aim to accommodate, including theseemingly “commonsense facts” that many works of dance artare repeatable (they can be performed on more than one occasion),underdetermined (they permit of performances that differ qualitativelyfrom one another), created by humans at a certain time in history(they are not eternally existing Forms), and potentially modallyflexible (the original dancemaker could have chosen some differentintrinsic or identity-constitutive features) (see Carroll 2019; D.Davies 2011 and 2024; McFee 1992, 2011, and 2018; Pakes 2020).

With considerations such as these in mind, several widely debatedontological accounts of dance qua art have emphasized repeatablechoreographic structures. For Nelson Goodman, such structures aretypically described as being anchored metaphysically in an actualscore for the dance work that specifies its essential features(Goodman 1976; cf. McFee 2012, Pakes 2020, and Van Camp 2019a). Acompeting structure-based approach, defended by Graham McFee, arguesthat works of dance art are types that can be tokened in liveperformance, where the parameters of the type that constitutes anyparticular dance artwork are established by an in principle possiblescore or a work “recipe” (McFee 1992b, 2011b, and 2018).Several more recent accounts depart from the details of McFee’sview, but embrace his core insight that works of dance art arefundamentally “performables” that are also typicallymultiples, i.e., they are works of art made for performance that canhave more than one correct instance. For example, Noël Carrollrecasts the ontological question to ask, “What makes something adance-art-work?” and suggests that the answer lies in the“constitutive purposes” of the choreography as these wouldbe appropriately understood by someone embedded in the particularcommunity for whom the dancemaker creates (Carroll 2019: 74). Othermore metaphysically complex alternatives include accounts thatconstrue dance artworks as indicated action-types answerable to bothcontemporary danceworld norms and historical considerations (Pakes2020) or as “Wollheimian types” grounded in dance artappreciative practices (D. Davies 2024).

Despite their differences, all such approaches are united insofar asthey stand in contrast to those adopted by dance philosophers whothink that the art-relevant focus of dance might be something otherthan the structure of the dance “work” construed as somekind of artisticobject. Such thinkers tend to observe thatdance art creations typically lack supplementary texts and are oftendeveloped without the use of any written plan (see Franko 1989, 2011a,and 2017; and Pakes 2017). They also note that even when there is anotated score, it is not always used as an “essentialistrecipe” for generating future performances as it may, instead,serve as inspiration for a novel theatrical presentation (see Franko1989). Furthermore, standardized dance notation systems arecontroversial, and none is used or accepted universally (see Franko2011a and Van Camp 1998). Finally, many philosophers begin theirtheorizing from the belief that what makes dance artspecial,and, therefore, worthy of focused philosophical attention, lies indance’s bodily, tactile, dynamic, felt, perceived or intuitedaspects (sometimes referred to as its kinaesthetic or somaticelements). For these theorists, the central foci of theory andappreciation should be features of performance events and evolvingdanceworld experiences, rather than static scores or underlyingabstract structures. (SeeSections 2 and 3.)

For more on the general question, “What is dance?”, see D.Carr 1987; Carroll 2003, Copeland and Cohen 1983; McFee 1998a and2013a; Pakes 2019b; Sparshott 1988; and Van Camp 1981. For more onmeaning, expression, authenticity and communication as central ordefinitive aspects of dance art, see D. Carr 1997; Best 1974; Franko2014b; Hanna 1983 and 1979 [1987]; Martin 1933a, 1939, and 1946; andVan Camp 1996b. For an extended treatment of the dance artappreciative practices to which an ontological account might aim to beresponsive, see D. Davies 2024. See also Meskin 1999 for analternative view of dancework ontology that holds that dance audiencesexperiencethree works of art: a choreographic-work, aproduction-work, and a performance-interpretation work; cf. Thom 2019.For discussion of "dance as text" and a replete history of this idea,see Franko 1993, 2011a, and 2011b; cf. Pakes 2020.

1.1 Problems of Identity and “Re”-Activities

The ontological question is pressing for many philosophers because itbears directly on a number of other important issues pertaining todance preservation and dance art appreciation. As mentioned brieflyabove, there are many potential “problems of identity” fordance that arise in analytic aesthetics, where these are all relatedto the basic issue of how the numerical identity of any given work issecured across different performances (cf. Fraleigh 2004 for analternative usage of the word “identity” for dance). Oneconcern is that, as a matter of practice, the occasion on which adance is composed does not “fix” the creative product forall time. Although dance works are usually known by the name and dateof their first performance, subsequent iterations and casts can changestructural and qualitative features of the inaugural presentation,sometimes substantially. A related concern is that many dance artcreations simply have no notated score. Even for those that arepreserved via video or other form of tangible fixation, laterperformances may still deviate from these frameworks in significantways.

There are additional complications to consider. For example, in thoserelatively rare cases where there is a score from which dance artistswork (roughly, as an architect builds from a blueprint), followingnotated instructions might not produce performances that areexperientially identifiable as the “same” work ofart. Furthermore, a dance notation might function as the jumping-offpoint from which to make a radically new kind of dance, rather than asa limitation on innovation that constrains future choreographers anddancers. There is also the issue that what a dance “is” inpractice, or for purposes of public appreciation, may not be identicalto what a dance “is” for purposes of numerical identityand historical preservation. In this way dance is not unlike music(for more on this see S. Davies 1991).

Another complication arises from the fact that there are differentkinds of “re”-activities commonly undertaken in dance, andthe distinctions between them are not clear from the way language isused by members of the danceworld. Philosophers of dance, dancestudies scholars, and practitioners, for instance, recognize thepossibility of re-performing a dance art creation, reviving one thathas languished but not fallen prey to the vicissitudes of time andmemory, reconstructing a “lost” piece of dance art historyfrom scholarly resources and personal interviews, and reenactinghistorically important dance moments or ideas by mounting performancesthat re-visit them in a new way. The possibility of returning to ourdance art past under these various descriptions raises a number ofquestions. Is it desirable to attempt to reconstruct a work, or is itmore profitable to reenact important elements of achoreographer’soeuvre? If historical reconstructionaims to recover a forgotten piece of dance history, must it thereby beunderstood as an enterprise that aims to preserve the numericalidentity of the reconstructed work? What is the difference (if any)between revival and reconstruction, and why should dance insiderspursue either of these “re”-activities rather thancreating new works of dance art? Can reenactment provide historicalknowledge about our dance pasts?

For detailed treatment of these issues by multiple authors (who areboth theorists and practitioners), see anthologies edited by Jordan2000, Franko 2017, and Main 2017. For more on variousissues surrounding dance work identity and“re”-activities, see D. Carr 1997; Cohen 1982; Conroy2013b; Franko 1989 and 2017b; McFee 1994, 1998a, and 2011b; Pakes 2017and 2020; Rubidge 2000; Sparshott 1988 and 1995; Thomas 2018; and VanCamp 1981 and 2019a. For more on the role of scores in dance, seeArmelagos and Sirridge 1978; D. Davies 2011b; Goodman 1976; McFee2011b and 2018.

1.2 Dance as an Ephemeral Artform

One feature of dance as a performing art that is often noted, andcontributes to the challenge of offering a philosophical answer to theidentity question, is that it moves and changes, both during thecourse of any given performance and over time. A catchall phrase forthis sort of impermanence—reflecting the lack of entirely stableart objects in this artistic milieu—is that “dance is anephemeral art.” While it admits of alternative interpretations(see Conroy 2012; Copeland and Cohen 1983; Copeland 1993; Jollimore2019; and Pakes 2020), in no case should this common locution be takento imply that dance art is insubstantial or unserious. Instead, itsignals that there is something vital about dance that disappearsas the dancers perform, and its use is often meant toencourage philosophers to regard this as a significant, or evencentral, feature of dance qua artform.

To wit, dance critic Marcia Siegel famously wrote that dance“exists at a perpetual vanishing point” which, for Siegel,means that dance exists in “an event that disappears in the veryact of materializing” (1972: 1). She posits that artistic danceescaped the mass marketing of the industrial revolution“precisely because it doesn’t lend itself to anyreproduction…” (1972: 5). The most conservativeontological interpretation of Siegel’s claims might be thatdanceperformances are one-time, transient events (Conroy2012). This, however, would not be a philosophically consquentialreading because it is (relatively) uncontroversial that all theatricalperformances are events and all events are transient. Hence, whatseems to be at stake in describing dance art as ineluctably ephemeralis the idea that its fleetingness ismore significantappreciatively than is the transience characteristic of the otherperforming arts, such as music and theater. If this is true, then itwill be crucial for every full-blooded philosophical account of danceto address the nature and aesthetic-artistic importance of itsfragility.

One way to address this challenge is to adopt a negative view of theephemerality of dance art. To this end, one might argue thatdance’s natural tendency to “evaporate” in real timethreatens the possibility of presenting the same dance artwork onmultiple occasions and, thereby, puts pressure on the idea that dancefalls under the “classical paradigm” discussed by D.Davies (2011b) and upheld by Goodman (1976) and McFee (2011b and2018). Another tactic is to emphasize facts about the practicalrealities of life in the dance art community. Because dance artists donot trade in writing scores or scripts, and dance practitioners arehighly tolerant of making adjustments for both artistic and pragmaticreasons, many dance art creations simply do not survive for very longunless they continue to be performed consistently.

A contrary approach takes the ephemeral character of dance to be oneof its good-making features. On this positive view, we ought toappreciate, rather than decry, dance’s ever-changing anddisappearing nature (Jollimore 2019). Defenders of this view oftennote that ephemerality is a key attribute that makes a performance ofa dance into avital experience for both the dance performersand the audience. The positive proposal celebrates the live nature ofthe dance event and aims to explain why kinesthetic responses to danceart performances could be both appreciatively relevant and viscerallypowerful. It also suggests that ephemerality might serve an importantaesthetic role for dance insofar as it provides a uniquely robust“you had to be there” theatrical experience. (SeeBresnahan 2014a for an account of improvisational artistry in livedance performance consistent with this perspective.) Depending on howit is cashed out, this interpretation of the idea that dance“exists at a perpetual vanishing point” might or might notbe tension with contemporary theoretical approaches that regard danceart as in a new era of “post-ephemerality” (Franko2018b).

2. Dance, Action, and Agency

Philosophers of dance frame questions about action and agency inmarkedly different ways, though most embrace the basic view thatdancing is an activity and, therefore, not something that can be doneaccidentally (see McFee 1992, 2011b, and 2018). Those with an interestin dance as a form of expert action (akin to sports) tend to centertheir analyses on technical and athletic prowess, as well as onartistic skills like moving with expressivity or grace, and to focuson dance as art (see Montero 2016). Others with an interest invernacular or communal dance forms explore puzzles that can arise whenmovers coalesce into temporary dancing communities that seem, for theduration of the dance event, to have an agential component thatexceeds, and is distinct from, that of any particular dancer in thegroup (see Kronsted 2021 and 2023). The presumption that dance is notmere physical movement opens up a number of roles for intentionalaction to play in any philosophical treatment of dance as art orsocial activity.

One family of philosophical interests is responsive to thedefinitional question mentioned inSection 1. To this end, one could characterize dance as an artform that involves“action” in a specific way in virtue of its expressivecharacter. Dance historian Selma Jean Cohen (1962) claims thatexpressiveness is present in all dance, inspiring Monroe C. Beardsley(1982) to argue that this might be a necessary, if not sufficient,condition for dance as art. Borrowing explicitly from action theory,Beardsley notes that one bodily action can, under the rightcircumstances,sortally generate another kind of action.Thus, the act of running can, if conditions are right, becomeartistically expressive and, thereby, be part of the performance of adance art creation (see Beardlsey 1982 and Van Camp 1981; cf.Khatchadourian 1978, who argues that dance movements arenotactions).

A famous alternative that also addresses definition, broadlyconstrued, is offered by Susanne K. Langer (1953b), who holds thatdance as art is a symbol-making endeavor. For Langer, dance’ssymbolic character, or “primary illusion”, is what shecalls “virtual power” or gesture, in contrast to virtualtime (for music), virtual space (for the plastic arts) or the illusionof life (for some poetry and some drama). This semiotic theoryimplicates action in both the creation and performance of danceartworks and suggests that dance art is constituted of much moreintentionally rich ingredients than mere movements or strings ofchoreographic sequences. Sondra Horton Fraleigh (1996) offers adifferent conceptual approach, but maintains with other authorsconsidered in this section that dance is necessarily expressive andtransitiveaction. (See Meskin 1999 for more on dances asaction sequences rather than mere movements. See Carroll and Banes1982 for a critique of Beardsley’s theory of dance as expressiveaction.)

Another set of concerns about action in dance relates more readily tothe ontological question (seeSection 1). For instance, Anna Pakes’ view of dance works as indicated orinitiated action-types appeals to action to articulate what kind ofthings such artworksare at the most fundamental metaphysicallevel (Pakes 2020). Pakes agrees that action is a necessary feature ofdance in general (2013) and, with Aaron Meskin (1999), urges that theembodiment of dance in physical, intentional events renders works ofdance art better construed as created action-structures than eternaltypes or Platonic Forms. Considerations about the embodied nature ofdancing also incline Pakes to be wary of the idea that there could besuch a thing as purely “conceptual dance”, i.e., a danceartwork in which the actions that constitute the dancing are merely ameans to some further artistic-intellectual end (Pakes 2019a). Adistinct, but obliquely related, topic in this domain is how tounderstand thenormativity embedded in dance art as theproduct of intentional actions undertaken in the appropriate contexts,issuing from the right kind of psychological states (McFee 2021b).

Other contemporary dance philosophers regard the mindedagency involved in creating choreography, performing dance,or both, as a primary area of philosophical interest. Often theiraccounts are connected to normative, epistemic and ontologicalcommitments about what dance is and why it matters. Many suchtheorists (including Bresnahan 2014a, 2017a, and 2019b; Kronsted 2020and 2023; Merritt 2015; and Montero 2016) utilize tools from bothanalytic and phenomenological traditions, coupled with insights fromresearch in the cognitive sciences. (SeeSection 4.) Some attend to the activities and agency of audience members quaappreciators, but most focus on the intentional and embodiedactivities of dancers.

It is helpful to keep in mind that three disctinct, though notmutually exclusive, kinds of agency are often explored in connectionwith dance performers. First, there is a “thin” sense ofagency that simply distinguishes dancing persons from, say, BostonDynamic robots on the grounds that the former, but not the latter,execute movements under intentional descriptions (McFee 2018). Second,there is a “thicker” sense of agency that tracks thedegree to which dancers are afforded various kinds of opportunities tomake free decisions that express their intentionality, and uniquepersonalities, as they perform (Bresnahan 2014a). Third, there is aphenomenon one might call “mixed” agency that refers tocases in which dancers have the conflicted experience of being boththe authors of their movements and of losing executive control to apartner or larger group (Kronsted 2021 and 2023).

For more on dance agency and intentional action see Bunker, Pakes andRowell 2013; D. Carr 1987; J. Carr 2013; Conroy 2021; Noland 2009; andSheets-Johnstone 1981, 1999, 2011, and 2012.

2.1 Choreography, Authorship, and Copyright

In an extension of the thicker sense of agency articulated above, VanCamp (1980) holds that, for purposes of art-critical judgment andartistic appreciation, it is sometimes the case that the dancer“creates” and is not limited to merely interpreting thedance that is viewed. Dancers often supply structural and stylisticelements in the course of rehearsing and presenting a dance piece thatwere neither specified, nor provided by, the choreographer during thecompositional process. If these additions are artisticallysignificant, then what the dancer contributes might be betterunderstood as a kind of dancerly “creation” than taken tobe a mere performance “interpretation” of an alreadycompleted work.

This suggestion is opposed by McFee (2011b, 2013c and 2018), whoargues that works of dance art areauthored by choreographersbutembodied by dancers to render the dancemaker’screative choices visible to audiences. (See also Chris Challis 1999.)On the choreographer-as-sole-dancework-creator view, thedancer’s role is both instrumental and subsidiary to thedancemaker’s vision. Furthermore, on this account, adancer’s area of expertise qua embodier is the activity ofdancing, not dance-art-making. It follows from this that, whiledancers contribute the raw material for dance performances, they aremore like skilled technicians or artisans than author-artists.

Two points are important to clarify this view. First, it does notentail that choreographers cannot dance their own works; but it doesmaintain that, in their roleas dancers of works they havecreated, they are to be assessed as interpreters rather than makers.Second, it recognizes that dancers often contribute substantially tothe choreographic and qualitative contours of the works we see onstage, but holds that these kinds of contributions are insufficient torender the performers “co-authors” with the choreographer.This is because it is the dancemaker, rather than the dancer, whoultimately decides what elements of the work will be regarded asnecessary and what aspects will remain underdetermined, therebyproviding those who embody the work on stage opportunities to exerciseinterpretive license in performance.

This view has been criticized in various ways for neglecting theartistic significance of the performers’ role in making andperforming dances (see Alpert 2016; Bresnahan 2013; and Pakes 2020).It has also been suggested that the dancer might be rightly regardedas a co-author (with the choreographer) of a different kind ofartistic product, the “performed work”, a concatenation ofthe performable crafted by the dancemaker and the performanceinterpretation created by the dancers (see Thom 2019). McFee (2018)bolsters his controversial account with the idea thatauthorship of dance artworks is, and should be, attributableonly to those who bear both generative and artistic responsibility forthem. This comes close to, yet stops short of, equating authorialcredit for dances with intellectual property rights. It is worthnoting, therefore, that it is by no means the case (particularly inthe U.S.) that those who create works of dance art are the personsgiven public credit for, or granted legal copyright over, them.

For more on creative decision-making and choreography in dance seeCvejić 2015a and 2017; Foster 2011; and Melrose 2017. For anarticle on video choreography see Salzer and Baer 2015. Cf. S. Davies1991 for a discussion of whether creative additions to a“thin” work of art can “thicken” it. For moreon issues of authorship in dance and copyright, see Kraut 2010, 2011and 2016; Pakes 2020; and Van Camp 1994. For a book on dance,disability and the law see Whatley et al. 2018.

2.2 Dance Improvisation

“Improvisation” in dance often refers to the agency andintentional action of dance-makers and performers (who might or mightnot be the same people) rather than to theresult of theiractivity. Three kinds of improvisation in theater dance, asarticulated by Curtis Carter, are often discussed (Carter 2000: 182):(1) embellishments where set choreography persists, (2) improvisationas spontaneous free movement for use in established choreography, and(3) improvisation for its own sake brought to a high level ofperformance. An example of (1) is a case in which a dance performer isallowed to amplify existing movements (doing a triple pirouette inplace of a double, for example) or permitted to add a stylisticflourish (such as an extra flick of the wrist or tilt of the head). Anexample of (2) is a sitution in which no choreography has beenprovided for eight bars of music and the dancers are instructed tomove as they wish in this compositional gap. Finally, (3) covers casesof what D. Davies (2011b) calls a “work performance”, thatis, situations in which a dance work is choreographed by the dancerswhile dancing. It also includes cases where either the wholeperformance, or a substantial part of it, is improvised from start tofinish. Dances comprised of Steve Paxton’s “contactimprovisation”, for example, could count as improvisation inthis third sense (see Paxton 1975 and 1981).

Danielle Goldman (2010) offers critical analysis of the idea of“freedom” implicit in the second kind of improvisation.She suggests that we examine social and historical constraints on thegenuine possibility of “freedom”, since creative libertycannot exist in oppressive cultural conditions where prohibitivesocial and physical barriers prevail or exert pressure. Goldman thussuggests an alternative conception of improvisation as

a rigorous mode of making oneself ready for a range of potentialsituations…an incessant preparation, grounded in the presentwhile open to the next moment’s possible actions andconstraints. (2010: 142)

Susan Leigh Foster (2003) shares Goldman’s view that it is themoment immediatelybefore an actual dance movement occursthat lends a distinctive aesthetic quality to dance improvisation whenused in art-presentational contexts. “[I]t is,” sheclaims,“this suspense-filled plenitude of the not-quite-knownthat gives live performance its special brilliance” (2003: 4).She also offers a phenomenological account of the kind of agencyinvolved in dance improvisation, equating the lived experience ofimprovising with the use of a “middle voice” in which adancer finds herself in a flow of movement that occupies anintermediate position between deliberative choice-making and passivedirection.

Dance philosophers have identified other forms of dance improvisationthat do not fit neatly into Carter’s three categories. Kent deSpain (2003), for example, draws attention to a kind of improvisationpracticed by dancers to achieve a movement-based somatic state.Somatic improvisation, or the results of such improvisationalexercises, may be included in a theater performance for an audience,but need not be. Constance Valis Hill (2003) includes “challengedance” performances, stemming from the African-Americantradition of dance “battles”, where the goal is to win anever-escalating competition of skill and style. Like somaticimprovisation, challenge dance improvisation can be offered foraudience appreciation in a concert context, but need not be—itoften takes place in social and street settings for pure entertainmentor socio-political purposes. In addition, Aili Bresnahan (2014a)defends the claim thatall live dance performance involvesimprovisational artistry, and argues that the ineluctablyimprovisatory nature of artistic dancing can be regarded as a form ofembodied and extended agency (continuous with 4-E accounts advanced inthe philosophy of mind, esp. Clark 2011).

For more on improvisation in dance, see Albright and Gere 2003;Clemente 1990; De Spain 1993, 2014, and 2019; Kloppenberg 2010;Matheson 2005; Novack 1990 and 1988 [2010]; Pallant 2006; Paxton 1975and 1981; Zaporah 2003; andThe Oxford Handbook of Improvisationin Dance (Midgelow 2019). For more on improvisation in the arts,see theJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism special issueon Improvisation in the Arts, Spring, 2000 (Hagberg 2000); Alperson1984, 1998, and 2010; Bresnahan 2015; Brown 1996; Hagberg 1998; G.Lewis 2014; theOxford Handbook of Critical ImprovisationStudies (2 volumes, Lewis and Piekut 2016/Piekut and Lewis 2016);and Sawyer 2000. Cf. Symposium, 2010, “MusicalImprovisation” inThe Journal of Aesthetics and ArtCriticism. For recent discussion of improvisation in vernaculardance forms, particularly those that often include dance battles, seeKronsted 2021 and 2023.

3. Dance, Lived Experience, and Kinaesthetics

There are fields of philosophy, particularly in the Continental,pragmatic, and non-Western traditions, that treat art as both anactivity and an experiential phenomenon. These approaches regard livedexperience, including its bodily and somatic aspects, as somethingthat can provide legitimate descriptive or causal evidence forphilosophical claims. Richard Shusterman has developed a distinctivephenomenological theory, “somaesthetics”, to explain ourembodied engagement with all art, including dance, in a way thatincludes various kinds of bodily awareness (see 2008, 2009, 2011a,2011b, 2011c, 2012, and 2019). A commitment common to such thinkers isthat understanding dance, in all its forms, requires us to look beyondthe information provided by the projective sense modalities of sightand hearing and to consider what, how, and why dance experiences makeus feel.

For more on these general topics, see Dewey 1934; Merleau-Ponty 1945and 1964; along with Berleant 1991; Bresnahan 2014b; Foultier and Roos2013 (Other Internet Resources); Johnson 2007; Katan 2016; Lakoff and Johnson 1999; and Merritt 2015.For more on phenomenological approaches to dance, see Albright 2011;Fraleigh 1996 (which also contains material on the history of dance inaesthetics), 2000, and 2018; Franko 2011b; and Sheets-Johnstone 1966and 2015. Cf. Ness 2011 for an account of a shift in dance away fromphenomenology with Foucault. For more on dance and somatics, see Eddy2002; Fraleigh 2015; Weber 2019; and Williamson et al. 2014. See alsoLaMothe 2009; Pakes 2003, 2017a, and 2019; and Parvainen 2002 for workon the related field of dance, the body, and epistemology.

3.1 The Primacy of Practice

Philosophers who treat lived experience as legitimate evidence fortheory are firmly committed to the validity of practice in thephilosophy of dance. Thinkers at home in analytic aesthetics, however,often find it necessary to explicate or defend their philosophicalrecourse to what transpires in the “dirt and mess” ofstudio rehearsals, is understood collectively during polished stageperformances, and is articulated individually in critical notices.David Davies (2009 and 2024), for example, urges that ontologies ofart should operate under a “pragmatic constraint” thattethers abstract metaphysical claims to relevant features of theartistic practice under consideration. Barbara Montero (2012, 2013,and 2016) argues, instead, that there is strong empirical evidence tosupport the idea that practitioners areexperts in theirdomains; hence, their specially informed perspectives should be givendue theoretical weight, if not pride of place.

Other philosophers also argue that analytic dance aesthetics should bemore thoughtful about, and attentive to, actual danceworld practices.Julie Van Camp has proposed

that the identity of works of art [including dance] be understoodpragmatically as ways of talking and acting by the various communitiesof the art world. (2006: 42)

Renee Conroy (2013b), by contrast, defends three “minimaldesiderata” for an adequate account of dancework identity, twoof which require that any metaphysical theory be responsive to thecomplex socio-artistic matrix of the dance artworld. Despite theirdifferences, all four of these broadly analytic thinkers place apremium on ensuring that philosophical treatments of dance remainrespectful of danceworld conventions, values, and norms.

It should be noted, however, that this shared goal can be accomplishedin different ways and these approaches are not methodologicallyequivalent. For some, commitment to the primacy of practice is areflective one that allows the results of good theory to berevisionist with respect to our core beliefs about works of dance artand, hence, to potentially alter some danceworld practices. Forothers, philosophical treatment of dance should begin with danceworldnorms and customs and develop accounts that elucidate, or highlightthe complexities of, extant dance art practices while leaving thebeliefs and behaviors they support largely intact.

For more on the relationship between dance practice and dancephilosophy, see Pakes 2020. For an account of dance practice asresearch, see Pakes 2003 and 2017a. For more on dance expertise andits relevance to philosophical theory, see Bresnahan 2017b and 2019a,He and Ravn 2018; Melrose 2017; Montero 2013 and 2016; Vass-Rhee 2018;and Washburn et al. 2014.

3.2 Bodily Responses

There is sustained controversy in dance philosophy about how toconstrue the felt, bodily responses that audience members canexperience while watching a dance performance. These somatic reactionsare often called “kinaesthetic” (or“kinesthetic”), combining the reference to movement in“kinetic” with the sense of “aesthetic” oftenassociated with grace and beauty. Two central questions surroundingkineasthesia are: (1) What is the causal process by which kinaestheticresponses are generated? and (2) To what extent, if any, does thisprocess inform a proper understanding of dance qua art?

With respect to the first question, it is generally acknowledged thatthe causal processes that might explain kinaesthetic responses towatching a live dance performance are not well understood. It is notclear, for example, how “empathy”, taken in the broadsense as the ability to feel something based on what we perceive to beanother person’s physical or emotional state, plays a role inviewers’ kinaesthetic reactions to what they witness at a danceevent.

With regard to the second query, some contemporary philosophers ofdance (e.g., Montero 2006a, 2006b, 2012, and 2013) appeal to researchin cognitive and neuroscience to help explainwhy audiencemembers report having kineaesthetic experiences, such as a quickeningheart rate, a dropping stomach, and various muscular tensions, whilethey watch dancers in action. Recent discussions also highlight therelationship between felt bodily responses in audience members andvarious uses of the imagination, drawing on Kendall Walton’shighly influentialMimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations ofthe Representational Arts (1990) (see Conroy 2020; cf. Heckman2023). The scope of concern about kineasthesia and dance appreciationhas also been expanded to include analysis of the kinds of“frissons”, or bodily thrills, a dance art performancemight be designed intentionally to inspire in audience members (Nanay2023).

Dance philosophers defend a range of views about the significance offelt bodily responses to dance art appreciation. Some authors presumethey are important, but do not elucidate why or in what mannerkinaesthetics might contribute to engaging works of dance art aptly.Others are “appreciative optimists” (here modifying D.Davies 2013, seeSection 4) who argue that viewers’ bodily responses might be valuable, oreven necessary, foridentifying correctly some of a dancework’s artistic properties, such as the gracefulness of an armmovement or the beauty of an extended physical line (see Montero 2006aand 2006b; cf. Seeley 2020). At the opposite end of the argumentivespectrum are “appreciative pessimists” who deny that aviewer’s felt somatic reaction to a dance art performance canever be relevant to grasping the artistic features of the dance quaartwork (see McFee 1992, 2011b, 2018).

Those who occupy a middle position in this debate contend that whilebodily responses can bear on the appreciative understanding of a danceart creation, and contribute to our regard for some of itsart-relevant features, kinaesthetic reactions do not register thework’s fine-grained artistic properties reliably (see Conroy2013a and 2020). All of these positions areconceptuallydistinct from those defended in the debate over the value ofutilizing scientific data and empirical studies as elements of dancephilosophy (seeSection 4). They do, nonetheless, tend to track optimism and pessimism about thisdiscrete methodological issue.

For more on empathy and the kinaesthetic aspects of performance, seeFoster 2008 and 2011. For more on kinaesthetic responses to dance, seeBresnahan 2017b; Montero 2021; Reason and Reynolds 2010; Sklar 2008;and Smyth 1984.

4. Dance and Cognitive Science

The number of dance philosophers who appeal to scientific research toadvance understanding of the physical aspects of making andappreciating dance art is large and growing. For example, MaxineSheets-Johnstone’s extensive body of dance writing incorporatesso much content from the cognitive and other sciences that it wouldrequire another entry to list all the relevant references (see thisentry’s bibliography for “Sheets-Johnstone” as astart). Several important lines of thought have, however, introducedthe topic of empirical research into on-going discussions of dancephilosophers who work within broadly analytic traditions.

For example, Montero argues that proprioception (the innate capacitythat apprises persons of their bodily position in space) might beconstrued as an aesthetic sense and appeals to scientific research onmirror neurons to defend this view (Montero 2006a, 2006b, 2013, 2016,and 2021). Carroll expands Montero’s argumentative project toconsider how dance and music can work together to affect ourkinaesthetic responses (Carroll and Moore 2011) and to explore howexperimental results in neuroscience could bolster dance critic JohnMartin’s theory of “metakinetic transfer” (Carrolland Seeley 2013).

As noted above, writers who support the use of empirical research onkinaesthetic responses to dance also tend to hold that the felt bodilyresonances engendered by watching a live dance performance can berelevant toappreciation of dance qua art. To this end,Carroll and Seeley (2013) argue that one central feature ofunderstanding dance well is grasping the nature of the experience inall its aspects, including both cognitive and kinaesthetic elements.They maintain, therefore, that connecting common phenomenologicalreports with robust scientific explanations of them can be elucidatingand is appropriate to generating comprehensive understanding of thedance-appreciative experience. This can be called the“moderately optimistic (methodological) view” (followingD. Davies 2013).

By contrast, some philosophers adopt a stance that is“moderately pessimistic” (D. Davies 2013). These thinkersregard some questions central to dance aesthetics as simplyunanswerable by science. Normative issues such as, “What countsasproper appreciation of a work of art?” are, theyargue, such that the tools utilized in empirical study fail to engagethem helpfully, if at all. Thus, the moderate methodological pessimistmaintains that,if empirical research is to be used by dancephilosophers and others with an interest in the performing arts, thenit must be applied very carefully to the right set of questions (D.Davies 2011a, 2013, 2014, and 2024).

Being only “moderate”, however, this kind of pessimist canargue that philosophy ought not partition itself off entirely fromscience and other disciplines that could inform our best overallthinking about the world. We would do well, on this view, to followthe Quinean injunction that philosophy should be cognizant of, andresponsive to, current science so we can assess how our philosophicpositions fit into our broader web of beliefs. A moderate pessimistmight also be sympathetic to the idea that, at a minimum, empiricalresearch can help us avoid false assumptions about the arts based onsimple empirical misunderstandings about human beings (Seeley2011).

An “extreme (methodological) pessimist”, by contrast, willdeny that causal or scientific explanations can ever be relevant to aphilosophical treatment of issues pertaining to dance as an artform(see McFee 2011a, 2013b and 2018). One common argumentative defense ofthis position emphasizes the fact that artistic appreciation happensat the level ofa person who appreciates under variousnormative constraints, not at the level of neurobiology. Whileoptimists concede that kinaesthetic responses cannot alone generate afull, artistically sensitive apprehension of dance, they do thinkneurobiologic studies of them can contribute to our widerunderstanding of human responses to perceived movement, includingdance art. Optimists and moderate pessimists, therefore, both maintainthat scientific data has some legitimate place in dance philosophy,precisely the claim the extreme pessimist rejects.

For more dance philosophical writing that includes appeal to thecognitive and neuroscience, see Bläsing et al. 2012 andBläsing et al. 2019; Bresnahan 2014a; Cross and Ticini 2012;Hagendoorn 2012; Katan 2016; Kronsted 2021 and 2023;Jang and Pollick 2011; He and Ravn 2018; Jola, Ehrenberg, and Reynolds2012; Legrand and Ravn 2009; McKechnie and Stevens 2009; Merritt 2015;Montero 2006a, 2006b, 2010, 2012, and 2013; Seeley 2011, 2013 and2020; Vass-Rhee 2018. See also Bresnahan 2017a for an account of howdance training affects our temporal experience, and Bresnahan 2019afor the view that expert dance movements are often experienced andperceived via subconscious processes before they are fully cognized.For more on Martin’s theory of “metakinetictransfer”, which he attributes to a natural human capacity for“muscular sympathy” and “inner mimicry”, seeMartin 1939 and Franko 1996. For an additional discussion of variousoptimisms and pessimisms in this domain, see Bullot et al. 2017. Formore on the relationship between music and dance, see Aasen 2021;Olsson 2024; and Van Camp 2021b.

5. Additional Dance and Philosophy Connections

The final section is spare because the reader is encouraged to seekout interdisciplinary sources beyond those mentioned in this entry, tolook at the additional readings recommended at the end of eachsection, and to do independent research on the variety of approachesto thinking about dance that populate the pages of dance studies andperformance studies journals.

5.1 Non-Western and Non-Traditional Philosophy and Dance

Here the reader is invited to consult sources that may not be called“philosophy” but something else, such as religiousstudies, ethnography, cultural anthropology, and oral history,particularly in traditions where philosophy and religious scholarshipis meshed (as in Islamic philosophy and some forms of East Asian andIndian philosophy) or where the histories and values are communicatedorally rather than in writing (as is often the case in the philosophyof native and indigenous peoples). There is also much of interest tobe found in the literature, poetry, and song of groups and peoples whoare not a traditionally enfranchised part of the Western philosophicalcanon. And, in recent years, there is increasing discussion inacademic publications of both Western and non-Western vernacular orsocial dance forms.

The bibliographic sources provided on non-Western and non-traditionalphilosophy and/or non-Western forms of dance include: S. Davies (2006,2008, 2012, 2017, and 2021) on Balinese Legong; Fraleigh (2010 and2015) on the Japanese form of dance known as Butoh (which alsoaddresses the question of whether Butoh is, itself, a form ofphilosophy); Friedman (2021) on post-colonial African philosophicalframeworks as applied to dance; Hall (2012) on Fanon’s view ofdance; Osumare (2007) on Africanist aesthetics and hip-hop; Schroeder(2009) on Nietzsche and the Kyoto school; Welch (2019) on NativeAmerican dance and the phenomenology of performative knowledge; andWelsh-Asante (1990), who has published a piece on Cabral, Fanon anddance in Africa. See alsoSection 5.2 below, particularly for Western non-traditional philosophy, some ofwhich is critical work that has been placed under the social-politicalcategory.

5.2 Dance, Ethics and Social-Political Philosophy

Here the reader is invited to consult journals focused on ethics,social and political philosophy, periodicals that highlight culturaland critical studies (such as gender, race, disability, ethnicity,LGBTQ+ and others), and writing in both dance studies and dancehistory. For a subject-related entry that discusses the influence ofpost-structuralism and politics on dance philosophy, see Pakes 2019b.(Cf. Cull Ó Maoilearca 2012 for a Deleuzean account of theethics of performance that might apply to dance.)

Additional sources one might consult include the following: FionaBannon’s monograph (2018) on dance and ethics (which makes useof Spinoza’s and Martin Buber’s moral theories); KarenBond’s comprehensive and multifaceted book (2019),Dance andQuality of Life (which addresses how dance contributes to what isgood for human beings); Bresnahan and Deckard (2019) and Hall (2018)on disability and dance; DeFrantz’s work on black dance andaesthetics (2005, 2019, 2021); Eva Kit Wah Man’s book (2019) onbodies, aesthetics and politics in China (which is not specificallyabout dance); Royona Mitra’s work on Akram Khan’s style ofdance and choreography as a form of inter-culturalism (2015 and 2018);Melpignano (2023) on dance as a form of political expression; EricMullis (2021) on dance and political power; Halifu Osumare’smemoir,Dancing in Blackness (2018), and its companion piece,Dancing the Afrofuture (2024); and Sherman (2018) on dancers,soldiers and emotional engagement. See also the three-part essay ondance as embodied ethics in Bresnahan, Katan-Schmid, and Houston(2020).

5.3 Dance, Film and Digital Technology

Dance made for social or artistic reasons includes more than real-timebodily performances presented on the concert stage, in the streets, orother live venues. There is a great variety of dancing designed to beappreciated in digital, filmic or other technologically-mediatedformats, even excluding the recent explosion of dance on Tik-Tok. Newdance philosophy, as philosophyof these new dance arts, isdeveloping accordingly. Dancemakers have a long history ofenthusiastic experimentation with emerging technologies going back, atleast, to Loïe Fuller in the late 19th century. Thus,contemporary philosophical questions in this domain are complicated bythe unprecedented array of technologies now available to createdances, and there is particular interest in issues surrounding danceand AI.

In this multi-faceted area of inquiry, it is important to mark adistinction between Screendance (a hybrid art genre of dance andfilm), dances made for screen (such as a sanctioned recording of aperformance designed to be viewed in movie theaters or on television),and dance on screen (video traces of past live dance events). Currentphilosophical debates emphasize questions such as: When we view adance performance through a mediated format, do we have genuinecommerce with the work of dance art? (D. Davies 2019 and 2021; McFee2018) Are substantive aesthetic-artistic experiences, or opportunitiesfor meaningful kineasthetic engagement, compromised when we watchdance on screen? (Berleant 2021; Heckman 2021) How does the use ofvideo recording or other digital tools to generate new works of danceart, or create dance scores, affect our best accounts about whatkind of things dance works are? (Blades 2015b; Pakes2020)

In addition to considering the following resources, the reader isencouraged to conduct dance philosophy research by watching film andreading emerging technology journals. Dance philosophers who write ondance and film include Brannigan 2014; Carroll 2001; McFee 2018; andSalzer and Baer 2015. Hetty Blades (2015a and 2015b) has writtenspecifically on dance, virtual technology and scoring, and her workaddresses other forms of dance technology as well. For a piece ondance, ethics and technology, see Mullis 2015. See also the extendedsection on dance and technology in theBloomsbury Handbook toDance and Philosophy (2021) edited by Rebecca Farinas and JulieVan Camp, with consultation by Craig Hanks and Aili Bresnahan.

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Acknowledgments

As of the 2025 update, Renee Conroy has taken responsibility forupdating and maintaining this entry. In theearlier version of this entry, an attempt was made to canvass some of the history of the philosophyof dance as it existed and had developed in western philosophicalaesthetics. In that domain dance is treated as a meaning-making andoften communicative, expressive or representational theater or concertart that is practiced and performed for audience appreciation. Thepresent version of the entry attempts to map out a broader terrain fora larger and more inclusive philosophy of dance. But it is stillincomplete. This reflects, in part, limitations of space as well asthe fact that the much of dance philosophy exists in locationsdisparate enough that often they are not (yet) in communication withone another. (See Pakes 2019b for an excellent overview of the fieldof philosophy of dance—it is our recommendation that this workbe treated as a companion piece to this entry.)

To make room for this expanded account of the philosophy of dance,earlier sections of this entry on the history of dance in Westernanalytic aesthetics, comparisons with music and theater, on theconcepts of representation and expression, and on dance criticism havebeen supplanted by new sections. Those readers who wish to review thephilosophical aesthetics history will find it in theearlier version of this entry. See also the references to Plato, Nietzsche, Scott 2018, andSparshott 1998 for additional historical sources.