Body Knowledge/Body Prejudice Dance360 (Philippe Bronchtein)

The most interesting part of this article for me was the first few pages. I am fascinated by the idea that our movements are beyond instinctual and our physical extension into the world is largely voluntary. Her example of the deer who jumps in a very rigid fashion compared to the cat who is more relaxed and flexible, reminds me of my choreographic process. It can be very worthwhile to ask your dancers to do the same movement with different intentions. Whether you tell them to act like different animals or give a more abstract intention, is irrelevant. The fact that we have the choice to move in multiple ways is very primary and fundamental, but fascinating nonetheless.

On page 78, the author starts to talk about the hierarchal nature of extensions and how, by nature, extensions leave things out. However, I am not completely convinced that our physical movement extensions are as vague as the article claims. Because movements are extensions and extensions leave things out, the article seems to argue that movement is at the top of the generalization/category ladder. I would argue that while movement itself can be viewed as general, human movement is rooted in intention which ultimately provides a specificity to movement that is not attainable in, say, an artistic representation of a tree. Because our movement is rooted in our humanity, I think that it is much less general than the article actually claims.