"Considering Ethics in Dance, Theatre and Performance delivers a multi-directional contribution to performance studies, pedagogical enterprises and philosophy. Her effort in this book is timely and stands alongside current discourses in performance philosophy, Practice-as-Research and DanceHE ... . It also offers a groundwork for thinking about performance and philosophy as enactive engagement with society." (Einav Katan-Schmid, British Journal of Aesthetics, June 12, 2019)
Introduction. Intertwining Ethics, Aesthetics and Knowing.- 1. Embodying Ethics: Harmonics of Living.- 2. Aesthetics: Ways of Thinking Differently.- 3. Inhabiting Thought: Humanising Pedagogy.- 4. Being in Ethical Relation: Competence and Collaborative Cultures.- 5. Ethics in Practice.- Conclusion: The Only Way is Ethics.
Fiona Bannon is Senior Lecturer in Dance in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK. Having had an early career in freelance community arts practice, she transferred this knowledge to academic roles lecturing in dance, and later became Head of the School of Arts at the University of Hull. She is Chair of DanceHE, a UK wide network promoting Dance in Higher Education, and Chair of World Dance Alliance-Europe.
This book asks important questions about making performance through the means of collaboration and co-created practice. It argues that we can align ethics and aesthetics with collaborative performance to realise the importance of being in association with one another, and being engaged through our shared imaginations. Evident in the examples of practice visited in this study is the attention given by a number of practitioners to the development of shared, co-operative modes of creation. Here, we can appreciate ethical work as being relational, forged in association with the others as we cultivate ideas that matter.
In looking at a range of work from practitioners including Meg Stuart, Rosemary Lee, Deufert&Philschke and Fevered Sleep, Considering Ethics in Dance, Theatre and Performance explores ways that we rehearse by attending to ethics, aesthetics and co-creation. In learning to listen, to observe, to co-operate and to negotiate, these practitioners reveal the ways that they bring their work into existence through the transmission of shared meaning.