Dance and Silence

The age of humans has gotten increasingly loud in terms of literal sound and environmental impact. Recognising silence as a disappearing ontological value, there is grief around our loss, but there is also a greater desire for opportunities to experience silence in its various diverse forms.

This book explores the critical dynamics of silence within choreography, performance and composition, comprising a series of conversations with researchers and practitioners, including choreographer Rosemary Lee, architect Richard Dougherty, architectural historian Perez-Gomez, Natural Horn player Isaac Shieh, neuroscientist Tony Steffert and drummer and aerialist Jonny Leitch.

These conversations:

• question what has been silenced through the immobilisation of our bodies through movement-saving technologies;

• discover points of convergence through silence in seemingly separate and unrelated physical, conceptual and philosophical spaces;

• examine neglected intelligence and marginalised ways of knowing of gesture and movement

Ultimately, we come to see how dance, embodied modes of inquiry and corporeal-based understandings within socio-cultural and ecological contexts can propose pathways in the absence of sound.