Embodiment in dance: dancing with the soul or due to extreme demands

Abstract

The context of research development in Management requires an investigation that allows an embodied (non-representational) understanding of this field of knowledge. Thus, we reflect on studies on body and embodiment in the fields of Management and Dance (ballet), as well as information from an ethnographic study carried out in an important dance company called Dancing Dance Company (real name withheld). The objective of this article is to investigate how dancers of Dancing Dance Company embody their dance work. The study points out three important embodiment processes present in dancers' work in the dance company, which are: the embodiment of pain and injuries, the embodiment of a type of body and body movement, and, finally, the difficulty of embodying dancing from the soul. We understand that such corporalities are constituted from a wider context than the dance company environment since they include matters related to hierarchy and discipline as well as the socio-historical and cultural issues regarding the field of dance. From a practical perspective, we observed that demands that come either from the organization or from the field of dance have consequences, such as an extreme use of dancers' bodies as well as a limitation of the dance experience.

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