The Spatiality of Time: Temporality and the Body in Dance

Abstract

An art-form such as dance—which has the human body as both subject and object of its execution—is a suitable aid for considering some questions regarding time and the body. Dance displays not only a body, but a body in movement that with its fleetingness seems to forestall a reification of itself. Dance is an argument against understanding the body as merely a res extensa, a material thing. Moreover, a dancing body requires one to understand it as self-aware and autonomous in its movement. This article investigates the possibility of a subjective bodily experience of time.