Abstract
This essay investigate the notion of syncope as a ‘breaking of rhythm’ and as method in contemporary performance practice. Scenarios that facilitate ruptures, interruptions and syncopic experiences are proposed as small ‘catastrophes’ which evoke the mutable body and challenge the rational concepts of self. I am drawing on my own performance practice to theorise rupture as an excess that foregrounds embodiment. The paper takes Clément’s syncope as a starting point, and also draws on phenomenological understandings of the body, and Drew Leder’s work in particular, whose reading of the phenomenological body is consistent with Clément’s critique of the Cartesian divide between body and mind, in that it accounts for the stronghold that this division has within Western cultures. I am arguing that rapture or rupture may be a response to sensing too much of the self.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | La syncope dans la performance et les arts visuels = Syncope in performing and visual arts |
Editors | F. Dalmasso, S. Jamet |
Place of Publication | Paris |
Publisher | Editions Le Manuscrit |
Pages | 75-100 |
Number of pages | 26 |
ISBN (Print) | 9782304046243 |
Publication status | Published - 29 May 2017 |
Keywords
- Catherine Clément
- Drew Leder
- Syncope
- Self
- performance
- performance philosophy