Some remarks on conceptual dance from Richard Shusterman’s pragmatist perspective

The main aim of this presentation is to consider how performances that are called conceptual dance can be included in Richard Shusterman’s pragmatist aesthetics. The shows of artists such as Xavier Le Roy, Jan Ritsema and Jonathan Burrows cannot be classified as art in the traditional sense, but neither can they be labeled as everyday life or as theory - because they are situated on the borderline of these fields. In fact, their aim is to dismantle the determinants of dance as art, to critique accepted conventions, including those based on the division between the audience and the stage, and between the roles of the spectator and the artist. Thus, in order to consider such performances, the adoption of a transdisciplinary approach is necessary. The presentation will include performances by Le Roy Unititled, and by Ritsema and Burrows Weak Dance Strong Questions. Particular attention will be paid to the issue of bodily interaction, based on dismantling the hidden perceptual habits of the spectator in the public space of the theater. Consideration will also be given to the performative agency of artists’ bodies that critically questions the internalized conventions of the art world. Attempts to destabilize the perception process and shake off habits and expectations are treated as aesthetically and cognitively important components of experience.