Hermione Sessions

Dancing, The Winter's Tale, and the Kinaesthetic Imagination

Authors

  • Lisa Dickson University of Northern British Columbia
  • Andrea Downie EnhanceDance

Abstract

This essay traces the development of a solo modern dance interpretation of the final scene of The Winter's Tale, in which Hermione "awakens" to be reunited with Leontes and Perdita. Part diary, part dialogue between dancer and choreographer, the essay, like the dance itself, also conducts a critical analysis of Hermione's embodied history in order to understand the moment of choice and agency revealed in her final gesture, the open hand. Engaging with Shakespeare's play from the perspective of dancer-researchers, we take up Ann Cooper Albright's assertion that dancing is "physical thinking" and that the "kinaesthetic imagination" is a powerful interpretive tool. We draw on phenomenology and the history and philosophy of modern dance in order to explore the ways in which dancing, as an art that exists dynamically and ephemerally in time and space, opens up the possibility of feminine agency through a resistance to the reification and erasure that characterizes Hermione's representation in the play. The insistence of the body counters the power of Leontes' reifying language. To breathe in and as Hermione is to emphasize the insistent expression of her suppressed, embodied self.

Author Biographies

Lisa Dickson, University of Northern British Columbia

Lisa Dickson is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Northern British Columbia, where she specializes in Renaissance Literature (Drama) and Literary Theory. A 3M National Teaching Fellow, she is interested in high impact educational practices and uses performance and kinaesthetic learning in her classes. She is co-editor of Beauty, Violence, Representation (Routledge, 2014) and an author of several articles on the intersection of violence and the gaze in early modern literature. She is a student at the Judy Russell's Enchainement Dance Centre where she takes classes in modern, hip hop and C-I training (conditioning with imagery).

Andrea Downie, EnhanceDance

Andrea Downie is co-founder and President of Healthy Dancer Canada, an association of dancers, dance educators and health practitioners that promotes performance, health and wellness among athletic artists. A kinesiology instructor and certified teacher of Simonson Technique and C-I Training (conditioning-with-imagery), she also teaches at Judy Russell's Enchainement Dance Centre where she specializes in modern and contemporary dance.

Issue Cover text: B&L, Vol. 10, No.2, 2017. Image: Three dancers on a dark stage, one as Prospero controls Ariel who struggles on the floor.

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Published

2017-05-01

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 2 (2017): Shakespeare and Dance

Section

Articles