Overview

Instruments of Embodiment draws on fashion theory and the philosophy of embodiment to investigate costuming in contemporary dance. It weaves together philosophical theory and artistic practice by closely analyzing acclaimed works by contemporary choreographers, considering interviews with costume designers, and engaging in practice-as-research. Topics discussed include the historical evolution of contemporary dance costuming, Merce Cunningham’s innovative collaborations with Robert Rauschenberg, and costumes used in Ohad Naharin’s Virus (2001) and in a ground-breaking Butoh solo by Tatsumi Hijikata. The relationship between dance costuming and high fashion, wearable computing, and the role costume plays in dance reconstruction are also discussed and, along the way, an anarchist materialism is articulated which takes an egalitarian view of artistic collaboration and holds that experimental costume designs facilitate new forms of embodied experience and ways of seeing the body. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars working in performance philosophy, philosophy of embodiment, dance and performance studies, and fashion theory.

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9780367644826

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Reviews

'Mullis’s Instruments of Embodiment cast clothes—items close to the body and activated through movement in social contexts of performance—as potent interlocutors for dancers, choreographers, and designers alike. For fashion design theorists and practitioners the book may be of particular interest as it unearths a complexity of sensorial, material, and social aspects of garments in interaction with the moving bodies.' Tamara Tomić-Vajagić, Fashion Theory, The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture read the full book review here

Author Information

Eric C. Mullis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Queens University of Charlotte, USA. He has published essays on somaesthetics, dance technology, and dance ethics, as well as the book, Pragmatist Philosophy and Dance: Interdisciplinary Dance Research in the American South (2019).

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