'Being in your body' and 'Being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence
Sports studies is currently dominated by the intellectualist approach to understanding skill and expertise, meaning that questions about the phenomenological nature of skilled performance in sport have generally been overshadowed by the emphasis on the cognitive. By contrast, this article responds t...
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48297/ |
| _version_ | 1848797734307364864 |
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| author | Purser, Aimie Christianne Elizabeth. |
| author_facet | Purser, Aimie Christianne Elizabeth. |
| author_sort | Purser, Aimie Christianne Elizabeth. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Sports studies is currently dominated by the intellectualist approach to understanding skill and expertise, meaning that questions about the phenomenological nature of skilled performance in sport have generally been overshadowed by the emphasis on the cognitive. By contrast, this article responds to calls for a phenomenology of sporting embodiment by opening up a philosophical exploration of the nature of athletic being in-the-world. In particular, the paper explores the conceptualisation of immanence and transcendence in relation to the embodied practice of dance, engaging with Merleau-Ponty’s important insight that the body can be a source of transcendence. I also draw on data from in-depth qualitative interviews with professional contemporary dancers to explore dancers’ concepts of ‘being in your body’ and ‘being in the moment’, and to suggest that during the actual embodied practice of dance, dancers do not experience transcendence and immanence as they are conceptualised in philosophy. Rather, I argue, dancers experience a third mode of being that is somehow in-between these two binary terms. I have called this ‘inhabited transcendence’. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:08:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-48297 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:08:35Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Taylor & Francis |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-482972020-05-04T19:19:58Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48297/ 'Being in your body' and 'Being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence Purser, Aimie Christianne Elizabeth. Sports studies is currently dominated by the intellectualist approach to understanding skill and expertise, meaning that questions about the phenomenological nature of skilled performance in sport have generally been overshadowed by the emphasis on the cognitive. By contrast, this article responds to calls for a phenomenology of sporting embodiment by opening up a philosophical exploration of the nature of athletic being in-the-world. In particular, the paper explores the conceptualisation of immanence and transcendence in relation to the embodied practice of dance, engaging with Merleau-Ponty’s important insight that the body can be a source of transcendence. I also draw on data from in-depth qualitative interviews with professional contemporary dancers to explore dancers’ concepts of ‘being in your body’ and ‘being in the moment’, and to suggest that during the actual embodied practice of dance, dancers do not experience transcendence and immanence as they are conceptualised in philosophy. Rather, I argue, dancers experience a third mode of being that is somehow in-between these two binary terms. I have called this ‘inhabited transcendence’. Taylor & Francis 2017-11-30 Article PeerReviewed Purser, Aimie Christianne Elizabeth. (2017) 'Being in your body' and 'Being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 45 (1). pp. 37-52. ISSN 1543-2939 transcendence; immanence; Merleau-Ponty; phenomenology; dance http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00948705.2017.1408018 doi:10.1080/00948705.2017.1408018 doi:10.1080/00948705.2017.1408018 |
| spellingShingle | transcendence; immanence; Merleau-Ponty; phenomenology; dance Purser, Aimie Christianne Elizabeth. 'Being in your body' and 'Being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence |
| title | 'Being in your body' and 'Being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence |
| title_full | 'Being in your body' and 'Being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence |
| title_fullStr | 'Being in your body' and 'Being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence |
| title_full_unstemmed | 'Being in your body' and 'Being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence |
| title_short | 'Being in your body' and 'Being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence |
| title_sort | 'being in your body' and 'being in the moment': the dancing body-subject and inhabited transcendence |
| topic | transcendence; immanence; Merleau-Ponty; phenomenology; dance |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48297/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48297/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/48297/ |