Rhetorical Moves: Reclaiming the Dancer as Rhetor in a Dance Performance

Rhetorical Moves presents ground-breaking research theorizing for the first time the dancer as a rhetor and in the process documents a new way to conceive of embodiment. Research is centered in the embodied experience of the dancer whose voice in the action of performance is reclaimed. By transplanting the framework of a rhetorical situation onto a dance performance, Dr. Cynthia Roses-Thema analyzes how the dancer utilizes interoceptive, exteroceptive, and proprioceptive bodily perception networks to create onstage movement. The result has important implications for dance professionals. If you are a dancer, this book gives you new insight into how you negotiate the many variables of embodiment during performance. If you are a dance teacher, this study provides you with information on the dynamics of dancer perception and attentional flow during the course of performance that will inform your pedagogical practices. If you are a dance researcher, Dr. Roses-Thema has opened a new field of inquiry into dance studies ripe with research possibilities. Rhetorical Moves demonstrates the depth and breadth the dancer experiences onstage and is a must read for all dance enthusiasts.

Dr.Roses-Thema, a senior lecturer at Arizona State University researches the intersection of rhetoric, dance,and embodiment. She was a principal ballerina, dance critic for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and has written for Dance Magazine, Dance Teacher, Pointe, and the International Encyclopedia of Modern Dance. Visit her site www.thesomaticpen.com