The Speaking Dancer: Finding Humanity through the Embodied Voice

The Speaking Dancer offers a rich and thought-provoking exploration of radical interdisciplinary dance and performance within a broad political and philosophical context that investigates its wider impact on humanity.

In dialogue with other international practitioners, author Jacky Lansley draws on her work in dance, visual/performance art, film, theatre and academia to examine how ideas and meaning 'speak' through the body as well as the voice. Entrenched in feminist discussions of the gendered body and offering a space where dance practitioners can move beyond gender stereotypes, the book draws on a wide range of holistic, artistic, philosophical and socio-political discourses and practices to examine the importance of the thinking body and the integration of the conscious and unconscious in art and life.

This book is ideal for students and practitioners of dance, choreography, theatre, performance and live art, as well as researchers exploring the significance of the embodied voice in promoting the well-being of human societies.

Jacky Lansley is a choreographer, writer and visual/performance artist with over five decades of experience. She was a founding member of two of the UK’s leading independent dance studios, X6 Dance Space and Chisenhale Dance Space. In 2002, she founded the Dance Research Studio (DRS) in London, where she launched The Speaking Dancer Interdisciplinary Performance Training (SDIPT). Her published works include The Wise Body: Conversations with Experienced Dancers, co-authored with Fergus Early (2011), and Choreographies: Tracing the Materials of an Ephemeral Art Form (2017). In 2018, she was the recipient of the One Dance UK’s prestigious Jane Attenborough Award for outstanding services to dance.