Dance Lessons for Writers: Embodied Language Applications for Movement Classrooms

ABSTRACT

Recent scholarship in 4E Cognition posits what dancers intuitively know so well—that our conceptual maps and communicative strategies emerge directly from and in fluid relationship with our own bodily habitation of our world. This article offers a pedagogical strategy aimed to bridge the ontological divide between dancing and writing through the practice of embodied writing. Or rather, this article offers creative tools for unlearning the antiquated Cartesian notion that a mind-body divide exists in the first place. Quite simply, embodied writing practices help to remind us that the physical gesture of writing is in fact a form of dance. Through the practice of actively joining writing and dancing within one perceptual plane, both our writing and our dancing can improve. As I contextualize embodied writing within the 4E Cognition framework, I will share a teaching methodology aimed to heighten our creative fluency as writers, dancemakers, and interdisciplinary scholars.

KEYWORDS:

• Dance
• writing
• embodiment
• composition
• skilled action

Acknowledgments

I would like to extend my gratitude to the University of Washington student cohort of this Embodied Writing course, from whom I learned nearly everything that I know about embodied writing. I would also like to thank Lucie Baker, Anis Bawarshi, Lani Delello, Matthew Henley, Scott Knowles, Rachael Lincoln, Juliet McMains, Adele Nickel, Jen Salk, Hannah Wiley, and Jon Yerby for their invaluable insight throughout this entire research endeavour.

Notes

1. Madeline Vaught, Embodied Writing Portfolio Cover Letter, University of Washington, 2019.

2. Johanna Berliner, Embodied Writing Portfolio Cover Letter, University of Washington, 2019.

3. Writing samples included in this article appear with permission from each student author.

4. Ariel Oswalt, Embodied Writing Portfolio Cover Letter, University of Washington, 2019.

5. Gal Snir, Embodied Writing Portfolio Cover Letter, University of Washington, 2019.

6. Johanna Berliner, Embodied Writing Portfolio Cover Letter, University of Washington, 2019.

7. Gal Snir, Embodied Writing Portfolio Cover Letter, University of Washington, 2019.