Abstract
Following developments in contemporary European choreography, which have given rise to the controversial term ‘conceptual dance’, it has been claimed that certain contemporary choreographers are seen to be ‘conceptualising dance’. That is, they are producing new concepts of dance with their works, rather than producing works that (re)present ideas or concepts through choreographed dancing. Given such a context, this chapter explores the relations arising between choreographic practice and certain concepts drawn from the field of philosophy, or even between contemporary dance performance and the nature of theorising and philosophical thinking itself. The case of Jérôme Bel’s 'The Last Performance' (a lecture) (2004) is used to examine how and whether, as one explicitly invokes philosophy with/in their work (onstage, or within a performance setting), they speak to an economy of knowledge and are exercising a practice that are specific to performance-making, or also perhaps to those of philosophical thinking. The discussion is further developed through a consideration of propositions by Hélène Cixous (2010), as well as Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (1994), on philosophy as a practice of producing concepts that is different to literature for example. Finally, it is suggested that, by examining the ways in which philosophical enquiry operates within choreographic practice, we are able to re-think how dance thinks, but also, potentially, to re-imagine philosophical thinking as choreography.