Dance and Silence: In Conversation

By Petra Johnson and Vipavinee Artpradid

The age of humans has gotten increasingly loud in terms of literal sound and environmental impact. Recognising silence as a disappearing ontological value, there is grief around our loss, but there is also a greater desire for opportunities to experience silence in its various diverse forms.

This book explores the critical dynamics of silence within choreography, performance and composition, comprising a series of conversations with researchers and practitioners, including choreographer Rosemary Lee, architect Richard Dougherty, architectural historian P rez-G mez, Natural Horn player Isaac Shieh, neuroscientist Tony Steffert and drummer and aerialist Jonny Leitch.

These conversations:

- question what has been silenced through the immobilisation of our bodies through movement-saving technologies;

- discover points of convergence through silence in seemingly separate and unrelated physical, conceptual and philosophical spaces;

- examine neglected intelligence and marginalised ways of knowing of gesture and movement

Ultimately, we come to see how dance, embodied modes of inquiry and corporeal-based understandings within socio-cultural and ecological contexts can propose pathways in the absence of sound.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1350472085
• ISBN13: 9781350472082
• Release Date: January 2026
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"