Why We Dance

Within intellectual paradigms that privilege mind over matter, dance has long appeared as a marginal, derivative, or primitive art. Drawing support from theorists and artists who embrace matter as dynamic and agential, this book offers a visionary definition of dance that illuminates its constitutive work in the ongoing evolution of human persons. Why We Dance introduces a philosophy of bodily becoming that posits bodily movement as the source and telos of human life. Within this philosophy, dance appears as an activity that humans evolved to do as the enabling condition of their best bodily becoming. Weaving theoretical reflection together with accounts of lived experience, this book positions dance as a catalyst in the development of the brains, compassion, ritual proclivities, and ecological adaptability characteristic of human beings. Aligning with trends in new materialism, affect theory, and feminist philosophy, as well as advances in dance and religious studies, this book argues that dancing has a vital role to play in reversing the trajectory of ecological self-destruction along which human civilization is racing.