In Western dance historiography, Isadora Duncan has played a central role in danced representations of the ‘natural’ body. She was not alone, however, and several of her international peers appear in Dancing Naturally, together with discussion of ‘the intellectual forces shaping the emergence of a new aesthetics’ (p. 2). This anthology, consisting of twelve expertly edited chapters, offers a wide-ranging survey addressing the treatment of nature in the arts, science, education and philosophy. It makes excellent reading for students and scholars interested in the fields of cultural and corporeal history.
Several authors focus on the interesting conflicts that arose when ideologies of natural dancing were adopted at a time when anatomical knowledge and physical culture were peaking. As Alexandra Carter explains, artistic status entailed a strong need for corporeal and choreographic skills, but these skills stood in contrast to the notion of an unmediated bodily response to nature and music. Michael Huxley and Ramsey Burt show how the ‘natural’ was juxtaposed to scientific developments, for example, in medicine. By dancing naturally, one could free oneself from the restraining effects of modernity; at the same time, however, modern exercise systems were being developed to cultivate ‘natural’ bodies. Susan L. Foster develops these ideas further in comparing various systematic approaches to training. She argues that the exercises created by Dudley Allen Sargent and Genevieve Stebbins entailed a division of labour along gender lines. Sargent emphasized ‘achievement of measurable goals’, whereas Stebbins ‘fused physical and emotional development’ (p. 121). A gender perspective also appears in Karen Vedel's text on the use of plastique in Denmark. She reveals how these exercises prepared Danish women for their roles as citizens with full constitutional rights, while simultaneously affirming motherhood as the ‘true’ expression of female nature.
Tensions remain in the field of natural dancing to the present day, as Libby Worth's intriguing investigation of holistic bodywork reveals. She compares anatomical awareness and ideas about natural ‘authentic’ movement in dance, beginning with Mabel Todd's ideokinesis and ending with choreographers currently working with neuroscientists.
In a text with a quite different focus, Rachel Fensham highlights the importance of costumes and how ‘the aesthetic properties of “texture” and “colour” have been neglected in movement analysis’ (p. 83). She provides an exciting discussion of the experiential dimension of the tunics and scarves worn by Madge Atkinson and her dancers, affording new ‘life’ to textiles stored in museums and archives.
Other chapters take corporeal experiences as their starting point. Alexandra Carter has edited an unpublished manuscript by Madge Atkinson and Mary A. Johnstone that vividly describes the practice of natural movement, particularly the strong pedagogic approach so typical of the British dance pioneers.
